[gaudat]

Mildly interesting: I opened the titular image in a new tab hoping to find a higher resolution one, only to see that NASA.gov is using Wordpress, and the original image file is a whopping 102 megapixels, with all EXIF info intact, taken by a Fujifilm GFX100s. A suiting tool to take a photo of an object worth $1B.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/orex-high-re...

[mywacaday]

This image is something that makes me grateful for technology, a probe was sent into our solar system, rendezvoused with a rock, colected a sample, returned back to earth and I am able to view a high resolution image on my phone almost as soon as the canister was opened. The amount of technology to make this work in space and on my phone is too long to figure out in full but bravo to all the engineers from NASA to camera makers to WordPress and everything on every layer in between that they are built on, I salute you all!

[fragmede]

Why shouldn't they use WordPress? I'd be pissed if they'd wasted taxpayers dollars coming up with a bespoke system because NIH. It's a CMS.

[Kye]

I can't find any suggestion that they shouldn't use WordPress in the post you replied to.

[fragmede]

"only to see" sets up a contrast between what was initially expected and what was actually discovered

[rvnx]

Part “Space-grade CMS”: $45’000’000

[brtkdotse]

The Soviets used a handwritten HTML file served with Apache

[rvnx]

Most likely they would use an older version of NGINX:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nginx-logo.png

[fooker]

comrade gi-bin

[addandsubtract]

Powered by MeteorJS

[sph]

Gold plated and radiation hardened

[miyuru]

the high res image is linked at the bottom of the article.

https://images.nasa.gov/details/jsc2024e006057 https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/jsc2024e006057/jsc2024e...

[jacquesm]

Interesting how that image is so 'scale free' it could be almost any size. The only giveaways are the screw heads visible elsewhere outside of the cylinder and even those could be in quite a range.

[buildbot]

That’s a relatively inexpensive choice, nicely suited to the job. Could have gone with a h6d-400ms for a bit more resolution ;)

[gaudat]

Anything from Hasselblad is sadly not usable for US govt projects because they are owned by DJI now

[mratsim]

Dow Jones Index?

[speckx]

SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJI

[diggan]

> is a whopping 102 megapixels, with all EXIF info intact, taken by a Fujifilm GFX100s

I jest, but it seems like that camera is able to take photos up to 400MP, by automatically combining 16 RAW photos taken in succession ("Pixel Shift Multi Shot"). So they did lazy the job just a tiny bit ;)

[mgdlbp]

That's a lot of hot pixels for base ISO! Could be the focus stacking intensified them.

That camera can actually get a bit more resolution out of sensor movements, though the lens might be at its limit already, or focus was still a little off. edit: it's probably the glovebox glass.

[marssaxman]

What is a "suiting tool"? It's not a term I have heard before, and a quick web search did not turn anything up.

[lucasban]

They mean that it is a good match, that it the tool suits the situation, or that it is suitable

[hipadev23]

> only to see that NASA.gov is using Wordpress

Gotta give them some slack, they just spent 4 months struggling with two screws. This isn't the space race NASA anymore.

[perihelions]

- "This isn't the space race NASA anymore."

To be fair, Apollo engineering failed badly on similar problems (with moon samples),

- "But in spite of all this beautiful complexity, there were just basic, fundamental mistakes,” Dr. Degroot said."

- "NASA officials were well aware that the lab wasn’t perfect. Dr. Degroot’s paper details many of the findings from inspections and tests that revealed gloveboxes and sterilizing autoclaves that cracked, leaked or flooded."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/science/nasa-moon-quarant...

https://gwern.net/doc/existential-risk/2023-degroot.pdf (pdf)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36266360 (33 comments)

(The goal in that case wasn't to protect the sample integrity, but to contain alien pathogens).

late edit: Another related example (lunar soil),

- "Although this material has been isolated in vacuum-packed bottles, it is now unusable for detailed chemical or mechanical analysis—the gritty particles deteriorated the knife-edge indium seals of the vacuum bottles; air has slowly leaked in."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil#Availability_on_Ear...

[HPsquared]

That was the old "move fast and break things" NASA.

[jvanderbot]

Oh how quickly we're all entitled. It came from deep space. Can you give it a minute?

Everything is awesome and nobody's happy. -->

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U

[neilv]

I think they were trying to avoid the scenario: move fast, break things, contaminate $1B sample.

Or another scenario, which is a possibility when personalities in charge don't get enough sleep: move fast, break things, snort lines of $1B asteroid dust on Rogan.

[russdill]

It's not even necessary to contaminate it. All that's necessary is behind unable to rule out contamination.

[ToucanLoucan]

Despite all the shit people give wordpress, this works way better than yet another Node.js atrocity that needs 700 MB of JavaScript to render text.

[WWLink]

We should just have a starship go crash into an asteroid. :p

[ericcumbee]

Its got to get to orbit first, you have to launch enough of them to refuel the first one. I have no doubt they will get them to work, but its not an option yet.

[WWLink]

I'm pretty sure they could get enough methane out of Elon Musk running his mouth to send a probe to Pluto. Probably have enough left over to catch up with Voyager 1.