Canadian Space Agency Shows Off Prototype Rovers

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Canadian Space Agency Shows Off Prototype Rovers

Posted by timothy on Friday October 19, 2012 @10:40PM from the perfect-for-the-northern-territories dept.

An anonymous reader writes "At its headquarters in Longueuil, Que. Friday, the Canadian Space Agency rolled out a fleet of about a half-dozen prototype rovers that are the forerunners of vehicles that may one day explore the moon or Mars. The agency said the terrestrial rovers bring it one step closer to developing the next generation for space exploration."

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On what Rocket? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-19 22:57 · Score: 2, Funny

But how are they going to get them to Mars Eh?
Secret LOX and Maple Syrup rockets?
1. Re:On what Rocket? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-19 23:48 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  But how are they going to get them to Mars Eh?
  Secret LOX and Maple Syrup rockets?
  I had to think on that one. But I did that calculations and found that maple syrup only has about a fifth the enthalpy of combustion of something like RP-1. And Canadian maple syrup is famous for being pretty viscous. It might clog up the rocket engines and I don't think any Canadian could in good conscience adulterate the maple syrup to make it flow more smoothly. I understand that they have a large strategic stockpile, but I think they should just feed it to their astronauts and continue to use normal rocket fuel for their spacecraft.
2. Re:On what Rocket? by dbIII · 2012-10-20 01:17 · Score: 2
  
  The same way the USA will have to move the heavy stuff now they've given up - Soyuz.
3. Re:On what Rocket? by Walzmyn · 2012-10-20 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Canadian Whiskey
4. Re:On what Rocket? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-10-20 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Secret LOX and Maple Syrup rockets?
  Well, if you managed to convert maple syrup into sorbitol with any efficiency, and then mixed in some potassium nitrate - or even just extracted sucrose from it to mix it with KNO3 - you'd get some usable amateur rocket fuel.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
5. Re:On what Rocket? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-10-20 04:17 · Score: 1
  
  ...or they they could simply attach the astronauts to nozzles and feed them with a lot of fiber and legumes. It would also solve the perennial problem of micro-gravity toilets.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
6. Re:On what Rocket? by theshowmecanuck · 2012-10-20 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  Legumes mixed with maple syrup to fuel bacterial growth for added "nozzle" pressure?
  
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  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
7. Re:On what Rocket? by Macrat · 2012-10-20 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  The same way the USA will have to move the heavy stuff now they've given up - Soyuz.
  Note that SpaceX is already flying a capsule designed for humans. It just hasn't been man rated yet by NASA.
8. Re:On what Rocket? by davester666 · 2012-10-20 10:12 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, are you saying that being in possession of Maple Syrup means you the main ingredient for creating a bomb to blow up the White House? You need to phone the FBI!
  
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  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
9. Re:On what Rocket? by DerekLyons · 2012-10-20 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Except Soyuz isn't a heavy lift booster, in fact it's a fairly modest booster as such things go. Meanwhile, the US has the Delta and the Atlas, and the Falcon 9...
Canada is often overlooked by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-19 23:30 · Score: 1

Given that Canada has a smaller population than California, I am very proud of the innovations and contributions that we make in science and engineering. If only we had the ability to market ourselves as an innovative country instead of producers of snow and maple syrup. We need less humility and more pride!
1. Re:Canada is often overlooked by graphius · 2012-10-20 03:48 · Score: 1
  
  As a fellow Canadian I wish I had mod points...
I wonder... by jamstar7 · 2012-10-19 23:38 · Score: 1

... if they'll use it to track down all that missing maple syrup?

