Slashdot Mirror
The Mathematics of a Trip to Mars?
hakonhaugnes wonders: "Since trips to Mars seems commonplace (NASA has sent one every 26 months), I thought it made sense to try to understand how the interplanetary trajectory is calculated. NASA's page is deploringly void of intricate details. I found this
excellent page, but it still left me feeling that I was missing something. Surely the calculus must go beyond two bodies (mars/earth)? (It seems there are commercial MATLAB scripts available but at $150 it went beyond the defensible to satisfy my curiosity). Are there any curious Slashdot readers with the usual great insight into how to calculate a trip to Mars?"
What with all the epicycles and all;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I see more budget cuts have caused NASA to outsource to the open-source
Try Google maps.
(G*M1*M2) / R^2
Earth(+moon), Mars, Sun...I think that will get you there, as long as you dodge the moon on your way out
Are there any curious Slashdot readers with the usual great insight into how to calculate a trip to Mars?
Come on, this ain't rocket science, people. Oh, wait...
having the entire Earth jump at the same time?
;)
I am sure that can get you to Mars.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams
Since trips to Mars seems commonplace (NASA has sent one every 26 months)
Was I the only one to think... Slashdot... commonplace... once every 2 years....
"Having Sex is commonplace for me"... the new Slashdot definition of commonplace.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Point it in the general direction, and launch.
It's like a message in a bottle, but so much cooler.
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
Ok ok...I understand some of you will be rolling your eyes at this stage, struggling to understand how on earth a piece of command line software designed for the installation and maintenance of Debian packages could even be remotely applicable to designing a robust mission control interface for missions to the Mars. I will explain. Basically, think of the Earth as a large Debian mirror, equipped with many astronaut 'files'. Imagine the space ship as a .deb package, safely protecting all the astronauts from the harsh vacuum of space. The Mars (or Mars...this solution is cross-platform after all) is your local host. The Sun is...well...that creaky old Sun Ultra 5 from yesterday's OSnews article that no one wants to go close to lest they get burned or flamed by Sun zealots. OK...now how does the system work?
Basically, a mission controller wants to 'install' a 'package' of astronauts from the Earth 'mirror' onto the Mars 'host'. It's 5am, the mission controller hasn't slept for 3 days, and every command sent from Houston is critical. Enter apt-get. The initial launch command would be something like:
apt-get install astronauts
Great! The launch vehicle is on its way! Since the 'link' between the 'mirror' and the 'host' is quite slow (imagine an old school 9600 baud leased line), the 'package' 'download' may take a few days to complete. This is where the mission control staff go to work on getting their Gentoo boxes compiling KDE. When the 'package' is 'downloaded', it's important to check that no astronauts were hurt along the way. The mission controller enters the following command:
apt-get check
This wil check for 'broken dependencies'. So far, so good! The '.deb package' will now successfully 'install' onto the 'host', meaning the astronauts can land on the Mars, and perform their critical experiments. However, all good things must come to and end, and the 'package' will need to be removed from the host. Mission control to the rescue.
apt-get remove astronauts
Excellent! Tom Hanks, Gary Sinese and that other guy are now on their way home. Again, this is a slow link, so our 'host' may take a few days to remove it from it's 'hard disk'. Once the capsule has landed back on Earth, it will be ready for the next group of astronauts to make their journey. But no-one would want to spend 10 days locked up in a small space filled with cast-off cans of Jolt Cola and empty Penguin Mint containers. The capsule will need to be tidied up! Mission control enters one last command to complete the mission:
apt-get autoclean
Done! Another successful Mars shot. Mission control is a breeze with the new apt-get mission control system. No more complicated GUIs, voice recognition or toggle switches. apt-get to infinity and beyond!
Yeah, but that still doesn't explain what happened to Jon Katz. I suspect he was behind the whole thing.
Tired of calculating so many epicycles? That's why we've introduced the Ronco Equant Point!
The Ronco Equant Point is a pointless mathematical abstraction that gives you that perfect Renaissance instrumentalist astronomical result! Up to 200% more accurate than the other leading brand of Ptolemaic system, the Ronco Equant point will actually reduce the number of epicycles within 20 minutes - or your money back!
Call now, and receive a *free* video, "Aristotle and You" - learn about the five elements, and find out how to justify your Ronco-enhanced Ptolemaic system in terms of Aristotelian cosmology!
Look out for more Ronco History of Science products soon, including the "Intelligent Designer's Kit" and the "Ronco Enhanced Bottle-O-Caloric"!
Skip doing all the math and even the funding part by simply doctoring up a few satellite photos and a research paper calculating with near certainty that near limitless petroleum exists on mars, and they are protected by a heathon god.
sit back and watch all the funds get diverted to a new space program.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
As long as you don't get your units mixed up. :-)
S'okay, mistakes happen -- thanks for the insight.
(But you realize if it'd been a feet/meters error, you never would've heard the end of it....)
Yeah, you might want to recheck that software you wrote for NASA, just in case. :)
I see no point, we can open a gate to Hell here on Earth. I assure you the research I've done proves that the risk is perfectly acceptable!
If you would just increase my funding and personnel there would be fewer accidents.
--Dr Bertregur.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
<cheap shot> // TODO: INSERT ENGLISH-METRIC CONVERSION
Here's a line of the code:
</cheap shot>
how to calculate a trip to Mars?
1) Leave Earth
2) ???
3) Arrive Mars
4) PROFIT!!!
Holy hell, that crater, and the fires up in the mountains all around... wow. Looks like the only reason no one was killed was that the rig was burning for a few minutes before it blew, giving everyone time to run. I'd have loved to have been the guy who first noticed the "danger: explosives" sign going up in flames.
But the most impressive thing to me is, did they really rebuild that entire stretch of highway, including the railroad tracks, in THIRTY-SIX HOURS?!!? What the fuck! You've gotta send UDOT to New York, there's potholes here on Broadway that haven't been filled for months. I'm almost inclined to believe it's a propaganda tool by that news channel to make Utah look like some, I don't know, freeway utopia.