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Mars Curiosity Rover's First Road Trip Planned

Posted by Soulskill on from the off-to-kill-cats dept.

littlesparkvt writes "NASA has announced the first destination for the Curiosity Rover. They're sending it to 'Glenelg,' a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. 'The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 1,300 feet (400 meters) east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the first drilling target. "We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road," Grotzinger said. "Our challenge is there is no GPS on Mars, so we have a roomful of rover-driver engineers providing our turn-by-turn navigation for us." Prior to the rover's trip to Glenelg, the team in charge of Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is planning to give their mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough checkout. On Saturday night, Aug. 18, ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.'"

65 comments

  1. Zap ! by mbone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    People have been talking about doing Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy in space for decades, so I hope it works well with Chemcam. It has a lot of promise, both to speed up exploration, and in places like asteroids and comets, where it may not be feasible or safe to actually touch the target.

    They have picked a boring nearby rock for the first target. There has been a discussion of whether or not Mars rocks have a "desert patina" (or varnish), and, if so, what is its nature, and even if it has a biological component. The Chemcam samples the top layer of the target, so may help to answer that.

    1. Re:Zap ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but whenever I see the words "most powerful" and "first time" I expect bad things will happen. With engineer's history I'm guessing this thing will break the first time they try to use it.

    2. Re:Zap ! by mbone · · Score: 1

      If they can make the frakking SkyCrane work I think that they can get a laser to work. After all, unlike the SkyCrane, the ChemCam can be fully tested here on Earth.

    3. Re:Zap ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next time they will replace the SkyCrane with a freakin' big laser - feel this radiation pressure, sucker

    4. Re:Zap ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One has to keep in mind that this is a first-of-a-kind space instrument. It does not use a simple semiconductor laser diode, but a (really delicately aligned) neodynium-doped crystal laser, which is something noone ever sent to another planet as for now. It had to endure the various vibrations, shocks and thermal variations of the liftoff, space travel and Mars landing in order to still work well enough (i.e. output enough power) to vaporize rocks as intended!

      (I have worked on the successor to ChemCam, with the team who designed it)

    5. Re:Zap ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      One has to keep in mind that this is a first-of-a-kind space instrument. It does not use a simple semiconductor laser diode, but a (really delicately aligned) neodynium-doped crystal laser, which is something noone ever sent to another planet as for now. It had to endure the various vibrations, shocks and thermal variations of the liftoff, space travel and Mars landing in order to still work well enough (i.e. output enough power) to vaporize rocks as intended!

      (I have worked on the successor to ChemCam, with the team who designed it)

      But it also had to be tested to be survivable in all those environments. So far everything downstream of the laser seems to be in working order (verified passively).

      (I worked on chemcam and my part is verified to be working already)

  2. Road? by houghi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Road: You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:Road? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Road: You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means?

      Mars Curiosity - "Roads. Where I'm going, I don't need 'roads'."
      (best read in Stephen Hawking's computer voice.)

    2. Re:Road? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's nuclear powered, direct drive, and has six wheels. The definition of "road" varies a lot for a vehicle like that.

    3. Re:Road? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Martian roads are in a better state of repair than many USian ones

    4. Re:Road? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      Where Curiosity's going, it doesn't *need* roads.

    5. Re:Road? by Katatsumuri · · Score: 1

      Not sure about NASA, but for Russians, a "road" is whatever place you plan to drive through.

  3. So when the Martians invaded in 1953 by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 3, Funny
    They were only zapping our architecture to see what it was made of?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oVUwG0qC9c

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  4. Re:Nobody Seems To Notice and Nobody Seems To Care by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I've always wondered with incredulity, who is it that has that much of a hardon for trolling that they spend what must be hours writing this copypasta in the first place? Does anyone ever actually bite? Other than to point out that it's obviously a troll? It's mystifying...

    --
    (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  5. Is there life or not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isnt it all an expensive waste of time?

