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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.
"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.
In reverse order... The second problem is relatively easy to overcome simply by nature of the tumbleweed rover's size and shape. If it's big enough not to fall between the sorts of rocks on Mars' surface, and it has no protrusions to snag on things, then it won't get stuck.
The first problem is really about the nature of the mission. The idea of a tumbleweed rover is to gather large datasets about large areas, it's not designed to examine small, interesting things. It's rather like saying Google Earth isn't the right tool to see what beetles are living under the rocks in my garden. True, it's not, but neither is it supposed to be.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
...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...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
That is fitting, so the space program will match the economy the republicans left the current administration.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
People who oppose Republicans != Democrats
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Too true.. but people who believe everything they read, don't actually seek out other opinions and form their own decision, preferably by reading primary sources (like the actual budget documents!!) are typical. :)
FTFY. Ignorance is bipartisan.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Yeah, that's a job for google streetview.
Don't be silly, those are obviously the footprints of the Martian gorillas.
We demand bouncing, followed by rolling, followed by rolling of the third type.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
As the poster before me stated, ignorance is bipartisan. Neither party has a lock on the type of behavior you describe. Let me "prove" it by countering your opinion with some personal experience which, while hardly statistically relevant, is at least as credible as your stereotypical declaration. As it happens, I almost always vote for the conservative candidate, so even though I am registered unenrolled most would consider me a Republican. Anyhow, I have been staying on top of the health care reform bill by actually downloading and reading each of the bills. And through the course of this national debate, I have participated in many hallway discussions with my liberal colleagues who reflexively spout party line ignorance. None of them have ever made an attempt to find out what the actual bill says, or what "the other side" is saying. They dismissively disparage all who are opposed as right-wing nutjobs, Limbaugh tools, Faux (so cute) News watchers, etc. Then in the next breath they say how they only listen to NPR because that is the only balanced new source. [Yes, they say this with a straight face; I know, hard to believe such ignorance exists but there you have it]. Anyhow, I listen to NPR *and* talk radio. I read web sites that affiliate with each side. Back when I subscribed to print news I got two newspapers: one liberal-leaning and one conservative-leaning. I know from all of this that both sides pick-and-choose their "facts" and statistics to buttress their claims. With all of that said, it begs the question: Have you actually, personally, tried to "seek out other opinions" to make up your mind, or are you just another On-bot (yeah, both sides have their cute nicknames) who has their short list of like-minded media/information sources?
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Doesn't the Tumbleweed prototype in this photo look suspiciously like a certain Number 6-devouring border guard? What are these scientists really planning?
Fox news is simply the opposite of CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and ABC news the difference is that liberals have many places to get their propaganda while conservatives have 1 and since 40% of the population consider themselves conservatives to 20% liberal a single network that caters to these beliefs will do much better(see Oberman's ratings).
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
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.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
This would be a terrible way to do a single vehicle. However, they want to 'swarm' these instead. While each individual vehicle may be limited, if you have hundreds canvasing a region, correlating the data between each 'tumbleweed' would make the information more valuable than the mere sum of its parts.
I don't think this replaces something like the MERs, but rather complements them.