xkcd #3310: Rejected Space Mission Profiles

Title text:

Although NASA agreed that Voyager 2 'seemed lonely' they decided against launching a companion orbiter mission after further measurements indicated that the spacecraft actually preferred the peace and quiet.

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3310/

explainxkcd for #3310

Although NASA agreed that Voyager 2 'seemed lonely' they decided against launching a companion orbiter mission after further measurements indicated that the spacecraft actually preferred the peace and quiet.
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[–] 32 points 4 days ago (11 children)

The funniest thing about a crewed mission to Pluto, in my opinion, is that it would take something like a decade to get there. Having a living human past Pluto's orbit would be a huge achievement. Getting them back alive? More than doubly so.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago (8 children)
  • [–] 13 points 4 days ago (6 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago

    Well I just googled it and Morty's a sack of shit.

    Semi-bragging here but they taught my 3-year-old the planets in daycare. He was able to name all nine, including Pluto.

    Well, ten, I guess, since he always repeats Saturn. But Saturn's always been a chill planet that doesn't give us any shit. I'm cool with having two of them.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    I don't care, Pluto deserves to be a Planet. Classification be dammed.

    Maybe if we find some water on it, we can get the Orange one to visit and name the water.

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  • Don't know why you got downvoted over this. I love Pluto, too. I don't think it's a planet, but I'm not going to get fighty over it. For most of us, it's a semantics issues. I don't think I've actually encountered someone arguing that Pluto has, in fact, cleared it's orbit despite evidence to the contrary. Most of us don't care about that. Cosmologists do, though. They get to make the terms for the progress of science, which is important, but it really doesn't make sense to me to engage in any kind of personal conflict over academic hair splitting.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago*

    I just signed an order it’s a great order everyone loves it it was a disgrace when they made Pluto not a planet everyone hated it a disgrace. So now everyone loves it a great planet it’s beautiful everyone loves it it’s called Planet of America it’sa great name for a great planet. It's a big planet too everyone says a great name for a big planet Planet of America. Much bigger than any other planet in the world, it’s huge a huge planet Planet of America.

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