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Bouncing Robots Exploring Planets?
revision1_1 writes: "New bouncing robots could advance planetary exploration by leaps and bounds. The exploration of other planets could benefit from a giant leap for
robot-kind, according to researchers in New Mexico. Rather than use wheels or legs, robots could rove across alien landscapes far more effectively by bounding over the surface in an almost random fashion, they say." Well, science hasn't given me talking fruit and a jet pack yet, but this looks pretty close.
Just like the Viking missions, two spacecraft give you two chances to succeed. They are launched at different times, in slightly different orbits. The arrival times are usually set to be a couple of weeks apart, mostly because of limited ground crew resources.
If there had been two such Mars probes, after the first one crashed there might have been enough time to diagnose the bug and upload a fix before the second one arrived.
Also, two probes do not cost twice as much as one. Only the launch costs are duplicated. The R&D costs are the same, and the money needed to build two one-off engineering prototypes (the probes) is less than twice that for building one.
Ob disclaimer: I realize that some persistent defects in two mechanically and electrically similar probes will fail in the same way, and may very well not be fixable from the ground. But, that's no reason not to try.
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"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
Here's a picture of the guts of the thing (which in government-speak, they call "Long Range Mesoscale Mobile Hopping Platform". Guess "hopper" doesn't cut it for the bureaucrats.)
First off, this sounds like a really interesting approach! It seems, at first, that it would go a long way to avoid problems with surface obstructions (e.g. large rocks).
But, on further thought, can you imagine one of these things trying to hop out of a valley of loose sand? Sand gets kicked around, all right, but it'd be just digging itself in deeper and deeper! (It'd be even worse in an area where there was mud or a pond, but there's not too much of that on the moon <grin> and doubtful there'd be much on Mars.)
Sure, you could make a larger "base". That is, the part that gets thrust against the surface. But, then there's another issue. From the article:
If you made the base larger, how would you make sure that it was on the bottom?
Maybe a larger, birdcage-like superstructure? That might make it roll back into the proper orientation, but it would also add to the weight of the hopper and lessen its range. Further, it would risk the possibility of it getting mired in a crater:
Same kinds of problems if it should land in a narrow ravine... it could hop itself right across to the other side of the ravine and imbed itself in that wall.
I'd like to think they've considered these problems, but I saw no mention of them in the article. Any other ideas on potential problems and their solutions?
That sounds like environmentalism taken quite a bit too far. That is almost as bad as the people who think we shouldn't colonize mars because "we'll just ruin it like we ruined earth". Nevermind that there's nothing on Mars to be ruined. No evidence of life, just thousands of acres of dust.
If bouncing "litter" helps us one little bit in exploring mars, I say go for it. Mars isn't doing us any good just sitting there, all pristine.
Leave it to us humans to destroy the beauty of planets that we have yet to even inhabit with bouncing bundles of robotic goodness.
Cogito, ergo sum.
"One small step for man... one giant for mankind"
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock