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Mars Express' 2nd Boom Deployment Postponed
ricshaw2k4 writes "Releasing the second MARSIS radar boom from Mars Express has been delayed after a problem with the first boom was discovered. From the BBC
"Officials said 12 out of 13 segments that comprise the first boom had deployed successfully, but segment 10 was not fully locked into place." Lets just hope segment 10 wasn't eaten by the Martians!"
Yet another chapter in our epic struggle against the disgusting inhabitants of the evil blue planet unfolded today, when it was revealed by the Council that one of the invaders' probes was observed deploying a spindly, antenna-like structure.
Hopes that the antenna would prove to be benign were quickly dashed, as our scientists determined conclusively that the antenna was designed to emit hazardous low-frequency radio waves, capable of penetrating far underground.
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, stress that there was no cause for alarm:
When asked if rumours were true that the invaders' probe was actually outfitted with two of the deadly antennas, K'Breel declined to comment.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I've been to mars before...it sucked.
I TOLD THEM TO CHECK SEGMENT 10!
Sheehs, my coworkers are all slackers. I told Marco to check ALL the segments, but he winked and said, "What's the probability that segment 10 will fail if all the others are working?"
BLEH I SHOULD HAVE YOUR JOB, MARCO!
Lets just hope segment 10 wasn't eaten by fthe Martians!
Yeah, those fthe Martians. They're the worst kind...
We better de-thaw Sigourney Weaver and have her check it out.
I believe you needed to capitalize the F in fthe Martians, they get pretty upset if you don't.
No smoking sigs indoors.
Fthe Martians are of course the oldest race of Martians that built the canals, as opposed to the Teh Martians who evolved after the planet began to dry up. Sheesh! I thought everyone knew that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Conspiricy-Theorist Magazine Bi-Planetary (famous for it's heretical article "Blue Planet People - Civilized Life?") ran with the headline "R-3 weaponry - the third deadly antenna the Council don't want you to know about"...
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
Putting "Boom" in a story about spacecraft always gets my attention.
Then I read the story. Oh, that kind of boom.
Had me going for a minute, though.
sigs, as if you care.
"Mission staff will now take the time necessary to investigate the boom situation. Foreseen outcomes include confirming that all segments of Boom 1 have been locked into place and determining how the deployment of Boom 1 may affect that of Boom 2."
In related news, Mission staff is now taking the time necessary with things they do, as opposed to the 'hunches', 'guesses' and the 'divine insight from God' methods that were used before. With boom1 not acting properly, they have a couple other forseen outcomes: 1) confirming the boom 1 never locks into place and 2) how this has no effect on the deployment of boom 2.
A new mission has been introduced to send another unmanned robot to massage segment 10 into place and then to quickly self-destruct in order not to interfere with the rest of the mission.
P.S. Boom 3 cannot be played unless you have a high-end PC with a killer graphics card.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
He was witnessed using his ACME Disintegration Pistol to knock the Boom out of whack.
You can have all of the mechanical engineers that you want, but in real life, nothing beats a mechanic with a hammer, who can give it a good whack in the right place.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow."
Dave, put on your spacesuit and go fix it, will you?
you had me at #!
I've heard it described as a "Great Galactic Ghoul" that protects Mars. At every step on the way, Mars missions have tended to be frought with problems. The Soviet program fared even worse; only about one in five Mars probes that they launched went as planned.
Some people have suggested that having humans onboard would have helped. In most cases, this is not the case. Only the Phobos probes and perhaps one Viking mission would have had a chance for humans to help the situation, since their problems were computer related. Most accidents were explosions, bad trajectories, invalid atmospheric assumptions, etc - things you don't find out about until it's too late.
In fact, one mission that was a success could have killed humans if it were to happen: Mars Global Surveyor. A solar panel was damaged (its damper arm was sheared off on launch), and dipping down into the atmosphere to brake like it was supposed to, in order to brake, would have destroyed the probe. The damage wasn't known until the first atmospheric dip, making (on an equivalent manned craft) a spacewalk for repair quite difficult if it were even possible (doubtful, given the damage, unless they brought along entire extra solar panels). NASA solved the problem by suspending aerobraking and letting the orbit circularize much more slowly - delays that humans on board would not have been able to tolerate.
It seems that there is just so many opportunities for failure en route to Mars that even if chances for a single mistake are miniscule for any given system, the overall failure rate ends up uncomfortably high. We're not going to want to skimp corners when we send people to Mars, that's for sure.
I'm you from the future! We have to finish our time machine before the Angels of Destruction find the portal!
The dipole booms are 20 meters long each, and the center monopole boom is 7 meters. Even when folded into 13 segments, each bipole boom segment is 1.5 meters long. If they were folded 3 times, they would each be nearly 7 meters long and not fit into the launching rocket (a Soyuz).
In general, you can pretty much assume that if you think the scientists have done a stupid error, then you just don't know the whole story.
"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" - Marvin the Martian
If God had meant for man to see the sunrise, He would have scheduled it later in the day.
I think if you look around you'll notice that just about every space program is a joint venture with the JPL.
I read the internet for the articles.