Ah, just as i suspected, the age old 'they failed, it was over engineered, it should have only lasted 95 days, blah blah blah' shtick.
For the umpteenth time, *it was deliberate* they knew they could not get approval for the budget for a rover designed to last years and years, because of the long standing 'what if it breaks early? then the money is wasted right?' attitude.
NASA knew what it would cost to build a decent rover, so they pitched it at 90 days, that way if it flakes out, it does not look like a huge failure.
They build an excellent rover on (what is thought to be) a 90 day rover budget, send it up, and 95 days later, they can say 'look! this 90 day rover we made is doing great! it well outlasted our expectations! its way cheeper for us to keep driving it around than to build a new one and send it, can we get a little more funding?'
I'm confident NASA knew full well what it was doing when it built and sent these rovers. (They probably even had at least rough outlines of things to do with them in the event of an extended project life.)
and if your in orbit, sonic boom becomes irrelevant, because there's no air to make the pressure wave in the first place. Unfortunately, sub-orbital intercontinental passenger flights would cost even more than the concord did to operate.
Ok, I concede your point. On the other hand, I think you'd need to be certifiably insane to voluntarily pay over 2000$ to be crammed into a economy class seat for 11 hours. (granted, that price is for a flight later today, but the point remains) a good portion of people don't look for nonstop flights, when its possible to get a itinerary that allows you to get out of the sardine can for a few hours and walk to change planes.
there have been some pretty nifty advances in low friction coatings for all sorts of things, ranging from ships to those dumb looking super-suits that the ice skate racers wear. i imagine that some of these could be adapted to air travel with positive results.
Personally, with the deadly safety record of swimming (sharks, jellyfish, cramps, exhaustion) i think I'd rather just stay home and look at pictures of cats on the internet.
many of those flights do not exist, or are 'over the pole' flights. (seriously, LA to Paris? its a 2 stage flight. LA to NY, then NY to Paris, at best.)
don't feel like checking the other, but i did once do the research on cuban cigars, and you are correct on that count. American citizens, no mater there location on the planet, are not supposed to buy them. (unless they happen to be senators, congressmen, the president, etc, in which case they are allowed to purchase no more than 100 cigars per year for there own personal use. go figure that the people that made the law would leave themselves a loophole)
so its a planetary gearbox with a motor on it. the point is, no one seems to have done *exactly* this with one. making it new, unique, and interesting. It does bear some resemblance to the prius transmission, but its not exactly the same. Quit raining on our crazy parade!
i figure they tow the car the same way they tow many types of automatic vehicles. lift the engine connected wheels of the ground, and let the non-powered wheels spin. however, you do make a good point, that a mechanical disconnect from the motor is still needed, at least for potential maintenance and service reasons.
the torque of the motor on the control shaft is of no consequence. watch it again. all it has to do is turn the gear, which effects the way the other gears turn against each-other, it is not like you put two motors torquing against each-other. watch it again.
you are right, recirculating fluid via a pump makes a LOT of heat. in lots of large tractors, there is a special separate radiator for cooling the hydraulic fluid.
this is incorrect, my family's last manual transmission car went over 300,000 miles before we gave it away, and the clutch never once showed any hint of trouble. replaced the timing belt twice, but the clutch was in fine shape.
heck, if we're going with anecdotal evidence, my entire immediate family can attest to an event of ball lightning launching itself out of a box fan into the middle of the living room, wandering a bit, then vanishing.
because they are on opposite sides of the planet, and move so slowly, that it would take lso long to drive one to the other that it would be your grandchildren who got to see it done.
you obviously come from a time *after* TV repairmen. once, it was considered a virtue to design things that lasted for ages. Its our modern wasteful profit mongering way to design things to fail.
Personally, I commend them for designing the thing as well as they did, because really, the cost of getting a new rover up there every year far outweighs the cost of continued support for this one. Add in the increased chances of losing a rover during launch or re-entry on mars, and it makes even more sense to get all the bang for your buck you can out of one rover.
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Ah, just as i suspected, the age old 'they failed, it was over engineered, it should have only lasted 95 days, blah blah blah' shtick.
For the umpteenth time, *it was deliberate* they knew they could not get approval for the budget for a rover designed to last years and years, because of the long standing 'what if it breaks early? then the money is wasted right?' attitude.
