Probe From NASA's InSight Lander Burrows Into the Soil of Mars (space.com)

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Probe From NASA's InSight Lander Burrows Into the Soil of Mars (space.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Monday March 4, 2019 @12:34AM from the digging-Mars dept.

"The 'mole' aboard NASA's InSight Mars lander has encountered stiff resistance on its first subsurface sojourn beneath the surface of the Red Planet," reports Space.com: In a major mission milestone, InSight's Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument burrowed underground for the first time on Feb. 28. After 400 hammer blows over the course of four hours, the instrument apparently got between 7 inches and 19.7 inches (18 to 50 centimeters) beneath the red dirt -- but obstacles slowed its progress, mission team members said...

The $850 million InSight lander -- whose name is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport -- touched down on Nov. 26. The spacecraft aims to map the Red Planet's interior in unprecedented detail. It will do this primarily by characterizing "marsquakes" and other vibrations with a suite of supersensitive seismometers, which was built by a consortium led by the French space agency CNES; and measuring subsurface heat flow with HP3, which DLR provided.
"I'm digging Mars!" announced NASA's official Twitter feed for the InSight robotic lander, adding "My self-hammering mole has started burrowing in, and my team is poring over the data..."

83 comments

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400 hammer blows over 4 hours by olsmeister · 2019-03-04 00:47 · Score: 2

I guess we can rule out the possibility that sandworms really exist.
1. Re:400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 00:53 · Score: 0
  
  LOL! Everybody knows this was filmed in a hangar in area 51! :)
  --
  "Is Wreck Ralph The Next Casey Neistat for Young Wannabe YouTubers?" #SomethingPositive & Hard work ! :)
2. Re:400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:10 · Score: 0
  
  I guess we can rule out the possibility that sandworms really exist.
  
  "the instrument apparently got between 7 inches and 19.7 inches"
  One doesn't attract sandworms by lightly tapping. And I highly doubt any straight woman would define that kind of progress as "hammering".
3. Re: 400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:34 · Score: 0
  
  You obviously have not seen shycloudfractals using a strapon on pixie. Look it up on pornhub.
4. Re:400 hammer blows over 4 hours by mattdunelm · 2019-03-04 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  So long as you work without rhythm, you will not attact the Shai Hulud.
5. Re: 400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 02:38 · Score: -1
  
  We spent 850 million dollars,
  To dig a 1 foot hole on Mars,
  I hear universal laughter,
  Ringing out among the stars!
6. Re:400 hammer blows over 4 hours by RobertNotBob · 2019-03-04 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  With only 100 hammer strikes per hour... I doubt the worms would even notice.
  
  --
  ___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
7. Re: 400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  They must be looking for al-Qaeda's secret cave base because it wasn't in Afghanistan. LOL
  Goto ae911truth dot org for more real news.
8. Re: 400 hammer blows over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 13:35 · Score: 0
  
  Whoever downvoted this is obviously not a parrothead.
At this rate by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 00:51 · Score: 0

by the time humans actually get to mars, it will all be smashed into rubble by probes such as this.
fracking of other planets begins? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 00:53 · Score: 0

motive=results.. cease fire stand down,, there's mothers & children in every town the worlds around..
Wait a minute.. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 01:04 · Score: -1, Flamebait

...I was assured by Space Nutters on here that all we needed to do to live on Mars is to dig up the soil to get to ice and build caves. It should be easy to dig on Mars. Please explain. They must not have been doing it right. We need Musk to get up there and show them how to do it and get the first Mars factories up and running.
1. Re:Wait a minute.. by Errol+backfiring · 2019-03-04 01:18 · Score: 2
  
  Musk? We need the Thunderbirds! They have a way better Mole. Jokes aside, weight is worse than a swearword in space travel. The hammer is probably as light as possible, or weighted with local rocks, because otherwise it would not have reached the red planet at all. So yeah, you need more blows with a light hammer.
  
  --
  Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
2. Re:Wait a minute.. by Dan+East · 2019-03-04 01:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It should be easy to dig on Mars.
  
