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Odyssey Arriving at Mars Tonight
moloader writes: "Odyssey will arrive at Mars on October 24, 2001, 0230 Universal Time (October 23, 7:30pm PDT/ 10:30pm EDT). As it nears its closest point to the planet over the northern hemisphere, the spacecraft will fire its 640-newton main engine for approximately 19.7 minutes to allow itself to be captured into an elliptical, or looping, orbit about 20 hours long. Go Mars!"
Should be enough for anybody
Best Slashdot Co
... to calculate the point where to fire the engine :-)
300,000,000 miles is 480,000,000 Km; let's hope they got it right this time :)
The Giant Dust Storm currently swirling around could make for some interesting study, anyways.
on the mars section of the site : If you want to be a real engineer, set your hands to work on paper models of: Pathfinder Mars Global Surveyor (pdf), and 2001 Mars Odyssey Color or Black-and-White (pdfs) spacecraft.
with these kinds of drafting techniques...
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
We will know more. That's how.
Knowledge is the only thing that truly separates us from barbarism and animals.
And I hope "odyssey" will not end up in a space odyssey.
an elliptical, or looping, orbit
All stable orbits are looping. Elliptical just means that it isn't always a uniform distance from the origin of the orbit, in this case, Mars.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
The real goal is to have the orbiter revolve around the planet every two hours. The rockets will slow the orbiter down to a 20 hour orbit - then, over a period of months, the orbiter will ease into a two hour orbit - thanks to aerobraking.
If all works well, that's what'll make this mission a success - the aerobraking technique means significantly lower fuel requirements, which makes for a lighter and thus less expensive mission.
Let's hope everything works right this time!
I wonder how the global dust storm on Mars is going to effect the Odyssey's gamma ray spectrometer and other systems. It'd be an aweful pitty to go all that way just to find out you've got an obstructed view :\
A PS2? try 1000 times less powerful than my wristwatch.
Actually, we don't, that's one of the things this probe has been sent to determine. There is an ambiguous but intriguing body of evidence that liquid water may once have flowed on Mars' surface, but what water remains is yet to be determined.
We have known for some considerable time that Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed primarily of carbon dioxide. It is less than 1% as thick as Earth's atmosphere.
Your chain of reasoning is getting increasingly tenuous.
Odyssey is an orbiter, not a lander. It will never come in contact with the planet. Even if the worst happens, like it did with Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999, the thin Martian atmosphere is still thick enough to ensure that nothing uncharred reaches the surface. All landers are thoroughly sterilized before leaving Earth.
Learning where the water is is a necessary prerequisite to finding what life may still exist. If there is life still there, it will be close to water. Water is easier to find that scant traces of life. Therefore, find the H2O, and you actually have a chance of finding something else.
NASA sent only two probes to Mars in the 70's, Viking 1 & 2. It has firm plans to send at least one probe every two years until at least the end of the decade. Considering the budget they operate within, I think they're doing a damn good job.
Since space radiation presents an extreme hazard to crews of interplanetary missions, the experiment will attempt to predict anticipated radiation doses that would be experienced by future astronauts and help determine possible effects of Martian radiation on human
You have to give NASA credit for thinking far ahead. I'm not that optimistic about space exploration. We need some major breaktroughs in order to get further away from the moon.
First theres the problem with the propulsion system: we're simply not fast enough in our spaceships. In order to get anywhere we need to approach the speed of light or even exceed it (or better yet, make the whole thing about space/time irrelevant, but that is sci-fi for the time being)
Second humans are really not meant to be put in space. We need to adapt, and we need to adapt in a serious way. Most of our body is made up of this little molecule H2O, and we need lots of it to survive. Water is not easy to get in space! Food is another problem. Another is that the human bonestructure degenerates in space (it wouldn't be smart spending billions on spaceexploration just to make astronauts land on mars realizing that they have become crippled in the meantime. We can minimize the effect of zero gravity but the problem remains.
I dream of space too (wonder if all people does in a way). Just can't see how we're going to get there. What bothers me the most are that I don't find much evidence either, of breakthrough technologies that will make humans able to explore space by them self in my lifetime. Pitty really, it's just not the same wathing a robot land somewhere doing the exploration for us! (well maybe for the guy controlling the robot
Thomas S. Iversen
That's Mars you idiot. Pluto is just a spec in the distance, it has a label which you are incorrectly associating with the big Mars like circle that also happens to be Mars.
High Res Spectrometers
This baby has two spectrometers, one in infrared for working out the mineral composition of the surface to a resolution of 100 metres, and one in gamma rays, for working out how much hydrogen there is near the surface, and consequently how much rocket fuel they can make in different places if/when they land.
