Slashdot Mirror
NASA To Try Powering Mars Rover "Spirit" Out of Sand Trap
coondoggie writes "NASA's long-running Mars rover Spirit is stuck in a sand trap — a situation the space agency would like to fix. Yesterday NASA said it will begin what it called the long process of extricating Spirit by sending commands that could free the rover. Spirit has been stuck in a place NASA calls 'Troy' since April 23, when the rover's wheels broke through a crust on the surface that was covering bright-toned, slippery sand underneath. After a few drive attempts to get Spirit out in the subsequent days, it began sinking deeper in the sand trap. Driving was suspended to allow time for tests and reviews of possible escape strategies, NASA stated."
Methinks it is time for somebody to get out and push.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Since the Mars rover is not really on Mars, but on a secret location on Earth, perhaps they could just use the "hand of god" to give it a little help :)
Up next:OnStar
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
dve letvi pod gumetata, dvama marsianeca da butat i gaz do lamarinata ...
So is NASA, their buildings on earth are just a movie prop to fool the gullible, like you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It seems like future rovers should have instrumentation to sense the composition of the ground they are about to tread over, as well as extra limbs that can be used to repair the rover (even just a brush to clean the solar panels) or assist its movement (grappling hook?)
;)
Say what you will about NASA's large budgets or sometimes questionable research efforts... when put to the task, they can produce some remarkable feats of engineering
The longevity of the Mars rovers never ceases to amaze me. Just the fact that we are controlling robots we landed on Mars is cool enough, but that they lasted 22 times longer than their intended 90-day lifetime in the harsh Mars environment, is truly an example of quality engineering.
Of course, their over-engineering of human risk-related matters leaves something to be desired. Anyone exploring uncharted territories has to accept the risks involved, including the possibility of a one way trip. Is that really such a bad thing though? There are plenty of risk-takers who thrive on this, and plenty of them would love to make history as part of the first colonization team on the moon (for example).
Instead of focusing resources on ensuring safe return, we should spend those resources on setting up permanent, sustainable facilities on the moon, so that we can slowly reduce our need to continually send materials. Is shipping miniature mining and production robot/facility to the moon that unimaginable? Once you can harvest and produce key materials on the moon, the task of setting up long-term human habitats becomes at least slightly easier.
I really hope the commercialization of space travel is the catalyst needed to accelerate the development of space colonization, and I hope that the excessive human-risk aversion policies that arguably held NASA back are not forced upon the participating private companies of the new space era.
On yet another mildly-unrelated note:
I'd love to see more development on the Launch Loop concept, which seems WAY more feasible than the space elevators... no science/technology breakthroughs are required, just a lot of energy and money
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop
lock the hubs first
It's not just trapped in the sand? So we finally have proof there's intelligent life on Mars, which builds traps!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Just goes to show that all those smart people sometimes make mistakes, why they should hire a couple of rednecks to help design the next version, they enjoy off-roadin'
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
i think they're gonna have to Flintstone this one.
here's a link to a blog by someone on the mars rover team, Mars and Me
i've been following it for a while now - it's truly fascinating
(this is serious) ask Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus what to do... my suggestion is to send some kind of impulse from an orbiting probe that would lift the whole "rover" - be it a mini-storm kind of thing or simply a wind-type blow, much like a golf player would do with a driver club from a sandpit...
It is not Boogarian, but Bulgarian*.
Something along the lines of... "Put two planks under the tires, get two martians to push and then floor it."
*IANAB, nor do I speak Bulgarian but it is quite similar to other Slavic languages, including Bosnian - which I do speak.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I wonder if they've thought of using the robotic arm, either to dig away some of the sand obstructing the wheels or to support the rover while they try to move it. I know from driving 360 excavators that your arm can be most useful in that respect, especially if you move the arm backwards at the same time as pushing down and driving. Maybe the arm's not strong enough, or the rover can't operate its wheels and the arm at the same time, but surely that's just programming. An alternative is to pick up small stones and place them by the wheels to get some traction. There is a more complete pictorial record here.
Just send a maintenance guy out there to give it a push. Perhaps the most efficient way to explore Mars in the future is to send an army of robots to do the exploring, plus a couple of humans just to service the robots and get them out of trouble spots.
Alexander Melbourne, Australia
It's Mars, so who cares if they slice it and they don't have to worry about any water traps because if there are any, they're solid.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
oh wolowitz, you just couldnt resist to invite a girl to the control room again, could you!
Good, maybe we can get some quality trolls back on this sumbitch.
October called. It wants it's story back.
