The Pancam Mast Assembly (PMA) allows the cameras to rotate a full 360Â to obtain a panoramic view of the Martian landscape. The camera bar itself can swing up or down through 180Â of elevation. Scientists will use Pancam to scan the horizon of Mars for landforms that may indicate a past history of water. They will also use the instrument to create a map of the area where the rover lands, as well as search for interesting rocks and soils to study.
The Pancam cameras are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand (270 grams or about 9 ounces), but can generate panoramic image mosaics as large as 4,000 pixels high and 24,000 pixels around. Pancam detectors are CCDs (charge coupled devices). These devices form the image, just as film does in a film camera.
As far as selling images go, well, you'll probably be able to download some next January, keep your fingers crossed for some sort of stereoscopic ones...
According to the recent email to the kde-devel mail list, the fix for the SSL vulnerability is in KDE CVS and the stable KDE 3.0.x branch and will be part of the 3.0.3 release next week.
Global Surveyor is alive and working well, in tandem with 2001 Mars Odyssey. The loss of the Climate Orbiter was because of the units mixup. The loss of the Polar Lander was determined to be likely due to premature landing rocket shut-off.
C3L is the specific energy needed at launch to enter the transfer orbit from earth orbit. It's the square of the delta-V, I believe, and its a common number used to select a launch vehicle. Given a certain mass that you want to insert into Mars orbit, a Delta rocket, for example, would only provide a certain amount of C3, and if that isn't sufficient according to the porkchop plots, it's a no-go.
The reason you have two local minimums on the plot is because one set is for a Type I orbit, traveling less than 180 degrees in the transfer orbit, and a Type II, traveling between 180 and 360 degrees.
Well, at first glance at http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/spinoffs2.htm, my two favorites are the space pen and the football helmet, though you may prefer the medical imaging, plastic packaging, and fire fighting equipment.
Yeah, it's a kiddie page, but there are plenty of sources for real valuable spin-offs...
It seems that the spammers and trolls have scared a lot of people away from Usenet and thus have left themselves as there's no one left. The s/n ratios are the highest I've seen in years.
It is early yet, and very little coffee has entered my system, but do you not mean to say that the s/n ratios are low?
freewwweb.com works with any computer that supports the standard dial-up protocols. I use it in Linux everyday. I also use worldshare regularly as my backup when Freewwweb is busy. Neither of your statements is true.
Not quite. According to http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds 2/tech/tech.html, the probes communicate with Mars Global Surveyor in orbit. No communications link with the lander is needed. Also, I believe the big radio telescopes at Stanford are powerful enough to hear radio signals at least from the lander. Anyway, since MGS heard nothing, the conclusion is that all three failed. Since a triple failure is very very remote, it would seem to me that a failure before separation is much more likely. This "there's a big hole there" theory doesn't scan quite right...
I'd like to point out that the reporting on this story is very muddy. None of the science writers seem to know how to use the words force, velocity, impulse, or energy correctly in a sentence, nor which units go with which measurements.
As a result, JPL engineers mistook acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds for a metric measure of force called newton-seconds.
The navigators, in turn, performed their analysis of the spacecraft's position in space based on the assumption that the descriptions of these firings were in metric units of force per second (newtons). In fact, the numbers instead represented pounds (of force per second).
But, basically, Lockheed was providing the JetPropulsion Laboratory with data on the amount of energy imparted to the spacecraft by its thrusters that are fired periodically. This was measured in pound-seconds, Hinners said.
Energy is not measured in pound-seconds! Perhaps an energy change was indicated by a reading in pound-seconds, but it's erroneous to write that energy is measured in those units.
It looks to me that either a Reuters, AP, or some press release initially confused impulses with force, and the error has propogated through every major news organization in the country. Either that, or quite a few science writers would seem to think that the general public has no real idea about what they're reading and couldn't care less if it's technically correct. Something should be written about the correct relationship between force, impulse, and energy using the words correctly in a sentence, along with the correct units of measurement so that some education of the American public comes of this.
Or it could be that I'm being too nit-picky. Sue me for being an engineer...
