Plutonium Powered Mars Transformer Touches Down

[Bobby Connor]

It's lovely though, an A wing versus a Super Star Destoyer, Aberdeen versus Real Madrid.

 

Get it right in amongst yas!

 

Use the force!

[NorthernLights24]

Awesome picture from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter...

 

 

It'll be interesting to see how long Curiosity can last considering the fact has a nuclear power source. The Opportunity rover is still going after 8 years on the planet.

[Bobby Connor]

Odd how kamikaze attacks on Americans is an atrocity committed by fanatics, but kamikaze attacks BY Americans *cough* The Rebels

[Bobby Connor]

I've seen the 'Methane no sign of life' stuff... but I think that's poorly worded. Methane is a sign of life. Methane simply isn't a guarantee of life. Very distinct difference. There are various possible reasons for the presence of methane, and life certainly cannot be excluded as a potential source simply because alternative sources can be theorised.

 

 

 

NASA's dumbest scientist probably has a hundred IQ points on me on my best day, so I'm not going to say they're going about this the wrong way... although the appeal to authority is a common fallacy, so I'm not going to say they're not wrong

 

What I'll say is that if I were to be given a shot at looking for signs of life on Earth, I wouldn't be sending probes into the Gobi Desert in the hope of maybe running into a fossil...

 

 

I'd be sending my probe to the place with the highest potentiality for finding life, past AND present, and that's anywhere there's water.

 

 

I very much doubt that.

[Bobby Connor]

I'll just stick to pointing my probe wherever it may be gratefully received...

[BrianFaePerth]

So how long is Johnny-5 going to be rolling round the various hoods of Mars, until he needs to recharge?

[Karl Fletcher]

So how long is Johnny-5 going to be rolling round the various hoods of Mars, until he needs to recharge?

 

They said it could be well over 10 years.

 

And it could also be well over 10 years before they find something so it's a slow burner.

 

The whole thing is totally fascinating to me, would be so exciting if life was found on Mars, no matter how small a form it comes in.

 

Or equally as exciting, Martian Fossils

[bonzodaddy73]

ill try again, does anyone know about slime fungus?

 

really opened my eyes last night watching a documentary on it

 

My daughter just told me that Trolls eat it in Barbie Mermaidia.

 

Problem solved

 

 

 

[Bluto10]

get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....

[vanderark14]

get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....

 

:laughing: :laughing:

[dunc_afc]

Is it not incredibly difficult to land a spacecraft at the polar regions of a planet? Something which nasa would have to take into account when spending years and vast amounts of money on a project.

[BrianFaePerth]

Is it not incredibly difficult to land a spacecraft at the polar regions of a planet? Something which nasa would have to take into account when spending years and vast amounts of money on a project.

 

Aye, as was the sensible decision no tae have a woman near the controls.

[bonzodaddy73]

its an incredible thing

 

a scientist laid out porridge oats, exactly replicating the train stations in tokyo

 

he then put a blob of this slime fungus in the middle and set up a timer camera thing, one which they could speed up and watch what happens

 

the fungus splaid itself out, engulfing all the porridge oats...but incredibly, then pulled itself back on, only leaving a network of "veins" connecting each porridge oat to each other

 

thus, only using up as much resources as it had to, while at the same time, leaving a back-up vein incase the primary one was severed

 

whats particularly astonishing, is that when a graphic of the train station positioning was laid over the network the fungus made...the fungus was said to be more efficient!!!

 

explain that!

 

Where were you watching that mate?

[bonzodaddy73]

bbc4 documentary last night, based around how stuff decays!

 

Will keep an eye out for it as bbc4 tend to repeat their stuff fairly regularly.

[Ando]

bbc4 documentary last night, based around how stuff decays!

 

Watched that as well, absolutely brilliant programme. The part about the slime mould was incredible.

 

Reference to it here in an old article from the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8473316.stm

[Terrorfex]

The primary limiting factor of Curiosity is going to be its wheel bearings and locomotive motors, rather then necessarily its power source. The dust that whips around Mars gets everywhere, into every nook and cranny and it's as abrasive as sandpaper. Still, the design of Spirit and Opportunity (previous Martian rovers) meant they operated well past their original lifetimes and lessons learned there will have been factored into Curiosity's design.