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Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
International cooperation by trout007 · 2012-10-20 00:04 · Score: 3, Informative

There are a few projects that NASA, CSA, and other agencies are working on together. The idea is to try to make exploration much cheaper by having modular components. So you can pick a target like the moon. Decide what you want to do like drill some core samples from the polar regions and sample them. You need a chem lab, drill, Rover, lander, and launch vehicle. If you can pick ones that have already been designed and flown you can save lots of money.
http://www.americaspace.org/?p=21059

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I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
1. Re:International cooperation by DerekLyons · 2012-10-20 01:30 · Score: 2
  
  The idea is to try to make exploration much cheaper by having modular components. So you can pick a target like the moon. Decide what you want to do like drill some core samples from the polar regions and sample them.
  In space, particularly due to the wide range of temperature environments, that's like having a modular system that can go to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the Greenland ice cap, the Sahara desert, or the Amazon jungle. It's been studied again and again, but it never actually works beyond paper studies and the odd low fidelity demonstrator. You end up spending too much money either hacking existing bits to do what they weren't designed to or building custom modules, and not actually saving any money.
2. Re:International cooperation by trout007 · 2012-10-20 02:09 · Score: 2
  
  I don't think I was clear. I didn't mean to say you would have a Rover that could go anywhere. It means you could have one Rover that is designed for Lunar Polar Regions, One for Lunar Equatorial Regions, One for Mars Polar, Mars Equatorial, etc. The same with the Landers and instruments.
  You are right that in the past it's been difficult due to launch costs. But with commercial space we are seeing launch costs drop. This opens up some interesting opportunities. When your launch vehicle costs $300 million your mission is already expensive without a payload. You have to try to maximize your science. Spending another $600 million for a customized payload doesn't seem too bad.
  But if you can get a $50 million dollar launcher things change. It starts to make sense to spend less on the mission in return for less science. If you can get the costs of the Landers and Rovers down you can start to afford to do missions that don't have every bell and whistle on board.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by Spottywot · 2012-10-20 00:30 · Score: 1

Not really the case. If it was how did Cadadarm and Dextre get there?

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In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
Re:Low Comments. by Spottywot · 2012-10-20 00:37 · Score: 1

Plus prototype rovers that *may* fly in 8 years time aren't nearly as exiting as a rover that's actually there and doing some science.

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In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-10-20 00:43 · Score: 1

Hint: NOT on Canadian boosters - which was the point.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by Spottywot · 2012-10-20 01:09 · Score: 1

Hint: NOT on Canadian boosters - which was the point.
There you go, it was also *my* point. If the science gets done and the mission is accomplished what does it matter?
For that matter, if that was your point then your original analogy wouldn't make any sense, after all no-one has put the non-existant Iranian nukes on *any* delivery system, Iranian or otherwise.

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In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
CSA page for the rovers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-20 01:27 · Score: 3, Informative

If you're interested in actually seeing the rovers, the Canadian Space Agency has a good page describing them:
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/media/backgrounders/2012/1019.asp
1. Re:CSA page for the rovers by trout007 · 2012-10-20 02:58 · Score: 1
  
  The Artemis river has a wheel like you are describing. It's a solid spoked aluminum hub. Then a bunch of sharp metal claws are spring mounted to the hub with wire ropes. It's flexible at all temperatures and has lots of traction.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by rossdee · 2012-10-20 02:16 · Score: 2

Theres a whole lot less delta V involved in getting a missile warhead a thousand kilometers or so than getting a rover all the way to Mars, plus the rover has to land in one pice when it gets there.
(Note Iranian missiles will not be aimed at USA, they will be aimed at Haifa and Tel Aviv
TIL. by Seumas · 2012-10-20 02:34 · Score: 2

Today, I learned: Canada has as Space Agency.
1. Re:TIL. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-20 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  In fact, next March the ISS will be commanded by a Canadian - Chris Hadfield.
2. Re:TIL. by Seumas · 2012-10-20 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Will all of the science experiments on ISS from that point on be syrup based?
3. Re:TIL. by Megane · 2012-10-20 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  I expect at least some of them will be studies of beer and poutine.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
4. Re:TIL. by Sovetskysoyuz · 2012-10-20 16:28 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize Canada has been in on the ISS since inception as a project
  Get your facts right, Canada was involved in the ISS long before Inception was filmed.
Re:Oh those wacky Canadians... by Guspaz · 2012-10-20 03:21 · Score: 1