    All the public cares is about life, be it bacteria or whatever, but NASA keeps sending only geological instruments. At this time its clear they are not going to find dinosaur footprints so it seems pretty absurd to just send a rock finding webcam.

    1. Re:Is there life or not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's very very unlikely that we're going to find any kind of functional ecosystem over there. The best we can hope for is a surviving remnant - a few scraps of past life that still manage to live. Fossil evidence of past life would be second best. Curiosity is fossil hunting, among other things, and that includes chemical traces of long dead single celled life.

      If it doesn't find evidence of past life, it'll also be studying the geological history of mars to give us a much better idea of whether to give up on the fossil hunting entirely.

      Being sure that mars is dead, and has always been dead, would actually be a good thing. It would mean we have no worries about contaminating the place with human missions. We could be as messy as we like whenver humans finally arrive, safe in the knowledge that we're not destroying irreplaceable unique evidence.

    2. Re:Is there life or not? by arse+maker · · Score: 1

      NASA is forbidden by congress to fund the search for ET.

    3. Re:Is there life or not? by mbone · · Score: 1

      The search for life on Mars != the search for ET.

    4. Re:Is there life or not? by petsounds · · Score: 1

      It's very very unlikely that we're going to find any kind of functional ecosystem over there.

      I find your lack of faith disturbing.

      If life can exist here on Earth near underwater lava vents spewing toxic brews, then life is certainly a possibility in the water-soaked soil of Mars.

    5. Re:Is there life or not? by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      It's very very unlikely that we're going to find any kind of functional ecosystem over there. The best we can hope for is a surviving remnant - a few scraps of past life that still manage to live. Fossil evidence of past life would be second best. Curiosity is fossil hunting, among other things, and that includes chemical traces of long dead single celled life.

      If it doesn't find evidence of past life, it'll also be studying the geological history of mars to give us a much better idea of whether to give up on the fossil hunting entirely.

      Being sure that mars is dead, and has always been dead, would actually be a good thing. It would mean we have no worries about contaminating the place with human missions. We could be as messy as we like whenver humans finally arrive, safe in the knowledge that we're not destroying irreplaceable unique evidence.

      If something is living there, then by definition there's an ecosystem - it may not be a diverse one, but it would be there.

      It would also be hugely significant. Mars is probably not the greatest target for finding interesting life in the solar system, but if Martian-evolved life of any type were discovered it would pretty drastically alter at least 1 of the variables of the Drake equation.

    6. Re:Is there life or not? by Teancum · · Score: 2

      If something is living there, then by definition there's an ecosystem - it may not be a diverse one, but it would be there.

      It would also be hugely significant. Mars is probably not the greatest target for finding interesting life in the solar system, but if Martian-evolved life of any type were discovered it would pretty drastically alter at least 1 of the variables of the Drake equation.

      There is a pretty good reason to think that geological material (potentially harboring microbes) has been exchanged several times over the past few billion years, with the K-T event (that killed off the dinosaurs) being one of those events that sent material back to Mars again and likely seeded at least some sort of life almost everywhere in the Solar System where liquid water can be found.

      If fact, a strong hypothesis suggests that life as we know it may have even originated on Mars and then came to the Earth many millions of years ago to see the Earth.

      This isn't galactic scale panspermia but rather just something happening on a stellar system scale and certainly sounds reasonable with current scientific thought on the subject. When Apollo 12 landed next to the Surveyor lander and then found microbes which lived on the surface of the Moon for several years (from the Surveyor spacecraft), it seems reasonable that at least some microbes could cope with a multi-year journey through the solar system.

      In other words, the Drake equation would not be altered here as it still is just a sample size of one, just on a larger scale.

