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11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do
TheNextCorner writes "NASA is getting set to launch its next Mars rover this week. The car-size Curiosity rover is the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, slated to blast off Saturday (Nov. 26) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rover will employ 10 different science instruments to help it answer questions once it touches down on the Red Planet in August 2012."
Can it convert imperial measurements to metric measurements?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Sure it can... it will just take a few billion years.
One misplaced micro-organism and it could set off evolution on mars that will slowly terraform the planet over the next few billion years.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It can go to MARS! Well, assuming all the measurements are in metric (although if they aren't, it'll still go to Mars, just a little faster than expected.)
Ok, now that's out of the way
Curiosity's ChemCam instrument can vaporize rocks from up to 30 feet (9 meters) away with a laser. Three spectrographs will analyze the composition of the vaporized bits.
Anyone else find it disturbing that we are putting lasers on robots now? And putting them in space? It's like we're asking for Skynet to develop. Let's hope we just don't see the headline "Curiosity killed the human" next.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
First we send a shoebox sized rover. Then we send one the size of a Power Wheels kids car. Now it's a rover the size of a jeep with a nuclear RTG. What's next, a bus sized rover? When does this start to piss off the resident Martians?
When the traffic volume starts having an effect on their morning commute.
I'll be impressed if it actually manages to land there. Otherwise the things it can do after landing are pointless.
They could have flown the shuttle like two more times for that!
Sig: I stole this sig.
Dispelling rumors of the threat posed by a nuclear-powered, laser-armed robotic invader, K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, said:
Having been reminded that the gelsacs of many metrication consultants were punctured to bring them this information, there were no questions from the press corps.
It should have a cargo-hold full of Wall-E type devices that can scatter during the day and return home to charge at night.
Give more than one scientist at a time a chance to drive.
(And reduce the risk of total mission failure in case of a Walowitz incident.)
Bacteria have been found alive on the outside of satellites that have not had contact with earth for months.
If they can survive on the exterior of man made objects in space- it is potentially possible they could survive on Mars.
One of the theories of origin, pan-spermia, is that simplistic organisms (or their precursors) spread to earth via space debris.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If I had say in the matter, I would include more redundance.
Instead of one of each type of camera on the mast, I would include redundant cameras on each mast.
Instead of one mast, I would require two masts, with separate motors, computers, etc.
I would include both mechanical (or pneumatic if compressors that work in that environment can be made compactly enough) and electrostatic lens cleaning mechanisms.
I would include redundant "legs" and wheels, with the primary set being ejectable in the event of failure.
The cost would go up, but given that when you come down to it this amounts to a $2.5bil RC car, spending a few million more on extreme redundance to guarantee reliability (after it hopefully lands safely) is very cheap insurance - it's not like you can just send out a minimum-wage Geek Squad "technician" to (hopefully) repair it and upsell it on gold-plated HDMI cables and Norton AntiVirus. ;) It'd suck if the one mast failed, or one "leg" failed without a backup unit or mechanism.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50