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Mars Rovers On Final Approach
leapis writes "In the wake of the possible loss of the Beagle 2 Mars probe, let us not forget that the Mars Rovers are
scheduled for arrival in orbit this weekend. As noted in this article at Space.com, the fourth and final course correction has been made, and Spirit, the first of two spacecraft, will touch down around 22:34 on 3 Jan 2004. More information and a countdown to the landing can be found here."
.. every time a probe/rover takes a shot of a supposedly manufactured phenomenon on Mars - the face, the canals, etc, revealing them to tbe natural, and those who claimed the structure was alien-made miraculously manage to find another artifical feature before tea-time.
I would love to watch with my son as these craft approach and land on Mars in real time! Currently, we enjoy doing fly-bys between Mars' and moons, the ISS and Hubble, and the stars, but this would be more memorable than watching videobites after the fact on CNN. TIA.
No they wouldn't. See, it goes like this: Meteor, weather balloon, swamp gas, light reflection, hallucination, meteor, meteor, weather balloon. Not a UFO in the bunch. :)
that reproduce like weeds and leave shit where ever we go.
Truth is, our need to expand will trump any chance of primitive life on mars developing.
Do we have the right? I suppose if you take the really long view, then no; otherwise its survival of the fittest!
Blogging because I can...
And let's not forget that the Beagle 2 was really a last minute 'add on' to the main mission - the orbiter. Poor Mars Express seems to be lost in the media coverage of the of the Beagle. Done on the cheap and quickly, the real surprise would have been if it landed successfully. Kudos to the ESA for trying something as ambitious as this in their relatively early days of solar system exploration and lets hope we get great science from Express and the US landers.
This is what I love about Slashdot. You can hear straight from the people that make the news. No journalists. No misinterpretation. No censorship.
they simply lack instruments for answer to the most interesting question about Mars: Is (Was) there life on the Red Planet?
SHE does throw dice.
I was always wondering why, if beagle2 was so cheap they didnt put two or more up on it. I know weight is an issue, but if you can triple your chance of success by adding just 120kilos more weight Id say thats a bargain. I am not as well up to date with the rovers as I am with beagle2 but the overall design looked far more complex than little beagle2. I would love to see them become a success but I cant help the feeling that there are too many things that can break. Lets keep fingers crossed Im wrong. Its the same as with a car with too many extras. Id prefer to send a beetle to mars rather than a BMW 7.
I honestly hope they tested their stuff as much as you say: they might need it.
Lispy
I was under the impression that there are so many probes this time because Earth and Mars came very very close last summer. Their relative position was probably favorable for plotting an easy trajectory to mars.
I could be wrong though. Could someone plz verufy this?
Radiated energy decreases with the square of the radius.
It might not be "much farther" away from the sun, but it receives much less energy from it. Hence - bigger solar arrays, or smaller power loads.
It's not the specifics of my idea that matter. What really matters is involving the people. Make the simple man your ally, not an outsider. It's that simple man that creates the wealth that, in the end,is behind space exploration. That wealth can increase dramatically if there's exccitement and enthusiasm. I use this simple technique in my management activities: make people your allies by explaining them their part in the big picture, making them feel involved. (My other technique is discipline ;o))
I have not heard of the Mars Sundial, my bad. That doesn't necessarily change the point I was trying to make.
Sigged!
You said "It does seem that they would have been better off waiting for the MGS imagery before actually landing... ;-)
Sometimes even the most obvious things are only clear with hindsight."
This may not have been possible. Three points:
1) Mars Express was designed before the Beagle 2 was agreed to be attached. Since it had to do a correction after entering orbit to make its orbit a polar orbit, it probably wouldn't have had enough fuel to do so with the Beagle 2 still attached.
2) Since the landing area is an ellipse with the major axis parallel to the direction the craft is moving, a polar insertion would probably be unacceptable for the landing area.
3) Additional fuel would be required to decelerate the Beagle 2 out of polar orbit
Obviously since the Beagle was a late 100 kg addition, the idea of adding additional fuel is impossible due to the weight constraints. You can always wait for additional information before you attempt to land your spacecraft, but by then it might be year 3000 and the argument would be over whether the new 1 mm resolution camera is accurate enough to land a spacecraft.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.