 

Also, losing touch with extant probes to Mars is nothing new. It's spawned a bit of a legend; "The Curse of the Red Planet". Taken from everyone's favourite on-line encyclopedia:

 

 

 

The high failure rate of missions launched from Earth attempting to explore Mars was informally called the "Mars Curse" or "Martian Curse". The phrase "Galactic Ghoul" or "Great Galactic Ghoul", referring to a fictitious space monster which subsists on a diet of Mars probes, was coined in 1997 by Time Magazine journalist Donald Neff, and is sometimes facetiously used to "explain" the recurring difficulties.

 

Of 38 launches from Earth in an attempt to reach the planet, only 19 have succeeded, and As of November 2011, the success rate is 50%. Twelve of the missions included attempts to land on the surface, but only seven transmitted data after landing. The majority of the failed missions occurred in the early years of space exploration and were part of the Soviet and later Russian Mars probe program that suffered several technical difficulties. Modern missions have an improved success rate; however, the challenge, complexity and length of the missions make it likely that failures will occur.

 

The U.S. NASA Mars exploration program has had a somewhat better record of success in Mars exploration, achieving success in 14 out of 21 missions launched (a 66% success rate), and succeeding in seven out of eight (an 87.5% success rate) lander missions

 

After Viking concluded in the early 1980s, a difficult period of failures began. Two Soviet probes were sent to Mars in 1988 as part of the Phobos program. Phobos 1 operated nominally until an expected communications session on 2 September 1988 failed to occur. The problem was traced to a software error, which deactivated attitude thrusters causing the spacecrafts' solar arrays to no longer point at the Sun, depleting Phobos 1 batteries. Phobos 2 operated nominally throughout its cruise and Mars orbital insertion phases on January 29, 1989, gathering data on the Sun, interplanetary medium, Mars, and Phobos. Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile 'hopper', the other a stationary platform, contact with Phobos 2 was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on March 27, 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer.

Just a few years later Mars Observer failed as it approached Mars. Mars 96, an orbiter launched on November 16, 1996 by Russia failed, when the planned second burn of the Block D-2 fourth stage did not occur.

 

Following the success of Global Surveyor and Pathfinder, another spate of failures occurred in 1998 and 1999, with the Japanese Nozomi orbiter and NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2 penetrators all suffering various fatal errors. Mars Climate Orbiter is infamous for Lockheed Martin engineers mixing up the usage of English units with metric units, causing the orbiter to burn up while entering Mars' atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

A portrait of all the probes that have ever been sent to The Red Planet.

[tup]

Will keep an eye out for it as bbc4 tend to repeat their stuff fairly regularly.

 

A bit of common ground between the channel and MT then.

[tightbreeks]

get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....get your ass to mars.....

open your mind...open your miiiind

 

two weeks...two weeeks...two weeeeeks

[NorthernLights24]

Cool interactive panorama taken by Curiosity - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19296006

[Ke1t]

Curiosity finished with all its checks and suchlike, already lazorgunned a rock and combed its hair, and tomorrow it's off on a 7km drive across the floor of the Gale Crater.

 

I appreciate the data will be heavily vetted and censored, but I'm geeked as shit about this Rover. It's a beautiful thing.

 

 

Couple of things were pointed out about this Rover.

 

It has headlights, and it has a plutonium power system.

 

Given it won't be going anywhere at night, and solar works just fine for the other rovers, who ran for longer than the Curiosity mission is planned for, without the danger associated with radioactive power plants, what kind of plans do they have for Curiosity in terms of destination?

 

The guy who pointed this out reckons it's going inside something (a cave possibly) where headlights will be required and sunlight won't be able to power it via solar cells.

 

He actually speculated an arcology.

[Bebo]

Curiosity finished with all its checks and suchlike, already lazorgunned a rock and combed its hair, and tomorrow it's off on a 7km drive across the floor of the Gale Crater.

 

I appreciate the data will be heavily vetted and censored, but I'm geeked as shit about this Rover. It's a beautiful thing.

 

 

Couple of things were pointed out about this Rover.

 

It has headlights, and it has a plutonium power system.

