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Russia Planning Double Mission to Mars
dylanduck writes "Apparently Russia has revived a previous plan to send a spacecraft to Phobos, a tiny Martian moon. Turns out it's a cool place to land - much easier than the surface as far less deceleration is needed, it should have plenty of Mars rocks spattered on the surface and it's just 9000km above the surface. Some think it the perfect place for a Mars moonbase." From the article: "A mission devoted to the moons could explain how the satellites are held together - whether they are piles of rubble loosely held together by gravity or solid chunks. Most scientists assume the heavily cratered moons are captured asteroids, Christensen told New Scientist. But it is actually quite hard for a planet to capture an object into its orbit - most things just skim by. 'So how it got there is a bit of an enigma,' Christensen says."
Once more, panic swept across our fair world when it was revealed by the Council that the invaders from the evil blue planet intend to assault our innermost fortress satellite.
The fortress satellites, which have stood guard over our world since the Council placed them into orbit over ninety Great Cycles ago, have easily fought off all invaders in the past. Against the cunning machines manufactured by the disgusting water bags inhabiting the evil blue planet, however, the fortress satellites may be more vulnerable than previously thought.
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
When asked if rumours were true that the faction of blue-planet-inhabitants responsible for the threatened invasion was the same as the one who had just recently failed utterly to launch a primitive solar sail device into space, K'Breel laughed maniacally.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
...people should really pay more attention to Robert Zubrin. If you haven't read his book, I suggest you do so. He has shown that it is possible to get a mission to the actual planet (not the moons) relatively safely using the same kind of technology that we used to get to the moon in the 1960s. (Of course, with what we have now, it would be "easier" and safer", and those are in quotes merely because I am appreciative of the difficult and danger.)
We (as humans, not just as specific country-people) need to recapture our pioneering spirit, and get someone to Mars. What we'll learn and accomplish will far outweigh the danger. Imagine if people had been too initimidated to round the horn of Africa, cross the Atlantic ocean, or go to moon! It's time we got that adventurous spirit back, and applied it planet-wide. If we pay attention to our smart people (ie, Zubrin), it's not something that need be far off in the future!
libertarianswag.com
If they forget the shotgun they'll be screwed on like the fourth lebvel.
Let me know if the lander encounters any Leather Goddesses of Phobos. (Great '80s game, btw.)
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Some think it the perfect place for a Mars moonbase.
;)
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, besides the "shock and awe" of getting to the moon, why isn't there a drive for the practicality of a base on our own moon?
I think it's time that more of our space exploration gets practical, and not HR fodder. "Hey we're technologically superior! We got to mars!"
How about "Hey, we're technologically superior! We have colonized space and use those colonies as jumping points for marsian missions!"
Too hopeful?
Error 407 - No creative sig found
The story in New Scientist is here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think we have to hope for leather godesses, but plan for daemons.
-Peter
That no one in here has made a DOOM reference yet.
I, for one, welcome our new pink overlords
I know money could be spent elsewhere, but hey, isn't it the exploratory nature of humans to venture into the unknown?
You know, I hate to break it to you but most exploration missions of the past were privately funded, either by capitalists in search of new opportunities, or by rich idealists. Those that were publicly funded were for geopolitical reason, the most obvious example being the race to the moon.
So, since no private enterprise today has enough cash to fund something that big, and the US government has nobody to flex muscles at anymore, and the US deficit is already big enough thanks to our recent exploration of Iraq, who will fund the mars mission?
As for the Russians, well, I'll believe they can do it when they can feed their population adequately without any external subsidies.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Don't worry. If things get out of hand, just type in IDKFA.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Maybe God put it there.
I am all for increasing space exploration, and by all means the more people (or countries) at the party the better, but has there been any coverage of how they plan to pay for this effort?
They had serious problems meeting their obligations for the ISS, they operated MIR on a shoestring, the economy is improving but do they have the cash for it?
I hope they do. I hope the US shakes more money loose from the trees for our own programs as well.
What do you know I wrote a novel
Putting a lander on Phobos should be interesting, since the moonlet is covered by a meter-thick layer of dust. When I imagine a craft making a landing, I picture throwing a rock into a bowl of flour. On the plus side, maybe we'll make the first sizable, intentional man-made crater outside the Earth.
I guess Phobos is better then Deimos... the latter is thought to have a layer of dust several hundred feet thick (or should that be "several dozen meters thick"?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
...who will fund the mars mission?
... a consortium of companies. Imagine this: IBM, Microsoft, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Mojave Aerospace, Scaled Composites, Johnson & Johnson, McDonalds, Apple, Coca-Cola, and a whole group of large companies got together, and invested a small portion of their profits for two years into a Mission to Mars program. It could be done. They could form a company just for that (ala the IOC), and of course, there would be advertising. They could all be "Proud Sponsors of the Mission to Mars" in much the same way they all pay to help with the Olympics.