So, you're saying we spend twice as much per capita on our space program?
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by Guspaz · 2012-10-20 03:23 · Score: 2

Because nobody in the world is offering any sort of commercial launch services, and certainly nobody in California is working on superheavy commercial launch vehicles that might have the capacity to take a probe to Mars...
Prototypes by Freshly+Exhumed · 2012-10-20 04:10 · Score: 1

These are prototypes. Prototypes don't get sent anywhere. They are only design projects.

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I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by janimal · 2012-10-20 04:15 · Score: 1

Distance.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-10-20 04:19 · Score: 1

That was a case of "it seems like a good idea ... *later* ...oh shit, it seems it wasn't", which happens all the time in human history.

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Ezekiel 23:20
True purpose revealed by Freshly+Exhumed · 2012-10-20 04:21 · Score: 2

Ostensibly it is indeed a "Space" agency, but the real insider scoop is that in about a year the rovers will actually be sent to Vermont as a prelude to invasion and subjugation of that state's maple syrup and dairy industries. Of course the Green Mountain Boys will welcome us with roses.
You read it here first.

--
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-10-20 04:21 · Score: 1

(Note Iranian missiles will not be aimed at USA, they will be aimed at Haifa and Tel Aviv
With the difference being...?
The difference being that the SM-3-equipped guided missile US Navy warships will have to go to all the way to the Mediterranean to intercept them.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Oh those wacky Canadians... by Jesse_vd · 2012-10-20 05:44 · Score: 1

I don't understand your comment... but if the US has 300 million people and Canada has 30 million, the US spends $59 per person and Canada spends $10
Re:Maybe FedEx will deliver them by theshowmecanuck · 2012-10-20 06:39 · Score: 1

In the long run, it was probably good that the atom bombs were used when they were. That is, when they were still really small (relatively speaking). It is why people are and were scared as hell to use them when they got really big; and why anyone who is a proponent of using them for a first strike is feared if they are in power and roundly ignored otherwise. If we didn't see what they did, we wouldn't know, and likely Armageddon would have already happened and we'd either all be dead or playing Fallout 3 for real. A harsh reality but there you go. And quite frankly, given that the atrocities the Nazis perpetrated pale against the imperial Japanese of WWII, I don't feel too badly we learned how bad they were the way we did.
As for Ahmadinejad, I personally think he is that crazy. I also don't think the Americans are. What you are talking about is a day and age when people really didn't understand what nuclear bombs could and would do and how bad radiation and fallout is. And they were fighting a people responsible for huge atrocities and figured they wouldn't surrender willingly even when faced with invasion (and as documents have pointed out... read history yourself I'm not going to educate you in something that is widely known... they were correct). I can't fault them for sparing their own (our own) side more casualties fighting an emperor-god plutocracy who used Pyrrhic tactics to avoid surrender. And remember, people knew so little about the effects of radiation in those days that many used radium coated watch dials to be able to read them at night. You can't compare today and yesterday the way you just did. To label Americans as being proponents of launching nuclear bombs is purely ignorant on your part.

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-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The Great Red Planet by brusewitz · 2012-10-20 08:25 · Score: 1

Bob and Doug McKenzie go searching for beer on mars, eh?
key question by Phoenix666 · 2012-10-20 11:42 · Score: 1

does it have square wheels?

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Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Re:Oh those wacky Canadians... by Guspaz · 2012-10-20 19:09 · Score: 2

You're right, I missed the "per capita" in your comment.
Still, $300 million a year can go pretty far when a Falcon 9 launch (which will eventually be able to carry astronauts) costs $50 million... Let NASA blow all their money on ludicrously overpriced and bureaucratic lift capacity like Orion, Canada can get people into space on our own dime at a fraction the cost with private companies that don't have to build parts of their craft in every different state to get their budget past congress...