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Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars?
astroengine writes "Mars has been visited by orbiters, landers and rovers, but could the future of Martian exploration be inspired by a wind-blown sphere? NASA and other research institutions have been developing the Mars Tumbleweed rover for the last decade, but with the help of the Planetary Science Institute, the Tumbleweed is now vying for some serious funding to further develop the technologies required. Although the Tumbleweed would be wholly dependent on the prevailing winds on the Martian surface, the lightweight and relatively cheap design could lead the way for a 'swarm' of independent Tumbleweeds to explore vast regions of the planet (video link). In 2003 and 2004, NASA even tested an inflatable Tumbleweed prototype on Greenland and Antarctica — it traversed hundreds of miles with ease, continually relaying location and environmental data."
"Tumbleweed" is a perfect description of what will be left of the space program after the current administration is done with it!
I'm sure they've thought about this, but is the atmosphere really dense enough to push something carrying any sort of payload around? I think atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of earth's whereas gravity is still 1/2 that of earth's. Will it have a "pump" for slow leaks? Self sealing against punctures?
On the other hand, if it really is light enough and the "fabric" is tough and heat resistant, maybe it can deorbit WITHOUT using a heat shield. Now that would really save a LOT of weight and might make the whole idea worthwhile. I seem to remember there were once emergency escape plans for astronauts that essentially had them envelope themselves in a (very) large foam shield. If you make it light and fluffy enough it might "float" down from space. (Or glide down in the case of the paper(!) airplane that a japanese astronaut at the ISS flew back to earth).
Just curious.
One, inability to use feedback to direct it towards interesting phenomena. Even if you can stop it, it doesn't mean you can get close enough to anomalous features on the surface. Two, lack of ability to escape local minima. I don't know how much of a problem this would be on mars, but I just went to death valley in February and saw the rows of tumbleweeds stuck on the fences and in crevices (useful if you plan to sprout and reproduce).
"OK guys, where the F*** are we now?"
(due to the huge communication lag between Mars and Earth, rovers are controlled by giving a set of commands, and then checking the result the next day (or next Sol, to be exact))
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Hey, not that this is some sort of faked moon mission conspiracy theory, but do I see FOOT PRINTS in the before and after photos of the dust build up? Are these earth-born test photos presented as shots from Mars?
...then why not add some solar cells and a motor, so it can actually move to where it wants.
It will clean the cells, by tumbling and turning half of them upside-down.
But I don’t know if the wind on Mars is really strong enough for all of this...
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That is fitting, so the space program will match the economy the republicans left the current administration.
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When did republicans take over Slashdot?
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080391/
I can see any intelligent Martian life running for the hills :)
I wonder if they scared the crap out of anyone in Greenland
LOL
Day one the tumble weed rover heroically rolls across the Martian terrain. Day two the rover discoveries a previously unknown Martian crater. Day three examines bottom of crater, day four same, day five same, ..., day 365 rover celibrates it's first year on Mars from the bottom of it's newly discovered crater.
This sounds like an intersting idea in principal. I do think that we need to kickstart the whole human exploration effort. Scientific advancement in this area seems to be slipping.
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It could be mistaken for an alien!
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/darkstar/darkstar4.jpg
Kinda like ET on the 2600?
Thank you for demonstrating the difference between a well informed opinion and an ignorant one, and the importance of the former in the arena of politics.
We demand bouncing, followed by rolling, followed by rolling of the third type.
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"That's an interesting rock, let's look a bit more closely... woah, no time for that, we're off again."
"It sure is windy today. I feel a little seasick."
"Was that a pair of eyes we just went past?"
[sometime later after a change in the weather]
"The forecast is calm for the next month. Has anybody got any great ideas for studying this patch of sand we're stuck on?"
Wouldn't the spheres get trapped at all low points where the wind does
A guy walking around on the Martian surface.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Doesn't the Tumbleweed prototype in this photo look suspiciously like a certain Number 6-devouring border guard? What are these scientists really planning?
Location data could be difficult. There's no GPS on Mars. The cheapest solution would be to give the Tumbleweeds an omnidirectional beacon strobe. Then it could be spotted from orbit when it's on the night side. Accurate location info would be easiest to get just after dusk and before dawn because landmarks on the day side would be visible to the satellite.