  Who said that? A lot of the planet has exposed bedrock just like earth that is impossible to "dig" through.
  Also, this is just a lander with a small impact drill. It wouldn't take much more than a good sized rock to slow it down or stop it. You can see such rocks laying around on the ground near the lander.
  
  --
  Better known as 318230.
3. Re: Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:28 · Score: 0
  
  It depends. Martians are kind of like lemmings so they will probably destroy the probe trying to get control of it and then mope about what could have been
4. Re:Wait a minute.. by Applehu+Akbar · 2019-03-04 01:44 · Score: 2
  
  Space nutter reporting for duty. The point of sending machines like this is to characterize the Martian environment so that by the time humans arrive there will be as few surprises as possible. How hard is the soil? How easy is it to get at ice? Is the soil radioactive (which would be at the same time bad news and good news)? Is the soil differentiated into layers near the surface?
  The more of these questions our robots can answer now, the better our design of habitats will be.
5. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:51 · Score: -1
  
  We're assured by your lies and you quoted you are nothing but SLIMY JEW LYING TRASH fucker https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
6. Re:Wait a minute.. by Oswald+McWeany · 2019-03-04 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  It should be easy to dig on Mars.
  Who said that? A lot of the planet has exposed bedrock just like earth that is impossible to "dig" through.
  Also, this is just a lander with a small impact drill. It wouldn't take much more than a good sized rock to slow it down or stop it. You can see such rocks laying around on the ground near the lander.
  Which is why people would be useful on the surface. They can look for more opportune ways to break through the surface, and even wield tools that no little rover can.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
7. Re:Wait a minute.. by religionofpeas · 2019-03-04 02:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Which is why people would be useful on the surface. They can look for more opportune ways to break through the surface, and even wield tools that no little rover can.
  If you can send people, you can also send a massively bigger rover with heavy tools.
8. Re:Wait a minute.. by Oswald+McWeany · 2019-03-04 02:28 · Score: 2
  
  Which is why people would be useful on the surface. They can look for more opportune ways to break through the surface, and even wield tools that no little rover can.
  If you can send people, you can also send a massively bigger rover with heavy tools.
  But people will still be more efficient at picking the correct place to drill, and not having a delay waiting for responses from base.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
9. Re:Wait a minute.. by joh · 2019-03-04 02:29 · Score: 2
  
  People on the surface wouldn't wield tools with their hands to break through the surface anyway. And landing people (and all they need to survive and to return) means so much more mass that you could just as well deliver a massive automated drilling rig with no people needed.
  The only reason to land people is if you want to land people. And wanting to do this is a fully justified reason to do it. There's no need to find hilarious excuses to do so.
10. Re:Wait a minute.. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Dude, the Nazis all got killed in the 1940s. Didn't you get the memo?
11. Re:Wait a minute.. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, why is this needed? You guys assured me that colonizing Mars is not only possible, but within the reach of current technology. How would you know that unless you already did all the necessary research?
12. Re:Wait a minute.. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  That sounds like a problem. How are we going to get all that construction equipment to Mars? Is there a rental place nearby?
13. Re:Wait a minute.. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  How would you deliver a massive automated drilling rig? Is there an automated drilling rig on Earth that requires no people and no maintenance? If not, why not?
14. Re:Wait a minute.. by joh · 2019-03-04 03:00 · Score: 2
  
  Because on Earth using people as universal bio-robots is much cheaper. What is so hard to understand about that?
  Back in the Apollo days each man hour on the Moon did cost about $1B. If crews for drilling rigs on Earth would cost that much per man hour, there would be only automated drilling rigs. What do you think?
15. Re:Wait a minute.. by religionofpeas · 2019-03-04 03:00 · Score: 2
  
  But people will still be more efficient at picking the correct place to drill, and not having a delay waiting for responses from base.
  I don't believe people are more efficient if you include all the time and effort to transport them to Mars and back, and keeping them alive during their stay.
  The InSight rover is less than 1000 pounds, costs less than $1 billion, and construction started in 2014. Let's compare that to a realistic human mission.
16. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:04 · Score: 0
  