NASA knew what it would cost to build a decent rover, so they pitched it at 90 days, that way if it flakes out, it does not look like a huge failure.
They build an excellent rover on (what is thought to be) a 90 day rover budget, send it up, and 95 days later, they can say 'look! this 90 day rover we made is doing great! it well outlasted our expectations! its way cheeper for us to keep driving it around than to build a new one and send it, can we get a little more funding?' I'm confident NASA knew full well what it was doing when it built and sent these rovers. (They probably even had at least rough outlines of things to do with them in the event of an extended project life.)
and if your in orbit, sonic boom becomes irrelevant, because there's no air to make the pressure wave in the first place. Unfortunately, sub-orbital intercontinental passenger flights would cost even more than the concord did to operate.
Ok, I concede your point. On the other hand, I think you'd need to be certifiably insane to voluntarily pay over 2000$ to be crammed into a economy class seat for 11 hours. (granted, that price is for a flight later today, but the point remains) a good portion of people don't look for nonstop flights, when its possible to get a itinerary that allows you to get out of the sardine can for a few hours and walk to change planes.
The cold war kinda made for a great motivator. SR71 is still hands down the most incredible aircraft in the world in my opinion.
there have been some pretty nifty advances in low friction coatings for all sorts of things, ranging from ships to those dumb looking super-suits that the ice skate racers wear. i imagine that some of these could be adapted to air travel with positive results.
Personally, with the deadly safety record of swimming (sharks, jellyfish, cramps, exhaustion) i think I'd rather just stay home and look at pictures of cats on the internet.
mildly nauseating with a chance of abdominal cramping and death?
many of those flights do not exist, or are 'over the pole' flights. (seriously, LA to Paris? its a 2 stage flight. LA to NY, then NY to Paris, at best.)
don't feel like checking the other, but i did once do the research on cuban cigars, and you are correct on that count. American citizens, no mater there location on the planet, are not supposed to buy them. (unless they happen to be senators, congressmen, the president, etc, in which case they are allowed to purchase no more than 100 cigars per year for there own personal use. go figure that the people that made the law would leave themselves a loophole)
How many innocent people is it ok to imprison for life? 10000? 1000? 100?
"Some."
its also a great way to promote interest in firearms!
so the real question is; was Red Steel 2 any good? the first one sorta sucked.
so its a planetary gearbox with a motor on it. the point is, no one seems to have done *exactly* this with one. making it new, unique, and interesting. It does bear some resemblance to the prius transmission, but its not exactly the same. Quit raining on our crazy parade!
i figure they tow the car the same way they tow many types of automatic vehicles. lift the engine connected wheels of the ground, and let the non-powered wheels spin. however, you do make a good point, that a mechanical disconnect from the motor is still needed, at least for potential maintenance and service reasons.
the torque of the motor on the control shaft is of no consequence. watch it again. all it has to do is turn the gear, which effects the way the other gears turn against each-other, it is not like you put two motors torquing against each-other. watch it again.
you are right, recirculating fluid via a pump makes a LOT of heat. in lots of large tractors, there is a special separate radiator for cooling the hydraulic fluid.
nothing bad. because he demonstrated that, and nothing bad happened.
i think he was talking about wind turbines. even if he was not, the comment does apply there as well.
like a train. big train engines use the diesel engines to power generators, that in turn power the electric motors that drive the wheels.
this is incorrect, my family's last manual transmission car went over 300,000 miles before we gave it away, and the clutch never once showed any hint of trouble. replaced the timing belt twice, but the clutch was in fine shape.
heck, if we're going with anecdotal evidence, my entire immediate family can attest to an event of ball lightning launching itself out of a box fan into the middle of the living room, wandering a bit, then vanishing.
because they are on opposite sides of the planet, and move so slowly, that it would take lso long to drive one to the other that it would be your grandchildren who got to see it done.
you obviously come from a time *after* TV repairmen. once, it was considered a virtue to design things that lasted for ages. Its our modern wasteful profit mongering way to design things to fail.
Personally, I commend them for designing the thing as well as they did, because really, the cost of getting a new rover up there every year far outweighs the cost of continued support for this one.
Add in the increased chances of losing a rover during launch or re-entry on mars, and it makes even more sense to get all the bang for your buck you can out of one rover.
who pissed in your cherios today?
It still amazes me how long these rovers have lasted. hopefully it makes it to the crater, and lasts for a long time once it gets there.