Use the Olympic model, and
libertarianswag.com
In Soviet Russia, all of us are belong to base.
Dammit, why doesn't anyone have a proper sense of humor anymore? Clearly the link should have looked like this: Mars moonbase.
But you are most likely correct that Phobos will be dead.
.technomancer
The two moons of Mars are not very big and although their gravitation is minimal, they don't present very big targets either. In order to land on one, you have to match the speed almost perfectly, then slightly chnage yours and then just as you get there match it again, hopefully you can then latch on.
While that may not sound like much, for a probe with no help from Earth (Mars is on average 8 light, hence radio minutes away) this is a difficult task.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
They could form a company just for that (ala the IOC), and of course, there would be advertising. They could all be "Proud Sponsors of the Mission to Mars" in much the same way they all pay to help with the Olympics.
Do you really hope to get a bunch of companies to pony up billions of dollars for a risky mission into the unknown, and tell them they'll have a return on investment with advertising alone? now that's naive...
The olympics model works because the initial investment isn't all that great (compared to a mars mission anyway), it's super-safe, it guarantees return on investment with ads, but also derivative products, direct sales, and (most important) the use of much admired athletes as walking talking billboards: Nike will sell shoes by getting some sportsman to wear them, the underlying idea being that *you too can be that man with our shoes*. They won't sell any if the only thing they can say is *the shoe that goes to Mars*.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"Less deceleration" only in that Phobos' gravity well doesn't add much velocity to the probe's velocity as it approaches the moon; however, being airless, it will be impossible to use any aerobraking (unless the mission profile uses a 'skip' into Mars' atmosphere to bleed off excess velocity); having to carry fuel to perform all the deceleration by thrust makes the probe heavier, which increases the amount of fuel required (lather, rinse, and repeat).
Sending a mission to Phobos is like bypassing New York City in order to visit Newark. Phobos is of vanishingly small scientific significance compared to Mars. For some inexplicable reason the Russians are fixated on it. No harm I guess. Wouldn't it make more sense to visit an asteroid of a type not yet encountered (metallic).
an ill wind that blows no good
First, It doesn't have to cost billions of dollars. Just because that's what the government will spend doesn't mean that's what it will cost. Private companies would have an incentive to make sure that things weren't ridiculously expensive, whereas the government has no such incentive. (They can print money and/or raise taxes.)
I'm sorry that your imagination is so limited (I wasn't just talking advertising). Think of all the technology that will come out of it, and imagine if those companies that joined could get license free use of the technologies for X number of years. Imagine that those companies get to reap the rewards of scientific research done in low to zero gravity in the time it takes to get there and back. Imagine that those companies get exclusive rights to mineral finds on the red planet based on the size of their contributions over a defined field of area.
Do you still think there might be no way to get them to pony up money?
libertarianswag.com
Mark him a foe if you don't like him. Then mod foes down by ten or so. Otherwise, get over it. Its a free message board.
Thanks.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
.. it should have plenty of Mars rocks spattered on the surface
...
Funny that they mentioned it...
Can anyone explain how can 'a plenty of rocks' leave Mars and land on its moon ?
Bonus question is to explain the appearance of 'martian meteorits' on Earth.
Somehow I have troubles imagining the level of volcanic activity required to catapult rocks to the neighbouring planets
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Phobos will indeed likely be dead, since it is far too small to hold an atmosphere of any substance, but that's not the point of the mission. Since Phobos is so small (and hence, has much lighter gravity) it is much easier to land on and take off from than the main planetary body. The escape velocity on Phobos is in the neighborhood of .01 km/s, compared to Earth's +/- 11 km/s at the equator. As such, it provides a decent staging base for missions to the planet itself. Also, much attention has been paid to Mars, and relatively little to its sattelites, so it would be a chance for some interesting science.
Additionally, as others have stated, the currently accepted theory for the formation of Earth's moon is that, while the Earth was still hot (i.e., mostly molten), a rather large object smacked the crap out of it (that's a technical term) and made it spit out a ball of really hot stuff that took up orbit around Earth and cooled (faster than the Earth, due to it's size) into Luna. However, Phobos does not seem to have been formed in this way. Phobos is a rather oblong shaped object, unlike objects that coalesce from space debris, which tend to be spherical. The prevailing theory on Phobos is that it is a captured asteroid, likely a carbonaceous chondrite asteroid, which gives us additional scientific reason to go there.
Set the bar high, then bring a tall ladder.