Comms satellite It acts as a relay between the surface and the Earth, so any new probes (like the twin rovers due to take off next year) wont have to carry big dishes and radios.
All this and more on the website.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I would also have to dispute the statement that if their is water, their has to be air. Almost all planets have some sort of atmosphere. The existance of water has absolutely nothing to do with atmosphere. The chances of their being life currently on Mars (atleast, in the form that we know it) would most likely only be bacterial reemains from a prior time period considering that the equators of Mars only reach a high temp of somewhere around 0C. Without liquid water (which there surely, isn't on Mars), then their is very little chance for life.
I do believe though that out of respect, we shouldn't litter the planet with all sorts of robots and stuff... If there is no other way though, then oh well.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
The Dust Storm which can dramatically change the height and density of the atmosphere, are a particular concern during aerobraking.
A great article on the whole procedure is at this link.
Krispy Cream is people
Perhaps we've deduced the source of the original post?
"The "metric mishap" was due to a sub-contractors."
What the fuck? Who was in charge of them? Jesus, do you work for them or something? Unbelievable!
don't forget to visit other NASA sites too.
o c_5_24_01/face/index.html
specially the mars global surveior's one, with cool hi-res pics of the "martian face". the link is here:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/m
What ? Me, worry ?
Don't forget about the infamous Martian Defence Force. These guys are sure be up for some more target practice.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Interesting. Pulling predictions from the air, now. IR will get a glimpse of the mineral content of the clouds, and clear areas can be determined from visible images. Gamma and neutron will still be able to see the elements on and below the surface. We shall see what they will see.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"They are the only organization that's consistently flying commercial payloads to the orbit. "
Hmmm, I think the guys at ESA may beg to differ. I think the guys on the Space Station are probably grateful that a place a wee distance from the USA called the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan exists and regularly sends up Soyuz taxis. I reckon there's more than just NASA in the history of space.... (not to belittle their great work, but have some perspective, eh?)
BTW is it only the Americans who use imperial rather than metric units, or are there other countries who also use a non-metric measuring system?
:)
hawk
yeah, for all its flaws, I really liked SimEarth. It was different enough from Populous, Civ, etc. that it was very enjoyable. Still have the floppies around somewhere... mebbe it's time to get Dosemu working again...
-l
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The Martians are just going to shoot this one down too, just like they did with the others. Why bother?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The problem is that if there wasn't an atmosphere then the liquid water would evaporate off of the surface of the planet in no time and then escape into space. If there's liquid water then there is a high probability that there will also be some sort of atmosphere in order to keep the water there.
And there might be liquid water on mars, under the surface that is. and liquid being about 0C in a slushy state.
If God gave us curiosity
That and the fact that we'll be that much closer to being able to travel there. That's a little bit important as well =)
How does that make us better off? Because we can do it. Because we can habitate other planets and expand our race beyond just one planet.
And because we can.
If God gave us curiosity
Shouldn't that be Earth Standard Time? It's a bit much for us to presume that we can set the standard time conventions for the entire Universe.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
How is mankind any better off? In two areas: technologically and, for lack of a better word, spiritually.
Two examples should suffice to prove my point.
With regard to technology, the integrated circuit was developed for NASA, to use in satellites and spacecraft. No doubt, if the space program had not existed, the IC would have been invented some time or other; but the space program meant that we had it sooner and faster than we would have had otherwise. Big, interesting problems bring about technologies that are interesting and useful; and no problem is bigger or more interesting than space flight.
With regard to the spiritual value, think of the photograph of the Earth rising over the Moon that Anders took in Apollo 8, in 1968. Can you think of a better description of the unity of the Earth, and its relation to the cosmos? I think that photo alone was worth the billions we spent on the space program.
Recently, I viewed the movie "Apollo 13" with my two teen-aged children. It's quite a movie, for it captures the excitement - the romance, if you will - of the Apollo adventure. The hardest part was trying to explain to the kids why it was that when I was their age, we were flying men to the Moon, but nowadays we have simply given up going.
When I look around the world now, with the horror of 911, and of the Afghanistan war, and the rise of Islamo-Fascism threatening to return the world to the dark ages, we need to remember the glories of enterprises like the the exploration of space, which enriched the lives and broadened the imagination of all humankind.
First theres the problem with the propulsion system: we're simply not fast enough in our spaceships. In order to get anywhere we need to approach the speed of light or even exceed it
Getting to another star system would require near-C travel, but getting to other planets certainly doesn't. Chemical rockets can get just about anywhere in the inner solar system in a couple of years, and anywhere in the outer solar system within about five years.
Use an ion drive, and you can get just about anywhere within 1-2 years.
Sure, you won't be commuting to Mars for the weekend, but this is certainly good enough for colonization and trade. Think back to the old days of wooden ships on Earth.