  Which is why people would be useful on the surface. They can look for more opportune ways to break through the surface, and even wield tools that no little rover can.
  If you can send people, you can also send a massively bigger rover with heavy tools.
  But people will still be more efficient at picking the correct place to drill, and not having a delay waiting for responses from base.
  You have a funny definition of efficiency. It’s not like people can just step off the space bus with dousing rods and jackhammer sling over their shoulder like this is Martian Minecraft. It would still be cheaper to dynamite the surface, bag up some rocks, transport them back to earth, then getting a habitat on Mars. For the price of a manned habitat you could send many many more robots.
17. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:07 · Score: 0
  
  Back in the Apollo days each man hour on the Moon did cost about $1B.
  Sheesh, that's almost as much as Bezo's girlfriend cost him.
18. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:08 · Score: 0
  
  then where is the profit to be made?
  what do you think?
19. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:10 · Score: 0
  
  How would you deliver a massive automated drilling rig? Is there an automated drilling rig on Earth that requires no people and no maintenance? If not, why not?
  If we're going to hand wave away the difficulties sending a bunch of scientists and equipment on a one way trip to Mars, then we can also AT LEAST look away from the problems with plunking an automated drilling platform on that rock.
20. Re:Wait a minute.. by tomhath · 2019-03-04 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  How efficient do you think people would be when the temperature is -100 F? Because that's summer on Mars.
21. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:18 · Score: -1
  
  ha
  you fell into the Space Nutter rabbit hole
  these guys are endlessly fascinating aren't they
  with their sci-fi comic book view of the universe
22. Re:Wait a minute.. by tomhath · 2019-03-04 03:40 · Score: 1
  
  The point of sending machines like this is to characterize the Martian environment so that by the time humans arrive
  Reporter is interviewing an elderly farmer:
  Q: Why do you keep plow horses?
  A: I need to grow a crop of oats every year.
  Q: And why do you need to raise a crop of oats every year?
  A:To feed the plow horses
23. Re:Wait a minute.. by Shotgun · 2019-03-04 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  That's what they WANT us to believe. The truth is that they are on the other side of the moon riding dinosaurs. Didn't you watch the documentary?
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
24. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  Simple, ant grunt could tell you that:
  Proper
  Planning
  Prevents
  Piss
  Poor
  Performance
  Here on Earth, companies spend years planning for new endeavors. have you ever heard of a mine being started without drilling test holes or sounding out the layers of strata beneath them?
  More similar to Mars, do you think that the organizations that send people to study Antarctica just drop them off on the runway and say, "We've done this before, no planning needed, just dig a hole and lay in it, we'll be back for you later"?
25. Re: Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  People chose the place this lander is drilling. They took over a month to do so.
26. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  Exploration has never been about efficiency. At the governmental & bureaucratic level we've become so risk-adverse that we seem to be simply running in place. If we'd taken the same risk aversion to atmospheric flight, we'd still be waiting for our first cross-atlantic attempt. Sure, I could find a drone to fly up that mountain - why should I risk life & limb by going myself? Americans once threw everything they owned into wagons to go West, never knowing if they'd survive the enormous risk. We limit our risk these days to virtual, synthetic risk. According to wiki and other sources, we're spending over $2 billion per mission to Mars. That's a lot of money to drill 9-20 inches. Give me a jack hammer, give me a pick axe. My father expected us to have a base on the moon long ago. It's now a big deal to simply get something to the lunar surface. Why is that?
27. Re: Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:47 · Score: 0
  
  Why on earth, erm, why on mars woould the soil be radioactive?
28. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:58 · Score: 0
  
  The atmosphere on Mars is almost a vacuum, so the temperature is almost irrelevant to space-suited astronauts.
29. Re: Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  um, i hope you are joking
  without a magnetosphere like the earth has
  mars is exposed directly to solar radiation and the cosmic background
30. Re:Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 08:58 · Score: 0
  
  Why would you want to transport the people back though?
31. Re:Wait a minute.. by epine · 2019-03-04 11:18 · Score: 1
  
  Which is why people would be useful on the surface. They can look for more opportune ways to break through the surface, and even wield tools that no little rover can.
  When your teleporter pad finally proves itself—less than one melted person per thousand—visit us again, and we'll talk.
  