Many of these would use optical interferometry to get better resolution, much as is presently done with arrays of radio telescopes. This does *not* allow you to detect fainter objects - it _does_ let you see details more clearly in objects that you _can_ see, though.
Let me qualify that a little. An interferometer with two small mirrors placed 100m apart can give you as much detection capability as a 100m diameter monolithic telescope. The big hurdle for these interferometers is to null out the light from the parent star so they don't get blinded...
The Keck Observatory in Hawaii is one of the prominent ground-based interferometers. I believe they're set to do large baseline interferometry pretty soon. As for the NASA mission, it's called TPF for Terrestrial Planet Finder and is slated for 2010 or thereabouts. Present mission is to base the instrument in a solar orbit at about 1 au. A Jupiter sized (5.2 au) orbit was considered for a while, but the flight times were pretty long. The Eurpoeans are also playing around with a mission called Darwin.
The Terrestrial Planet Finder is a NASA mission slated for the 2009-2012 launch range which will interferometrically detect terrestrial-massed planets... the mission has a preliminary web page here. Even more excited, the mission beyond TPF, called the Planet Imager right now, would actually put a 50x50 pixel spread image on the planet...
And I do so love using the word "interferometrically"...
A comparable situation would be if the US were to ever go completely metric. What would we do with terms like "inching along" and "milestone" and "10-gallon hat"? Whenever something comes along which radically changes the worldview or the "normal" way of things, grammatical artifacts always result.
Interesting theological question. I'd probably throw these extra-solar planets in with their parent stars, which would put them on the fourth day. As for the firmaments on them, well, I would imagine they would be included, too.
Though, from your statement, it sounds as though you don't expect the Christian media to believe the discoveries?
Slashdot Mirror
Again, you're telling me this President got _more_ of the popular vote this time around?
err, yes?
MER has a Panoramic Camera on top of the arm.
As far as selling images go, well, you'll probably be able to download some next January, keep your fingers crossed for some sort of stereoscopic ones...
According to the recent email to the kde-devel mail list, the fix for the SSL vulnerability is in KDE CVS and the stable KDE 3.0.x branch and will be part of the 3.0.3 release next week.
The losing side... is always called the rebels, don't you know?
Well, at least until they found the New Republic...
Global Surveyor is alive and working well, in tandem with 2001 Mars Odyssey. The loss of the Climate Orbiter was because of the units mixup. The loss of the Polar Lander was determined to be likely due to premature landing rocket shut-off.
OK, another reply to same parent. This page gives a pretty good explanation of the equations and calculations for the hyperbolic escape orbit.
> if we only knew what the blue "C3L" lines mean!
C3L is the specific energy needed at launch to enter the transfer orbit from earth orbit. It's the square of the delta-V, I believe, and its a common number used to select a launch vehicle. Given a certain mass that you want to insert into Mars orbit, a Delta rocket, for example, would only provide a certain amount of C3, and if that isn't sufficient according to the porkchop plots, it's a no-go.
The reason you have two local minimums on the plot is because one set is for a Type I orbit, traveling less than 180 degrees in the transfer orbit, and a Type II, traveling between 180 and 360 degrees.
Thanks for pointing that out...missed it the first time.
Well, at first glance at http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/spinoffs2.htm, my two favorites are the space pen and the football helmet, though you may prefer the medical imaging, plastic packaging, and fire fighting equipment.
Yeah, it's a kiddie page, but there are plenty of sources for real valuable spin-offs...
in the words of hienlein (I think), "once you are on the moon, you are halfway to anywhere"
Perhaps you're thinking of "Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System", which is indeed a quote from Robert Heinlein
According to http://ifmp.nasa.gov/codeb/budget2002/03_multiyear _budget.pdf, the proposed 2002 NASA budget is $5.584 billion. According to http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/usbudget/blueprint/ budx.html, the total outlays for the 2002 US Budget is $1.969 trillion. According to my math, that's less than 0.3%. And then, the shuttle budget is of course less than half the total NASA budget...
The twin failures of the Martian Chemical Orbiter and the Martian Polar Lander in 1999 have ...
Should be Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, if I recall correctly...