Second humans are really not meant to be put in space. We need to adapt, and we need to adapt in a serious way. Most of our body is made up of this little molecule H2O, and we need lots of it to survive. Water is not easy to get in space! Food is another problem. Another is that the human bonestructure degenerates in space.
Humans aren't going to change their basic structure. We can, however, build contained environments that can support us.
Water isn't a problem. We already have water-reclamation systems that are perfectly efficient (we just don't use them because they're expensive). Your ship is air- and water-tight - you won't lose any mass to space.
If you have a big enough ship, food isn't a problem - grow it the old-fashioned way. Or stockpile a year's worth of army rations (this will take mass, but not an unmanageable amount of mass; it's just probably cheaper to grow food).
Gravity similarly isn't a problem. You can either live with bone degeneration, or you can connect two ship parts with a long cable and spin them to get a wonderful simulation of gravity and avoid all zero-g related health problems.
In summary, I don't think we need any new magical technology for in-system space travel. We have pretty much everything we need already.
Hey man, I was like, totally planning on making some of those probe things, man. All I need is, like, a couple more hundred bucks. So, uh, I was like, thinking, maybe you could spot me some cash so we could do this probe thing. I'll totally pay you back man, and I promise not to do something crazy with the money that is non-probe related, such as buy a bunch of weed and move to New Mexico. So yeah, you give me the cash, and we can go put probes into the aliens and everything.
Totally.
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Let me give you the lowdown
Some total idiot moderated me flamebait (the mind boggles)
I am serious. NASA's webservers will NOT be able to keep up with the load, and the doppler plot will NOT be available to look at while the thing is entering orbit.
So, I post it again. Will some people set up some mirrors of the doppler plot to take the load off NASA's servers just a bit?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
This is very hard. Weird sh*t happens when you try that. You get heavier, shorter and time slows down. IANAP (I am not a Physicist) but we aren't going to get close to the speed of light until we radically change our physics
Actually, we could do it now. It would just be horrifically expensive.
Method number one is to use an external power source to accelerate the ship. The least expensive way to do this is to build a giant laser array in space and use this to propel a solar sail. This would still take something like the US's entire military budget for the last century to implement (out of our price range for now).
Method number two is to use a fuel with a very high energy density, with a nearly-perfect drive. Antimatter works decently for this (antiproton annihilation produces charged particles (mesons) that can be directed with a magnetic field before they decay). However, the entire world production of antiprotons is something like a few nanograms per year. A pure-antimatter-drive ship would need hundreds of tonnes. Other approaches to interstellar craft use various types of fusion drive. The problem is that you need a fusion reaction that leaves most of its energy as kinetic energy of charged particles, which rules out the easiest two or three forms of fusion (which aren't terribly "easy" to produce as it is).
So, we could build an interstellar near-C laser launched sailcraft now, for an insane amount of money, and we'll probably be able to build interstellar-capable fusion craft within the next hundred years or so. Both methods are difficult, but neither is impossible and neither requires new physics.
If a physicist out there is planning on the whole "But it's impossible!" rant, skip it. We WILL find a way.
The universe has its own idea of what its laws are, and doesn't care how much we *want* to find a way. Hard limits exist.
No, that's acutally correct. To speed up, you slow down (and conversely).
It has to do with kinetic and potential energy. For simplicity, assume circular orbits. The potential energy of an orbit is defined to be zero at an infinite orbital radius, and it becomes more negative as your radius shrinks.
Kinetic energy is positive, and is related to how fast you're going. For a circular orbit this turns out to be (IIRC) exactly -1/2 of the potential energy. So the total energy of an orbiting body is (KE + PE) = ((-1/2 * PE) + PE) = PE/2 (which is still a negative quantity).
Now when a body loses energy through aerobraking friction, its total energy decreases. This means that its potential energy decreases but its kinetic energy (therefore its speed) increases.
[Hope I got that right. It's been a while since I had to do this stuff]
Say what? There are no fungal blooms on Mars. There is no evidence for any life whatsoever on Mars.
There is a pronounced darkening of many surfaces on Mars during the summer months, and I had read somewhere that it was due to some sort of fungus, however thinking about it that is pretty much absurd, and I can't seem to find the story that I had read before to support that.
If God gave us curiosity
C'mon, we land a probe on Mars every year or so. Only problem is, if there's life on Mars, any life around the vicinity of our landing sites is vaporized or crushed by our landing technique.
("Oh, you mean you wanted the probe to be functional after it lands. Sorry, that'll cost extra! And one guy forgot to specify whether he wanted his probe in solid, liquid, or gaseous form upon landing. He was on a budget, so we went with gaseous.")