I used to love watching shuttle launches, and they would sometimes delay missions a day or two due to weather, even if the rain/snow would be over in a few hours. Why couldn’t they just wait instead of delaying?
In: Planetary Science
Back in the 70s – earth bound scientists knew that there would be an alignment of planets that wouldn’t happen for thousands more years – way after any of our of our grandchildren’s lifetimes.
They used this opportunity to launch 2 spacecraft to observe our solar system.
These were:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
And
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2
Had these spacecraft not been launched when they were – we would have had to send separate spacecraft to each of the planets to have a look.
As it happened – between the 2 ships – they captured our solar system in the only chance in our lifetime of seeing anything like it.
The ‘best’ “launch window” of all time. Amazing achievement for NASA and the rest of humanity.
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