Saturn

The scientists at Pioneer Saturn Mission Control are glued to their computer screens like Las Vegas tourists in front of one-armed bandits. What they don't want ...

But back to Saturn, and back to the blue-and-white planet across the sun from it. And the photographs! The people who designed Pioneer 11 never expected it to have to send back data for all these years and across all these miles. Pioneer 10 is now out past the orbit of Uranus. It’s now giving us our first close-up look at the beautiful ringed planet before joining Pioneer 10 as one of the first artificial objects to leave our solar system. The TV monitors allow them to peek over the shoulders of the mission controllers and see the data streaming in from Pioneer. He reaches zero, and the usual data are still on the screen. Pioneer 11 is going in almost the opposite direction. Pioneer 11 is about to dart past the rings of Saturn. But it’s taken almost an hour and a half for the bits of information to make their way through a billion miles (1.6 billion km) of emptiness to the waiting antenna in Spain. Pioneer 11 was the first earthly craft ever to fly past the planet Saturn. In an alcove-cum-TV studio at one side of the room, NASA’s Larry King is describing the scene for a worldwide audience.