NASA will discuss its plans for the Solar Probe Plus soon (11 AM EDT, 3 PM UTC):
NASA will make an announcement about the agency's first mission to fly directly into our sun's atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, from the University of Chicago's William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
Both the Solar Probe Plus and ESA's Solar Orbiter are planned to launch in 2018.
Update: They renamed Solar Probe Plus to "Parker Solar Probe" after Eugene Parker, a living scientist who developed the theory of solar wind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @03:33PM (3 children)
Why don't they just dump their presentation online, rather than always trying to do this old-school announcement-about-an-announcement government crap?
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday May 31 2017, @04:43PM
Well, if you don't have a pre-announcement about an announcement, they how will you know that the announcement is something you want to be interested in.!
People also like to have meetings about meetings. It makes them feel important when in fact they have nothing of value to a process.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday May 31 2017, @11:32PM (1 child)
Unfortunately, NASA needs to build hype. You might think they are not a commercial business, but they need to advertise all the same to keep their brand name recognizable not only to Congress, but to young people whose talent they want to recruit. Hate them if you wish, they will keep doing cool shit with or without your approval, but only if they continue their current behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:39AM
That's definitely the mantra of the governmentalist.