In all fairness, they should declare it unplayable and drop it elsewhere in the trap, as per Rule 28.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Data show Spirit is straddling the edge of a 26-foot-wide crater that had been filled long ago with sulfate-bearing sands produced in a hot water or steam environment. The deposits in the crater formed distinct layers with different compositions and tints, and they are capped by a crusty soil. It is that soil that Spirit's wheels broke through. The buried crater lies mainly to Spirit's left. Engineers have plotted an escape route from Troy that heads up a mild slope away from the crater.
"We'll start by steering the wheels straight and driving, though we may have to steer the wheels to the right to counter any downhill slip to the left," said Ashley Stroupe, a JPL rover driver and Spirit extraction testing coordinator. "Straight-ahead driving is intended to get the rover's center of gravity past a rock that lies underneath Spirit. Gaining horizontal distance without losing too much vertical clearance will be a key to success. The right front wheel's inability to rotate greatly increases the challenge."
Human walks up in space suit. Picks up robot, dusts solar panels off with can of air spray, robot goes on.
This is my sig.
That's how a rover which was designed to be cheap and lightweight would have become a multiton semi-mobile laboratory. Adding on accessories and desirable features, then stronger equipment to carry it all, is how much larger and more expensive space probes are created. Problems with such designs caused smaller and simpler designs to be favored. But... why aren't there six more of these things wandering around by now?
^^
I got this picture of Tiger Woods in a space suit with a sand wedge.
Both rovers have been in this same sort of situation before. The first time it happened, NASA took a full-scale model out into their back yard to test various methods of getting them out. They've gotten the rovers out of sand before, they can do it again.
People.
A manned mission could have also accomplished all of the science Spirit has done in five years in a week, tops.
I love that big bang theory episode
Gotta keep that camera spinning, over every shoulder. With 6 wheels, there's gotta be a couple shoulders some where... Nobody panic now, just because a wheel or two slips in the sand, does NOT mean that someone or some other big hairy thing is not digging under the wheels
./getouttasand.sh
I'll add his to your list as well, because I have to do a variety of off road travel all the time for work. Tracks would have been better option. When wheeled stuff gets stuck around here (and it happens a few times a year), it's the tracked vehicles that get them out. The rovers are designed for real slow, careful and deliberate progress, so I wouldn't worry about them throwing a track either.
Ya, I know, tracks are heavier and so on. Doesn't matter, the whole point of these Martian buggies, hence their name, is to be "rovers" not "stuck in place now almost useless wheeled" vehicles. If you want the thing to move over random terrain, there is a method of choice that works. Wheels are for going fast and being cheap, not for maximum traction. You look at the most expensive largest tractors now..tracked because they get you plus whatever you got hooked up from point A to B, regardless of terrain, short of massive 10 foot deep mud, etc or like really exotic rock crawlers with long travel suspension, which the rovers were never designed to do anyway, just drive around big rocks.
More like 1000 times more. Minimum investment for a human expedition would be > $1 trillion USD.
Great! At least that money doesn't end up in smoking piles of Afghan/Iraqi debris and Halliburton's cost-plus "Burn Pits".
Instead, that trillion+ dollars would be used to invest in sciences, useful industry and tons of honest employment. Basically, it's the same as plowing cash into R&D, investing in the country. You know the drill; going to the moon didn't bankrupt anybody. In fact, it served to propel America to world leadership in technology and a robust economy.
But instead, we're today giving that cash to war profiteers, psychopathic bank CEOs and corrupt pharmaceutical companies, all while using propaganda to sell the population on these scams.
I'd MUCH rather spend that money on exploration and expansion of human awareness.
I don't know if NASA is the right agency for the job, but in theory, it's a much better way to spend our money than on killing, ripping off and poisoning people, don't you think?
-FL
"but it's gonna take a whole lotta floorin'."
Weren't the rovers already destroyed by transformers already? Mayyybe it's really transformers posing as rovers faking to be stuck in sand to study human behavior?
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Couldn't you choose a better acronym, like "GNAA is Not Alcoholics Anonymous"?
Soon after the primary mission phase was completed, a reporter asked, "How long are you going to run the rovers?". The reply was, "We are going to run them into the ground; as long as they last". They literally did run one them into the ground it seems.
Table-ized A.I.
This is why I love Slashdot - where else would I get the opportunity to shoot the breeze with a REAL rocket scientist?
Thanks, dude.
(From a PhD in a very different discipline:-)
Merak mi je kad mi dudlas chunu, od akshama pa do sabaha, il' od sabaha pa do akshama - kako ti je milije.
There's some authentic Bosnian language, especially for you.
And the best part is - I'm one of those Bosnians who don't give a flying fuck how you call the Bosnian national language.
I just don't like cowardly trolls.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They just need to let some air out of the tires. That's what mountain bikers do. Just grab a nearby stick and let some air outta dem puppies.