Friday's Unscientific Poll: Rosetta's Grand Finale

[nanila]

The Rosetta mission to Comet 67P came to an end today, with the orbital spacecraft landing on the surface of the comet and switching off.


Cartoon of Rosetta with its busted solar panels, clutching its Mission Achievements log. *sniff*


Cartoon of the Philae lander going to sleep forever on the comet's surface. *wibble*

Poll #17682 Rosetta's Grand Finale

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41

View Respondents

The saddest cartoon spacecraft image ever is:

View Answers

Rosetta with its busted solar panels, clutching its Mission Achievements log
17 (45.9%)

Philae going to sleep forever on the comet's surface
20 (54.1%)

I shed a tear over Rosetta's demise.

View Answers

Yes, I did. I'm not ashamed.
22 (56.4%)

That's cometary dust. Dust, I tell you.
12 (30.8%)

Yes, but that's a tear of rage because now the aliens will find our space junk and come to DESTROY US.
2 (5.1%)

I have no idea what you're talking about, but here, have a tissue.
7 (17.9%)

Comments

[rmc28]

I CANNOT CHOOSE THEY ARE BOTH TOO SAD

[cosmolinguist]

This.

[redsixwing]

GOOD NIGHT BRAVE SPACE ROBOTS
FLIGHTS OF COMETS SING YOU TO YOUR REST

[caulkhead]

I cannot choose. And I still choke up over https://xkcd.com/695/

[clanwilliam]

Oh, that one kills me every time.

[quoththeravyn]

Yes. This.

[pbristow]

To be stuck in this ditch is a hell of a thing;
It'd not be so bad if they'd given us wings.
Then I'd take to the air, and I'd fly 'cross the skies...
to the land where they say Opportunity lies!

But it's no, nay, never -
(FX: WHIRR, WHIRR, WHIRR, WHIRRRRRR! )
No nay never, no more
Will I be a Mars Rover.
No never, no more.

=:o{


- (C) Paul Bristow, circa... um, a couple of years back. =:o}

[clanwilliam]

The Philae one is rather sweet, I think. Tucked up in bed after a long day's work for a well-deserved rest.

[haggis]

Yeah, both of them have this feel of 'resting contentedly after a job well done', which makes them less heartbreaking than the XKCD comic about Spirit which is just viciously sad. (Comic here for masochists https://xkcd.com/695/)

[caulkhead]

Yes, this!

[duccio]

I read about the crash this morning and immediately thought about you. When is the next exploratory mission gonna start?

[hilarita]

There was a suspicious spike in bandwidth usage at around 1200 today, as quite a lot of people had the livestream on.

(I was writing documentation, so I dropped in on the BBC text feed instead.)

[niqaeli]

They're both a bit sad, yes. I can't really pick one as sadder, and they're also cute enough to not upset me too much?

That damn XKCD continues to make me mad. I've never thought that Spirit was a sad dog trying to please its masters enough to come home: it was flung out there as a little piece of the human will and drive to explore and discover, and if it had a consciousness then it bloody knew going in it wasn't coming back! And knowing that, it still went out and outperformed every possible expectation. It wasn't sad and feeling abandoned. It was fiercely proud and determined to do more than anyone thought possible, and disappointed and heartbroken only when it finally hit its limits and could do no more.

[cosmolinguist]

Yes! This! It wasn't under any illusions. It didn't think it had to "be good" enough to "go home." <3

[weaverbird]

This.

[askygoneonfire]

Where are the comics from? Because: wibble

[askygoneonfire]

The thing is, it's not so much personifying tech that gets me in the feels, it's what the end of their missions represent in terms of the audacity of human endeavour and discovery, the hugeness of sending all that technology so far away on such a leap of imagination and [scientifically based] hope and....yeah.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah. I totally get why the ESA staff watching Rosetta meet its end were emotional; it's 20 or 30 years of their work, coming to an end. I'm just pretty sure any anthropomorphizd spacecraf wouldn't feel the same way. :)

[clanwilliam]

Whoever did the comica for ESA did a different one for each language "mission accomplished" was tweeted in. Gorgeous work - I've not checked the twitter feed this evening, but I intend to ask who the illustrator is.

[cosmolinguist]

They did an amazing job with the cartoons for Rosetta and Philae; I know it contributed hugely to my emotional investment in this mission, as a non-sciencey space-adoring person.

[ironed_orchid]

There may not have been tears, but there was some wobbling of the bottom lip.

[cosmolinguist]

I didn't cry either, but I almost wished I could when I saw this tweet:

#Rosetta, is that you? #CometLanding

— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) September 30, 2016

The tweets were almost as good as the cartoons for creating emotional attachments to this mission. :)

[major_clanger]

I was watching live and it was an odd moment of both achievement and sadness. It seemed that even the ESOC personnel weren't quite sure how to react.

However I then got a good chuckle as various former ESA dignitaries were interviewed, including David Southwood who made a spectacularly unsubtle dig about Brexit.

[weaverbird]

The first question was hard. I voted for Philae, but only by a whisker and only because it's been around and breaking my heart for longer.

Watching the live ESA feed was - weirdly - both thrilling and so sad.

[alatefeline]

<3

[nanila]

♥!