I would prefer a couple of balloons to float around with small amounts of equipment: weather info; Camera below: magnetic sensor: radiation detector on top. That would give a lot of information on places to look at. In addition, the camera would be able to see much closer than could the sats, though it would not be controllable in terms of where to fly. But at this time, it is useful to get a closer look at the planet via serin dipity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So we need a new system because the current rover design failed so catastrophically? /snark
We have an outstanding current rover design and I'm sure that there are many small tweaks NASA would love to include in a Ver. 2. Let's just send a few more siblings of Spirit and Opportunity up to new areas. Maybe one (ok, two) designed to go pin god-damn medals on Spirit & Oppy. Let's build upon success.
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That's how many it will take to dominate Mars.
The first billion will fill in the craters and other depressions.
The second billion will be able to roll freely on the resulting flat surface.
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The damn thing is just going to get caught in a barbed wire fence.
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What happens when this thing roles down a valley or falls in a deep crater or some ditch. Wind isn't going to be able to blow it anywhere after that. It's much easier for a tumbleweed to go on a flat surface or down hill, but once it goes to an area where the relative sea level is low it's done exploring.
---
Solar System Feed @ Feed Distiller
One lick of the balls and Mars rolls over like a pussycat.
One kick in the balls and Mars rolls over like a screaming, jibbering pussycat
I am definitely vying for some serious funding. CAN HAZ MRZ PLZ?
Some initial thoughts, ideas, and cogitations on this concept if you don't mind .... ;P for a sail as i said. It would just be a matter of making enough sail surface area that the winds on Mars could provide enough force to push around the given weight of the craft; so obviously lighter is better. But, the winds on Mars CAN get pretty gusty, as we've seen as per the dust storms and clear duning action. ... ahhhhh .... ... ;D
Regarding the potential puncturability of the enclosure, it doesn't need to inflate if it's on a spring-loaded frame. It's really just there as a sail.
Perhaps also, the material of the enclosure could potentially BE the solar array and double as power-source for the data package. (???)
If the data package, i.e. power, sensors, recorders, and transmitters, could be made small and light enough, they could just mount it in a light-weight spring loaded bucky-ball frame, say of carbon fiber or something, with a skin of 'some sort'
Also, I could see sending multiple tumbleweeds per mission, and de-orbiting them such that they come down in separate regions. Given a spring-loaded frame, the individual tumbleweeds could be packed most efficiently into a very small package. Perhaps enough to fit three or so per single-rocket launch, saving money AND orbital coincidentality.
Each would need a small heat-sheild for initially braking orbital speed (most weight?), but once lower in the atmosphere, they could deploy a small parachute for the primary , and 'pop-open' to assist with drag, then 'bounce in' as we've done with other landers; only the spring loaded frame acts as the landing cushion.
Now, if we land stationary reciever/transmitter stations at several locations around Mars, each tumbleweed would only have to provide enough broadcast strength to burst-transmit to the nearest 'base-station', plus storage capacity to store data until the next opportunity to do so. Each base-station would transmit ITS stored data to one or more satellites which would in turn transmit the data back to Earth. Maybe we could even re-program certain satellites we ALREADY have in orbit to accept data from these base stations.
The number of satellites need not be many (the most expensive part of the equation I'd think), as the base stations AND tumbleweeds could easily have enough storage capacity given current memory technologies -- even flash-RAM ala USB memory sticks so the tumbleweeds for instance could go into power-saving modes without loss of recorded data; energy efficiency on the tumbleweeds themselves would be paramount.
Imagine it. A multitude of independently randomly roving tumbleweeds, blowing about and storing data until they got close enough to a base station to burst their observations to, with the base stations hooked into our orbital network of satellites.
That's all from me for now, thanks for listening
And then the tumbleweed gets stuck in a hole and there goes the millions of dollars spent to send it there.
Isn't there a danger that all the tumbleweed rovers will end up in the same crater/rift or valley ?
Somewhat like the refuse that ends up in the Pacific Trash Vortex ?
At least some lady is making big bucks selling NASA their spare-parts.(http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/246633/Kansas_Woman_Makes_Money_Selling_Tumbleweeds)
My kids have some absurdly large inflatable balls in the yard. Our yard has terrain. They always wind up in the bottom of a ditch somewhere.
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