Fan in San Diego Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 Yes the engineering that went into this is mind boggling and Curiosity will continue to amaze for years to come. Can't wait to see whats going to be discovered next.
DC Tom Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 It's incredible that Opportunity was only designed to last one Martian summer and has made it this long. NASA has done some pretty amazing things recently. When you're launching **** into space, you tend to overengineer the hell out of it.
DrDawkinstein Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 I like where tgreg is taking this thread....
HopsGuy Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 When you're launching **** into space, you tend to overengineer the hell out of it. Yup. Every system that can have a back-up, has a back-up. Remember when NASA lost a Mars probe because the vendor (Lockheed-Martin) did their work in English units rather than the standard metric? My geek friends and I had an email exchange that basically asked. "Who uses English other than the marketing department?" The first two weeks of my Dynamics course almost made me think about switching to business. Then we switched to metric and it became almost simple. I keep checking the Olympic medal count to see if the US can catch China once the subjective scoring events are over. I wish there was an event for putting a mobile lab the size of a Ford Festiva on the surface of Mars. We'd have swept.
Best Player Available Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 I guess a 2.5 bil space mission is worth its price. Most exciting mission since Apollo. My question to a rocket scientist would be. Why couldn't one of those tethers on the space craft that dropped the rover moved over a few miles after the drop, scopped some martian rocks and brought them back to a safe parachute landing in a ocean back here on Earth. You would think they could have pulled that off for maybe another billion.
Fixxxer Posted August 8, 2012 Posted August 8, 2012 Cool, I just found out the guy with the poor english pronunciation (Miguel San Martín) is argentine. This guy
ajzepp Posted August 8, 2012 Posted August 8, 2012 Holy crap I had no idea it was that big (that's what she said)
K-9 Posted August 8, 2012 Posted August 8, 2012 I guess a 2.5 bil space mission is worth its price. Most exciting mission since Apollo. My question to a rocket scientist would be. Why couldn't one of those tethers on the space craft that dropped the rover moved over a few miles after the drop, scopped some martian rocks and brought them back to a safe parachute landing in a ocean back here on Earth. You would think they could have pulled that off for maybe another billion. My first guess is that a 300,000,000 mile round-trip mission is a tad more complicated than a 150,000,000 mile one-way trip. That's just for starters.
Wacka Posted August 8, 2012 Posted August 8, 2012 They said that the holes in the treads spell out "JPL" in morse code! If they see tracks without that then something is wierd!
DrDawkinstein Posted August 24, 2012 Posted August 24, 2012 Curiosity rover landing: This time in HD That is friggin awesome
/dev/null Posted September 18, 2012 Author Posted September 18, 2012 Solar Eclipse, Martian style: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/15/13884492-martian-moon-bites-into-the-sun
dib Posted September 18, 2012 Posted September 18, 2012 There is a fear that one of the probes may be contaminated with Earth microbes, and NASA almost hopes that the rover doesnt discover water with the contaminated probe.
Fan in San Diego Posted September 18, 2012 Posted September 18, 2012 There is a fear that one of the probes may be contaminated with Earth microbes, and NASA almost hopes that the rover doesnt discover water with the contaminated probe. They only think of this now?
dib Posted September 18, 2012 Posted September 18, 2012 Unfortunately yes. Nasa is afraid the microbes will contaminate the Martian soil in the presence of water. Ray Bradbury is smirking somewhere. Unfortunately yes. Nasa is afraid the microbes will contaminate the Martian soil in the presence of water. Ray Bradbury is smirking somewhere.
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