  In 2008, the price of transporting material from the surface of Earth to the surface of Mars was approximately US$309,000 per kilogram.
  That's very expensive for four days total work on the ground when you decide not to send an air plant because that would weight many thousands of pounds.
32. Re: Wait a minute.. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 12:53 · Score: 0
  
  Why don't you go check? I'm sure musk wouldn't mind if you borrowed his Tesla for a few orbits. Remember though; its hard to check your blind spot in those space helmets, so you better not wear it.
33. Re:Wait a minute.. by painandgreed · 2019-03-05 10:44 · Score: 1
  
  The InSight rover is less than 1000 pounds, costs less than $1 billion, and construction started in 2014. Let's compare that to a realistic human mission.
  A realistic human mission will take about $200 Billion and 30 years for four people to have four months of boots on Mars. That equates to about 200 robot mission to Mars and if the past mars missions, those will get at least a year of service each. We'll assume that's over the same 30 years. This equates to 1.33 man years of research on Mars* versus 200 robot years. Sort of boils down to "Are humans 150 times more efficient than robots at the tasks needed on Mars?" Perhaps on Earth, but there is a lot of time taken up in moving on Mars, dealing with airlocks, and being just as careful as the robots would be. We would probalby have to take a look at the moon missions to see how well those astronauts preformed their tasks to get an idea. We could look at how well previous Mars probes did theirs. Then you could compare and try and get an estimate of which would result in more actual data and the quality of that data.
  *Sure, they could leave some equipment on Mars to, but it would be a very small bit of their payload and people will be sleeping at least a third of the time they're on Mars. We'll just call it a wash.
Re: 400 gerbil gnaws over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:11 · Score: 0

As the gerbil burrows into the soiled walks of APK's rectum, it suffocates and dies.
A great adventure is waiting for you ahead
Hurry onward Lemmiwinks or you will soon be dead
The journey before you may be long and filled with woahs
But you must escape the gay man's ass or your tale can't be told
Lemmiwinks (x4)
SERIOUS QUESTION /. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:45 · Score: 0

Why do SLIMY CHAIMIES like 110010001000 always get caught being LYING SCUM they are https://hardware.slashdot.org/... ?
1. Re:SERIOUS QUESTION /. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 02:04 · Score: -1
  
  They are from JUDENHEIM! The land of subhuman SLIME creating more lying CHAIMS https://hardware.slashdot.org/... hohohohohoho!
2. Re:SERIOUS QUESTION /. by 110010001000 · 2019-03-04 02:37 · Score: 0
  
  I just enjoy lying.
Re: 400 gerbil gnaws over 4 hours by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:47 · Score: -1

Worse to be SLIMY CHAIMIE juden 110010001000 caught lying like JEW FILTH he is revealing it publicly https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
as long as they don't bring probes back 2 ISS... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:50 · Score: 0

... remember LIFE: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5442430/
Fuck Off APK by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:50 · Score: -1

Fuck Off APK
1. Re:Fuck Off APK by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:58 · Score: -1
  
  WTF does apk have to do with you 110010001000 SLIMY lying JEW chaimie caught lying https://hardware.slashdot.org/... ?
"My self-hammering mole" by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 01:59 · Score: 0

Best visual image from a Mars lander ever!
1. Re:"My self-hammering mole" by Oswald+McWeany · 2019-03-04 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you for that AC! Good call-out
  If I ever need to create a new Slashdot account, I think I'll go with "Self-Hammering Mole"
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
Anthropomorphism by ve3oat · 2019-03-04 02:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

"I'm digging Mars." God, I hate it when NASA and other science organizations anthropomorphize everything. It is very unscientific and can give less educated people (most of them voters) the wrong idea about how nature really works. As in, "the virus mutated in order to spread more easily". (I can't find the exact quote now, but you know what I mean.)