      On the other hand, if you could find some type of life on Mars that uses something other than DNA to pass genetic information, that would be incredible in so many ways. I would expect that any sort of life on Mars must have found ways to cope with the environment there that would make it quite different from life on the Earth, even different from the extremophiles that are often used by comparison, but there may still be common genes that indicate a shared ancestor. Curiosity is not going to be examining potential life forms to that level of detail, so that would need to be a follow-up experiment if anything resembling a life form is even found at all.

      Interplanetary panspermia might give hints to interstellar panspermia though, or at least not rule it out as a mechanism for spreading life throughout the universe. It may even be hypothesized that after a planet, any planet at all in a galaxy, has been able to develop life forms that over a comparatively short period of time (when measured in billions of years) the entire galaxy is eventually "infected" with life to some degree at least where it might be remotely possible. Even though it is still just a sample size of one in terms of having life self-generate, in terms of calculating the number of planets in the Milky Way that could have life it might make that part of the Drake equation much closer to one than zero.

  6. And watch out for the "claw"! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Funny

    > ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science.

    Take the quotes off that zap and smile when you say it, pal.

    If a freakin' robot on Mars shooting a murderous, rock-vaporizing laser doesn't deserve the unquoted use of the verb "zap", nothing does.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    1. Re:And watch out for the "claw"! by cusco · · Score: 1

      Some of the same people who drove Spirit and Opportunity are on the Curiosity driving team. Here's Scott Maxwell's (of the 'Mars and Me' blog) Google+ page. "https://plus.google.com/112648317373638762082/posts#11264831737363876 2082/posts"

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    2. Re:And watch out for the "claw"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TRAFFIC CITATION

      Officer : K'Breel the 3rd
      Vehicle Description : Two small rovers, and a large SUV
      Offense: Driving without a license, speeding, littering (leaving a disabled rover parked instead of towing it away), espionage, invasion of the Red Planet
      Offenders: NA'SA rover drivers

      You are HEREBY ORDERED to report to the Mars 10th Federal District Court on the Blue World date of August 20, 2012, at the Blue World hour of 2:00pm EST, to face these charges. HEREWITH FAIL NOT, or we shall be forced to invade your world, kidnap your women (Mars needs women!), awaken Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra, amputate your gel-sacs, and roast them over an open fire.

      P.S. Could you tell me where the gel-sacs are on a Blue Worlder? I wouldn't want to disappoint Grandpa; gel-sac amputation is always the high point of his day, and I wouldn't want to disappoint him. (Better yours than mine!)

    3. Re:And watch out for the "claw"! by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 1

      >> It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.

      And so it begins.

    4. Re:And watch out for the "claw"! by EdIII · · Score: 1

      What it deserves is one of the girls screaming, "Fire Da Laser!".

      If I heard that in the control room I think I would die laughing.

  7. An easier drive than by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    the original Glenelg:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenelg,_Highland

    You've never seen so many schoolchildren throw up on one bus journey as when going over the pass to reach it.

  8. Re:Hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're doing it wrong, man. It's "I have poured hot grits down my pants. Thank you."

    Congratulations -- by failing even at this simple Slashdot troll, you have officially failed at life.

  9. Re:Hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Listen, if you mention hot grits and don't mention a naked petrified Natalie Portman covered in them, then you have failed at being a Slashdot troll. I mean, WTF? Wasn't this taught at Troll School?

  10. Laser by ByteSlicer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did they remember to attach a shark to it? It can't possibly function without one!

    1. Re:Laser by der_pinchy · · Score: 0

      yes a petrified shark no less. dont u watch the news brief?

    2. Re:Laser by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      Two.

      Two people reflexively modded up a familiar meme. Not "slashdot", not "humanity". Two.

      If you want to be concerned about humanity and fucking slashdot is your go-to example, you have not been paying attention.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  11. Re:Proof that Curiosity is on Earth! by Antarius · · Score: 1

    Indeed. I've been to Glenelg many times and was once a fan of the Glenelg Football Club.