Phobos' orbit is decaying and will likely crash into Mars or split into a ring within 50 million years
Early in the moon's history, it was much closer to earth, the earth's day was far shorter, and the moon's day wasn't locked to its orbital period. Over billions of years, tidal forces have gradually changed things to the current state. In fact, the moon is still slowly receding from the earth as some of the earth's rotational momentum continues to get transferred to the moon's orbital momentum via tidal interactions.
I think the Big Brother model would be far more realistic. Get the telecoms and broadcast companies to pay the upfront costs and then recoup those costs through advertising (add some product placement) and phone/text polls to vote for the regular evictions?
More seriously, if you really think this wouldn't be the largest media event in the history of the planet (especially if it is devised as such) then I guess you already found your way off the planet. I wouldn't see much risk from an advertisers point of view. If the mission is a success you get massive coverage on landing and return. If the mission fails badly (i.e. craft failure killing all), you get massive coverage at failure time and continued significant coverage for a long time, if anyone survives it would go crazy. Finally if you have a trivial failure (aborted mission, crew safe) you just go again (and if you've any sense you have a whole backup plan ready, including craft as if you don't need them you've got some themepark attraction). Any company with the power to invest at the sort of levels required to make this work could certainly exploit it for a good return.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
at this moment.
Worse, with a growing deficit, we may not be able to afford it. Right now, China and the Middle east are proping up the deficit . But both groups are deciding that they would rather start buying our companies and skip supporting the deficit. If that happens, then the only way to attract money to finance it is to increase bond rates, which will increase prime. As it is, with prime going up, the economy is slowing again.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Back then, we had as much knowledge of earth's moon, as we do of these moons. And all the naysayers were positive that we would be landing on dust several hundred feet thick and the landers would just sink in. hence the reason for the big feet on them (snow shoes).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Slightly off-topic: Also, the mass of the moon isn't evenly distributed. There is a dense area inside it that's off-center that was attracted to earth moreso than the rest of the moon, and over billions of years caused that side to always face earth.
I wish I could find a more official article, but this is the first one I found on google:
;)
"In 1965, two cosmonauts overshot their touchdown site by 1,200 miles and found themselves deep in a forest with hungry wolves. That's when Russian space officials decided to pack a sawed-off shotgun aboard every spacecraft. It took Russian search crews more than two hours to locate the spacecraft and another two hours for helicopters to get support crews to the landing site."
From http://www.usa4id.com/ciwc/SawedOff.htm
As it is, they'd be more prepared than any Americans in space if they happened to open the gates of hell
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Private companies are not inherently cheaper. The "incentive" you speak of can only exist if there is strong competition and a large market. This is like natural selection - you need a large enough pool of companies so that you can weed out the less efficient ones.
There is little competitive pressure in the space industry - that's why we saw tens of companies going out of the business of making jet airliners and so few companies going out of the business of making rockets. When you don't have competitive pressure, it all depends on the R&D. And private R&D is no more efficient than that done by government.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Take for example, the race to the moon. Did the US go to the moon because the American population wanted to, just for the fun of it? No. The US and the USSR were locked in a cold war, each side vying for superiority on the global stage.
Europe was seen as the battlefield for the Third World War, which seemed like it might begin at any moment during the 1950s and 1960s.
If you were part of the leadership of a European nation during those years, you really would like to be aligned with the victor. Since the war would be fought with rockets, you probably watched the space race with great interest: After all, without an actual war, rockets into space provided a good proxy for actual military prowess.
In this game, the US was doing quite badly:
- The first artificial satellite in orbit around the Earth? The USSR did that first, in 1957.
- Who sent the first living animal (a dog) into space? The USSR, of course, also in 1957.
- The first man in space? The USSR did that first too, in 1961.
- How about the first woman in space? The USSR beat the US there too, sending Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova skywards.
- Which nation launched a man to orbit who then donned a spacesuit and drifted in the emptiness of space by himself? Yet again, the USSR did it first, in 1965.
Time after time after time, the USSR was handing the US its ass on a plate.In the international community, the USSR was winning the propaganda battle against the US.
Without the presence of the USSR, the US would have never sent people to the moon. We would have never seen the earth rise from behind the moon. We would have never seen people bouncing around the surface of the moon, kicking up dust.
So, parent poster, please do not say that nationalism is bad for space. Without it, we would have never escaped the gravity well.
As a proof of concept, do we care? It's like visiting Newark when nobody's ever crossed the Atlantic. Sure it's not NYC, but if the harbor's that much harder to navigate, maybe we should concentrate on the big puddle, and worry about the little one with jagged rocks later.
Don't get me wrong, I bet Ferdinand and Isabella were pissed back in the day, but do we still expect a maiden voyage to come home laden with gold and spices?
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
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