So I guess the Insight lander has a personality and a whole PR team to relay its hopes and feelings to its fans and the interested public. If I ask, maybe it will send me an autographed picture. I wonder if Insight writes in block letters or cursive.
1. Re:Anthropomorphism by sbaker · 2019-03-04 03:53 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Yes - this first-person stuff is just really annoying. "My science team..." urgh. The probe doesn't "own" those people - it's the other way around. "I'm working a menial job to provide low level data for a team of brilliant research scientists" would be better. But really? No. Let's no anthropomorphize this stuff - it's beyond annoying. If/when we get true AI, then the computer can speak in the first person...otherwise...hell no.
  
  --
  www.sjbaker.org
2. Re:Anthropomorphism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 04:33 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, we shouldn't anthropomorphise machines.
  They hate that.
3. Re:Anthropomorphism by Tablizer · 2019-03-04 05:27 · Score: 2
  
  I hate it when NASA and other science organizations anthropomorphize everything. It is very unscientific...
  To be fair, the press cherry-picks quotes to publish such that if you say 99 things in a careful and accurate way but 1 thing in anthropomorphized or over-simplified way, that one is more likely to be quoted because it's more relatable to readers and/or more "catchy". The first job of a reporter/editor is to sell readership quantity, not accuracy. That's life under a market-driven press.
  The only solution for science-oriented agencies I can think of would be to funnel everything through a central PR team who carefully vets the phrasing of all info given out, but I don't think voters would want that.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
4. Re:Anthropomorphism by Applehu+Akbar · 2019-03-04 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  Relax. It's just a cutesy way of having InSight "speak for itself" to the media. If NASA used the standard protocol of having press conferences beamed from JPL, they would run the risk that somebody might be wearing some shirt that triggers liberals. ESA is not going to make that mistake again.
5. Re:Anthropomorphism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 07:23 · Score: 0
  
  The only solution for science-oriented agencies I can think of would be to funnel everything through a central PR team who carefully vets the phrasing of all info given out, but I don't think voters would want that.
  PR teams are the problem. I doubt it is scientists behind these stupid Twitter accounts pretending to be machines.
6. Re:Anthropomorphism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 08:20 · Score: 0
  
  "I'm digging Mars." God, I hate it when NASA and other science organizations anthropomorphize everything.
  
  You're just reading it wrong. Use the Ralph Wiggum voice.
  "I'm digging Mars! It tastes like cat food!"
7. Re:Anthropomorphism by GuB-42 · 2019-03-04 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  I find its cute and harmless.
  Also a quick search on Google Scholar lead me to a paper supporting anthropomorphising in education for biology so at least, the idea is not totally unscientific.
8. Re:Anthropomorphism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  It gets worse: that PR team you mentioned? They're exactly the sort of imbeciles you're talking about who anthropomorphize everything. It's like an Idiocracy version of the insane running the asylum. Or perhaps more a propos: it's the inane running the asylum.
9. Re:Anthropomorphism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-05 05:27 · Score: 0
  
  But it is unscientific. It leads to people thinking that the lander is somehow in control, or that the virus can consciously *decide* to mutate in order to gain some self-perceived advantage.
  It might be "cute", but it is totally and harmfully unscientific!
Learn to fucking write already by Hognoxious · 2019-03-04 02:45 · Score: 1

its first subsurface sojourn beneath the surface of the Red Planet
Good thing you clarified that. Otherwise we might have thought it was the other kind of subsurface sojourn - the one that happens twenty feet up in the air.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Probably hit by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:08 · Score: 0

an abandoned martian hyperloop.
Or the buried cache by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 03:11 · Score: 0

of written-off John Carter DVDs.
Really? by nospam007 · 2019-03-04 03:29 · Score: 1

"between 18 to 50 centimeters"
Wow, those depth sensors must have cost a fortune.
1. Re:Really? by Tablizer · 2019-03-04 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  "between 18 to 50 centimeters"
  Wow, those depth sensors must have cost a fortune.
  Somewhere between $18 and $50 million.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
Cold at night [Re:Wait a minute..] by XXongo · 2019-03-04 03:49 · Score: 2

How efficient do you think people would be when the temperature is -100 F? Because that's summer on Mars.
Actually, summer daytime temperatures on Mars get into the double-digit numbers C in the mid latitudes. (That's "above 50 F" for you Farenheiters).
Nights get pretty cold, though.
https://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html
It's a lander [Re:Wait a minute..] by XXongo · 2019-03-04 03:51 · Score: 1