 

Given it won't be going anywhere at night, and solar works just fine for the other rovers, who ran for longer than the Curiosity mission is planned for, without the danger associated with radioactive power plants, what kind of plans do they have for Curiosity in terms of destination?

 

The guy who pointed this out reckons it's going inside something (a cave possibly) where headlights will be required and sunlight won't be able to power it via solar cells.

 

He actually speculated an arcology.

 

Inside a cave? And how would they be able to transmit instructions to and from the planet surface back to the satellite around mars then back to earth, while presumably blocked by its surroundings.

[Ke1t]

Inside a cave? And how would they be able to transmit instructions to and from the planet surface back to the satellite around mars then back to earth, while presumably blocked by its surroundings.

 

That's a fucking good point... though I'd imagine it would't be beyond the realms of possibility that a tether could be present to allow limited exploration for a few tens of meters.

 

EDIT: I should mention that my own opinion is that, being in a deep depression (the Gale Crater) there's going to be a lot of dark areas that need to be lit up, and a lot of shadow from the walls of the crater that limit the amount of sunlight getting to Curiosity.

 

I think cave exploration is a little beyond a wheeled rover, though it would be fascinating to consider given the wealth of material found in caves on Earth.

 

Sheltered from solar radiation, brutal sandstorms, and at a relatively stable temperature, who knows what might be creeping around out of sight of the surface.

[spamspamspam]

Inside a cave? And how would they be able to transmit instructions to and from the planet surface back to the satellite around mars then back to earth, while presumably blocked by its surroundings.

 

I maybe completely wrong here but doesnt it do most of its shit automatically?

 

I thought it was programmed to search for interesting shit then fire lasers or cook the interesting shit before sending back the information from zapping the interesting shit.

 

So, couldnt NASA just send a message saying go into that hole and look for interesting shit?

[Ke1t]

I maybe completely wrong here but doesnt it do most of its shit automatically?

 

I thought it was programmed to search for interesting shit then fire lasers or cook the interesting shit before sending back the information from zapping the interesting shit.

 

So, couldnt NASA just send a message saying go into that hole and look for interesting shit?

 

Problem being you wouldn't want to be out of contact with the Rover, which you ordinarily would be if it went into a cave .

 

But, again, there are ways around that.

[Bebo]

I maybe completely wrong here but doesnt it do most of its shit automatically?

 

I thought it was programmed to search for interesting shit then fire lasers or cook the interesting shit before sending back the information from zapping the interesting shit.

 

So, couldnt NASA just send a message saying go into that hole and look for interesting shit?

 

Nope. Pretty sure it's driven manually, with a delay of like 7 minutes. Mental.

[spamspamspam]

Nope. Pretty sure it's driven manually, with a delay of like 7 minutes. Mental.

 

Na, just checked, its driven by programmers who program it daily so they could send it into a cave.

 

My link

[Bebo]

Na, just checked, its driven by programmers who program it daily so they could send it into a cave.

 

My link

 

I think there is a difference between pointing in a direction and sending it on its way and sending it down an unmapped cave. If it gets stuck on the surface you can relay pictures back. If it gets stuck down a cave, well, you aint got a datalink to relay any of your surroundings back.

 

But maybe kelt is right, maybe they have a droppable wifi antenna with a very long ethernet cable.

[Ke1t]

I think there is a difference between pointing in a direction and sending it on its way and sending it down an unmapped cave. If it gets stuck on the surface you can relay pictures back. If it gets stuck down a cave, well, you aint got a datalink to relay any of your surroundings back.

 

But maybe kelt is right, maybe they have a droppable wifi antenna with a very long ethernet cable.

 

 

Not exactly what I was getting at.

 

Remote submersibles maintain radio contact via tethers. It wouldn't take up much space, or technological nous to employa means by which to transmit to and from dead spots.

 

It might even make sense to have such a thing on board for purely surface missions.

[Bebo]

Not exactly what I was getting at.

 

Remote submersibles maintain radio contact via tethers. It wouldn't take up much space, or technological nous to employa means by which to transmit to and from dead spots.

 

It might even make sense to have such a thing on board for purely surface missions.

 

This was my interpretation of what you were meaning.

 

[Ke1t]

This was my interpretation of what you were meaning.

 

 

 

OOTEENEE!