no beach volleyball? You were really excited!!!!
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I it would be nice to know why that rover needed such a complicated landing process, whereas past rovers could do with just a mix of parachutes and airbags."Which is better, eternal happiness or a ham sandwich? It would appear that eternal happiness is better, but this is really not so! After all, nothing is better than eternal happiness, and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness."
- Raymond M. Smullyan
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Originally posted by Snake View PostI it would be nice to know why that rover needed such a complicated landing process, whereas past rovers could do with just a mix of parachutes and airbags.
-It is a quite heavy rover (a bit less 1 Ton ~ the weight of a car like a old VW Polo, or a F1 car) and the previous probes where lighter. Mars Pathfinder's robot, Sojourner was barely 10 kg! Opportunity is less than 200 kg.
-It is more delicate, and also they were looking for a high precision landing; they wanted it to land in an area with an error of some tens of meters, instead of "let's throw it over there and if it ends up 5 km doesnt' really matter".
-Landing processes need improvement if they want to send better instruments and eventually people.
In the CGI reconstructions they published before the landing, it is interesthing to see how after dropping the rover, the lander lift off again and rockets again to the sky: that is for avoiding falling near the robot and potentially contaminating the scene or just blocking it.
Extra: it doesn't look for life, at all. It doesn't have this capability. It will study the geology of the area where it landed to try to find out the environmental conditions of Mars past, so we can work out better what happened over there in the past.Last edited by Jorge; 08-08-2012, 08:04 PM.«The trouble with the world is that the stupid is cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt»
Bertrand Russell.
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^Ok, that clears it up.
The CGI reconstruction is bad ass. I had already seen it some months ago. Lets hope that this new rover is able to discover really neat stuff. Or if it can't find it, than at least be able to take some great photos of the landscape."Which is better, eternal happiness or a ham sandwich? It would appear that eternal happiness is better, but this is really not so! After all, nothing is better than eternal happiness, and a ham sandwich is certainly better than nothing. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness."
- Raymond M. Smullyan
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^Well, if will do for sure. It is already doing it: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ms.../pia16013.html
It will take months to have scientific papers published with results. In the meantime, the Mars Science Laboratory can be followed in Tweeter and Facebook
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In one week I will be again in Germany, in Lübeck!«The trouble with the world is that the stupid is cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt»
Bertrand Russell.
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@ Jorge - Lübeck sounds great, I'm sure you'll have fun there.
http://www.neonsplash.de/ I going there tomorrow with two other Finnish Au pairs. It's going to be a blast even though the music isn't probably the best possible. 22.30-06.00.. Fine by me.''Seitdem ich Guitar Rig 3 benutze, fühlt sich mein Haar viel voller an!'' - Paul Landers
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Back to work after a fantasticly wonderful week off
Thought i would have pages to catch up on but i have not missed as much as i thought!!
Maya, will reply to your message after work, hope all ok with youThe saying is "You dont know what you have got till its gone" the truth is "You know what you had, you just did not know you would lose it" !!
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