The InSight rover is less than 1000 pounds....
Lander. It doesn't rove.
1. Re:It's a lander [Re:Wait a minute..] by Shotgun · 2019-03-04 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  They could have had both. If they had built a trencher instead of a driller, they could have used the trencher to pull the lander to a slightly different spot. It couldn't go as deep, but a drill gets to look at exactly the one spot that is directly under the semi-random landing spot.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
2. Re:It's a lander [Re:Wait a minute..] by religionofpeas · 2019-03-04 04:17 · Score: 1
  
  Lander. It doesn't rove.
  It's not landing either. Sitter ?
I told you by Shotgun · 2019-03-04 03:59 · Score: 2

Sheesh! Less than two feet in four hours. I told you they should have sent Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck.

--
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
1. Re:I told you by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 11:00 · Score: 0
  
  "... why try and train Driller to be Astronauts and not Astronauts to be Drillers? "
Trench or drill [Re:It's a lander ] by XXongo · 2019-03-04 04:31 · Score: 1

The objective was to do heat-flow measurements. You don't do those with a trench.
Trenching has been done with Viking and Phoenix. (And wheel-trenching with the MER rovers) It's interesting, but doesn't get you very deep below surface.
And no, I doubt you can move a one-ton lander by reaching out and pulling on dirt. The best you might do, if you have a really strong arm, and can grab onto the surface very very strongly, would be to tip it over.
NASA is annoying by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 04:56 · Score: 0

They spend all of their PR efforts on rank bullshit such as answering dopey student questions from space, tweeting space probes and celebrating diversity while completely neglecting substantive science.
NASA is the agency of: L@@k we have big rockets and space drills!!!1!!!!
Rocks all the way down? by Tablizer · 2019-03-04 05:15 · Score: 1

"but obstacles slowed its progress...On its way into the depths, the mole seems to have hit a stone, tilted about 15 degrees and pushed it aside or passed it...The mole then worked its way up against another stone at an advanced depth..."

Mars soil is full of rocks, gee, who would've guessed? What if it hits a rock too big to move? That gizmo may not be strong enough to break through or get around.
Then again, that's what exploration is all about: you don't know what's down there until you actually go. Failure is knowledge.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Dumb question time by quonset · 2019-03-04 06:05 · Score: 1

Is there a reason NASA chose to use hammer blows to dig down rather than a drill or borer? Did it have to do with the amount of energy required to drill compared to hammering?
It would seem a long, slow drilling process would be more beneficial to making a hole than continually pounding into the ground.
1. Re:Dumb question time by Applehu+Akbar · 2019-03-04 07:05 · Score: 1
  
  The hammering process is probably less likely to jam when it encounters rocks.
2. Re:Dumb question time by skullandbones99 · 2019-03-05 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  The so-called "mole" is an impact pile driver. A small mass is moved up inside the "mole" to gain potential energy by compressing against a spring. After releasing the mass, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy due to acceleration by the spring. Upon impact with the inside of the base of the "mole", the kinetic energy is converted into work done (force x distance) by a change in momentum (force x time = mass x velocity (before impact) - mass x velocity (after impact)) which causes the "mole" to apply a force (impulse) into the soil to cause the "mole" to move further into the soil.
  The amount of electrical power (rate of change of energy) is low to compress the spring over say 20 seconds. But when the mass is released, the mechanical power is high due to the short time period say 0.25 seconds for the stored potential energy to be converted. This solution has the benefit of using a sustained about of low electrical power to arm the "mole" so the electrical power budget can be low. A disadvantage is that burrowing will be slow due to the low repetition rate per minute of firing the "mole".
  Advantages of the "mole" over a drill is that the "mole" has no moving external parts and can change angle due to hitting rocks as it burrows down. The tail of the "mole" has temperature sensors so a temperature profile of the soil can be acquired.
Lots of effort by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-04 16:14 · Score: 0

Lots of effort just to get a few inches in during that time of the month. Seriously, wait about a week, or try a little foreplay.