When a one-eyed NASA probe with a makeshift navigation system and little fuel sent back the first picture of comet Borrelly Saturday evening, more than just a wild cheer went up in the control room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Someone handed out small American flags, and those went up too, waving wildly in a mix of celebration and patriotism rarely displayed together at space science gatherings.
This was no ordinary triumph. And this is no ordinary time.
One Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employee who watched the pictures from the Deep Space 1 spacecraft roll in had a succinct analysis of the flyby's good fortune in relation to national angst in the face of a new war on terrorism: "The timing was perfect."
Marc Rayman, mission manager for Deep Space 1, said, "I'm sure everyone feels a need for some good news right now, and this is terrific news."
and the possibility for even larger cuts."The Deep Space 1 success is a welcome antidote to the recent Mars failures and hopefully will provide some ammunition in the fight to maintain NASA's budget," said Harold Weaver, a Johns Hopkins University researcher.
Deep Space 1's attempt to fly by a comet was a longshot, tacked on to an already successful technology mission. After the mission was extended to gather some bonus science data, the probe's star-tracking navigation system died in late 1999. A remote rescue involved engineers who sent new commands to the probe's science camera, transforming it into a quasi-star tracker that locks on a single reference star for orientation. But that fix is easily disrupted and in fact was disrupted three times since then. Each time, the craft righted itself after engineers sent new re-orienting commands.
Perhaps more important than overcoming balky instruments and budget blues, the accomplishment by the scrappy spacecraft -- said by its operators to be held together figuratively by duct tape and good wishes -- may contribute to the return to business as usual in the space science community.
These are people who, like all Americans, have plugged along amid feelings of fear and disbelief since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that rattled the national psyche. As in all corners of society, things have simply slowed down in the world of science. Mundane tasks feel more so, and even chores that used to seem vital can want for purpose in the mind of anyone struggling to grasp the enormity of the recent events.
Despite exhortations by politicians, clergy and Wall Street leaders, the business of science has been anything but usual.
Evidence can be seen in the dearth of space science news since Sept. 11. At a time of year when astronomical findings typically emanate from NASA centers, universities and other institutions at a rate of several per day, news was nearly nonexistent through last Friday.
Several scientists interviewed by SPACE.com said they, like all Americans, were understandably distracted.
A public relations official at one major space science institute boiled it down to a simple question: "How do you get back to normal after a week like that?"
Ethical considerations drove some of the reduced activity as institutions simply held back on issuing press releases.
"It's just not appropriate right now," said a NASA public relations official.
But while many researchers say they did little work in the days immediately following Sept. 11, most reported late last week that things were beginning to get back to normal.
All the while, science has gone on. Much of the data-gathering that supports astronomy is done automatically with telescopes that follow computerized to-do lists. Valuable time on space observatories, like the Hubble Space Telescope, are booked months in advance and cannot be missed.
In fact over the weekend, Hubble was busy studying comet Borrelly, the same object that was photographed by Deep Space 1. The two sets of data will be combined for a more complete picture of the comet.
Other scientists had little choice but to work through the trials of the past two weeks.
Brian Marsden, of the International Astronomical Union, helps collate data on asteroids collected by professional and amateur astronomers around the world. He said that while he has been distracted since Sept. 11, the flow of data has not fallen off.
Across the globe, observers are out observing, pointing telescopes up at the night sky in the hope of finding a point of light that has never been seen before.
"We're really quite swamped with data," Marsden said late last week. "We've got to do our part in processing it. What else can we do? We can't sit around and think about [the attacks] and do nothing else forever."
That doesn't mean the events are not on his mind. In fact, Marsden and his colleagues are
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