    If they're looking for proof of intelligent life, they're going to the wrong place. ;-)


    (Just kidding, of course. Nothing wrong with Glenelg)

  12. We're the aliens here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And we have LASERS! Yee-haa :-)

  13. Navigation for more road trips by gnapster · · Score: 1

    Clearly what is needed are more Martian satellites -- some for imaging and mapping, and a constellation for GPS -- so we can get some real roadtrips going.

    1. Re:Navigation for more road trips by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't they use stellar navigation. Just point the camera up at the sky at night. They used to do it on earth for the longest time.

    2. Re:Navigation for more road trips by mbone · · Score: 1

      It would be better to use observations of Mars's natural satellites, especially Phobos. This has been explored with Phobos's transits of the Sun, which could give you positions to a few 100 meters. However, the real problem is not really that they don't know where the rover is, but that they don't know where objects on Mars are relative to the rover, and orbital and ground imaging suffices for that.

    3. Re:Navigation for more road trips by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I say it's high time we get a GPS constellation around Mars, especially if anyone's even *thinking* about sending a manned mission there. What a disaster we would have if the first astronauts arrived on Mars, and weren't able to use their TomTom to find the nearest pizza joint!

  14. Road Trip! by PPH · · Score: 1

    Best thing to do when your frat is on double secret probation.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  15. Re:Proof that Curiosity is on Earth! by BertieBaggio · · Score: 1

    Ahem.

    --
    If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
  16. Re:Nobody Seems To Notice and Nobody Seems To Care by Joce640k · · Score: 0

    I think you need some sort of genuine mental illness to produce that stuff...

    --
    No sig today...
  17. Is there a shark by future+assassin · · Score: 0

    attached to this laser?

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  18. This Is Insane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The use of a sky crane equipped with retro rockets to deliver a massive 1-ton craft was foolhardy enough. It was only by sheer luck that we didn't trip one of the sensors and set off an invasion. Rumbling around on the surface of the Red Planet is just asking for it, and if blasting their rocks with the most powerful laser we've ever sent to the surface of another world doesn't cause the theramins to start playing as a fleet of UFOs emerges from underground bunkers, well... I, for one, welcome our new Martian Overlords.

  19. Shotgun! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can we stop soon? I gotta pee.

  20. Re:Proof that Curiosity is on Earth! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    England doesn't count. *grins, ducks, runs*

  21. Rock Cairns or Bread Crumbs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't forget to leave piles of rock cairns Curiository..

    And be back in time for the sky crane to dust you off and take you home.

  22. Photos of that rock.. by tbird81 · · Score: 1

    Here is the rock they plan to zap:
    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4485

    And quite a few more images here since I last looked:
    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/

    1. Re:Photos of that rock.. by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 1

      Here's the rock's Twitter account.

      --
      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  23. First time laser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world *by humans*. FTFY

  24. Adelaide humour by Cinnaman · · Score: 1

    Yeah, send it to Glenelg!

    1. Re:Adelaide humour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

      All the other Glenelgs, in South Australia, Nova Scotia and Maryland, rivers in Victoria and Western Australia, and now a rock on Mars, are named after the Scottish town.

    2. Re:Adelaide humour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, perhaps they're hoping to find a frikken shark for the laser...

  25. Let's play with lazers!!!! by englishstudent · · Score: 0

    I hope mars doesn't burst into flames.

    --
    We'll never make it.......oh! we made it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM&list=FL7kKrE4eTs17mQl7eyvJIOg
  26. Cool. by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 1

    They are going to a palindrome.
    Doc, note: i dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

    --
    That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
  27. GPS? by Fuzzums · · Score: 2

    "We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road."

    It seems Mars has GPS aswell. Time to start Geocaching on Mars...

    --
    Privacy is terrorism.
    1. Re:GPS? by MrHops · · Score: 1

      "We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road."

      It seems Mars has GPS aswell. Time to start Geocaching on Mars...

      I know it's obvious, but wouldn't that be "areo-caching"?