It is early yet, and very little coffee has entered my system, but do you not mean to say that the s/n ratios are low?
freewwweb.com works with any computer that supports the standard dial-up protocols. I use it in Linux everyday. I also use worldshare regularly as my backup when Freewwweb is busy. Neither of your statements is true.
Not quite. According to http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds 2/tech/tech.html, the probes communicate with Mars Global Surveyor in orbit. No communications link with the lander is needed. Also, I believe the big radio telescopes at Stanford are powerful enough to hear radio signals at least from the lander. Anyway, since MGS heard nothing, the conclusion is that all three failed. Since a triple failure is very very remote, it would seem to me that a failure before separation is much more likely. This "there's a big hole there" theory doesn't scan quite right...
I'd like to point out that the reporting on this story is very muddy. None of the science writers seem to know how to use the words force, velocity, impulse, or energy correctly in a sentence, nor which units go with which measurements.
I'd like to offer the following as evidence:
Their computers used the metric term newtons, or grams per second of force, to send final course and velocity commands to the Mars-bound spacecraft.
A newton is not a gram per second!
As a result, JPL engineers mistook acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds for a metric measure of force called newton-seconds.
Force is not measured in newton-seconds!
The navigators, in turn, performed their analysis of the spacecraft's position in space based on the assumption that the descriptions of these firings were in metric units of force per second (newtons). In fact, the numbers instead represented pounds (of force per second).
A pound is not force per second!
But, basically, Lockheed was providing the JetPropulsion Laboratory with data on the amount of energy imparted to the spacecraft by its thrusters that are fired periodically. This was measured in pound-seconds, Hinners said.
Energy is not measured in pound-seconds! Perhaps an energy change was indicated by a reading in pound-seconds, but it's erroneous to write that energy is measured in those units.
It looks to me that either a Reuters, AP, or some press release initially confused impulses with force, and the error has propogated through every major news organization in the country. Either that, or quite a few science writers would seem to think that the general public has no real idea about what they're reading and couldn't care less if it's technically correct. Something should be written about the correct relationship between force, impulse, and energy using the words correctly in a sentence, along with the correct units of measurement so that some education of the American public comes of this.
Or it could be that I'm being too nit-picky. Sue me for being an engineer...
Robby
A-ha, thanks for pointing that out. I was just racking my brain for term which didn't use a unit of length...
Many of these would use optical interferometry to get better resolution, much as is presently done with arrays of radio telescopes. This does *not* allow you to detect fainter objects - it _does_ let you see details more clearly in objects that you _can_ see, though.
Let me qualify that a little. An interferometer with two small mirrors placed 100m apart can give you as much detection capability as a 100m diameter monolithic telescope. The big hurdle for these interferometers is to null out the light from the parent star so they don't get blinded...
The Keck Observatory in Hawaii is one of the prominent ground-based interferometers. I believe they're set to do large baseline interferometry pretty soon. As for the NASA mission, it's called TPF for Terrestrial Planet Finder and is slated for 2010 or thereabouts. Present mission is to base the instrument in a solar orbit at about 1 au. A Jupiter sized (5.2 au) orbit was considered for a while, but the flight times were pretty long. The Eurpoeans are also playing around with a mission called Darwin.
The Terrestrial Planet Finder is a NASA mission slated for the 2009-2012 launch range which will interferometrically detect terrestrial-massed planets... the mission has a preliminary web page here. Even more excited, the mission beyond TPF, called the Planet Imager right now, would actually put a 50x50 pixel spread image on the planet...
And I do so love using the word "interferometrically"...
A comparable situation would be if the US were to ever go completely metric. What would we do with terms like "inching along" and "milestone" and "10-gallon hat"? Whenever something comes along which radically changes the worldview or the "normal" way of things, grammatical artifacts always result.
Interesting theological question. I'd probably throw these extra-solar planets in with their parent stars, which would put them on the fourth day. As for the firmaments on them, well, I would imagine they would be included, too.
Though, from your statement, it sounds as though you don't expect the Christian media to believe the discoveries?
But then you miss the fun of listing the top 10 lowest scores! Those go right along with the top 10 highest scores or whatever...
/."
Hey new ego trip. Put a button on your web site - "I have a top 10 lowest rated comment at
(or maybe that should bottom 10?)
Rob for president!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!