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Keep Nation bragging and the political debate out. |
On August 06 2012 16:39 Bobgrimly wrote:
So yes if you are a scientist this would be interesting. I love the idea of exploring space but missions like this kill any belief it will ever happen. Put a man back on the moon! Then worry about mars.
What would putting a man on the moon give us? Putting one of those rovers on the moon would be cheaper and give us more worth in exploration. Putting a man on Mars and then sending it back is the same thing, it gives us nothing a machine can't give us except PR and hopefully a change of attitude in people.
Planning to put one there and not sending it back gives a whole lot since you have to solve how that person will stay alive without support from Earth for every little thing (as the space station get).
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On August 06 2012 16:44 foehammer wrote:
Anyone know what happens to the skycrane when it flies away?
It will do something it is intended to do, transform into a robot and discuss Diplomacy with the Martians. While Curiosity sends us "information" about Martial atmosphere, rocks, and dust, ;>
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United Kingdom3482 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bpyXn.png)
They are getting some higher res images.
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have they brought another camera (or lens) along? i hope we are getting more than low-res B&W images taken with a fisheye lens.
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United Kingdom3482 Posts
On August 06 2012 16:57 phosphorylation wrote:
have they brought another camera (or lens) along? i hope we are getting more than low-res B&W images taken with a fisheye lens.
These are just the hazard cams to stop it crashing into rocks or falling down big holes etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Instruments
MastCam: This system provides multiple spectra and true color imaging with two cameras. The cameras can take true color images at 1600×1200 pixels and up to 10 frames per second hardware-compressed, high-definition video at 720p (1280×720).
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Jesus the surface of Mars is always astounding.
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This is so awesome. I have been waiting years for this! Cant wait to see what a nuclear powered Rover can do with none of the limitations Spirit and Opportunity had.  Exiting times
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wp NASA wp. I just got back from my friend's house for a landing party. We had champagne ready for success and I am very happy that we got to drink it.
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On August 06 2012 17:05 Medrea wrote:
4 AM east coast 0.0
"I'M SORRY!"
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Gold medal for NASA in the 563 billion meters
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One of the complications of this mission compared to a mission to the Moon is that Mars is another planet. This may seem obvious but some of the implications are possibly missed. The Moon orbits the Earth and so is pretty much constantly the same distance from Earth, so you can choose to go at any time. As a planet, Mars orbits the Sun, and coupled with Earth's own orbit of the Sun, means that sometimes Mars can be fairly close, but other times Mars will be on the far side of the Sun. So we have to try and land on Mars when it is close to Earth. This obviously limits the windows of time where a mission is viable. If you cannot launch the mission within that window of time or launch windows, then you have to wait until Mars gets closer to the Earth again. These launch windows occur every 26 months or so.
It's all pretty cool stuff. Hopefully they don't discover some Zerg!
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On August 06 2012 17:08 SpiffD wrote:
Gold medal for NASA in the 563 billion meters
Totally stuck the landing on their space exercise.
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United Kingdom3482 Posts
On August 06 2012 17:09 revel8 wrote:
It's all pretty cool stuff. Hopefully they don't discover some Zerg!
Well at least we would have 9 months to wall off.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On August 06 2012 17:12 imallinson wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 17:09 revel8 wrote:
It's all pretty cool stuff. Hopefully they don't discover some Zerg! Well at least we would have 9 months to wall off.
What if he they have researched overlord speed.......
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On August 06 2012 16:39 Bobgrimly wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 16:17 stratmatt wrote:On August 06 2012 16:15 Bobgrimly wrote:
May I ask why this is a big deal? They sent a rover a few years back. So they are sending another.... yay? Like the second one is going to come up with some earth shattering discovery.... no. If I was a geologist I would be slightly more interested. Or if they find large deposits of gold or other rare and valuable minerals and I am one of those new private space venture investors I might be happy. But otherwise why does this matter to anyone? There is no real gain or progress. Until they can maintain a base on the moon and travel to that repeatedly no mission to mars will ever happen. And anyone with half a brain will tell you even going back to the moon isn't likely to be viable. troll detected. Anyone with half a brain sees this as a humongous achievement for mankind so what happened to yours? Wrong. Its been done before so there is nothing to achieve. They will get more accurate data on some dirt and the air. Yay. While I don't begrudge it happening I fail to see why so many people in this thread are excited about something that has been done before. Yes the USA should put their military budget into NASA and get some real progress. But this isn't progress. Progress would mean something new happens. 20 rovers on mars isn't progress. A thousand robots on mars just means we are really good at polluting two planets now. So yes if you are a scientist this would be interesting. I love the idea of exploring space but missions like this kill any belief it will ever happen. Put a man back on the moon! Then worry about mars.
Are you really this stupid?
Okay. So, you're saying achievements repeated aren't really achievements, or worthy of celebration. Fair enough.
But this was infinitely more difficult and complicated than the other rovers, do you understand that?
Saying it's not worthy of praise is like saying building a pyramid consisting of 3 1x1x1 stones equals that of building a pyramid made out of 30000 1x1x1 stones.
Even if you don't believe we will be able to get any information (which you obviously have no fucking clue about), the engineering aspect alone is worth celebrating.
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On August 06 2012 17:15 Pandemona wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 17:12 imallinson wrote:On August 06 2012 17:09 revel8 wrote:
It's all pretty cool stuff. Hopefully they don't discover some Zerg! Well at least we would have 9 months to wall off. What if he they have researched overlord speed.......
oh shit, doom drop incoming
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On August 06 2012 16:49 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 16:39 Bobgrimly wrote:
So yes if you are a scientist this would be interesting. I love the idea of exploring space but missions like this kill any belief it will ever happen. Put a man back on the moon! Then worry about mars. What would putting a man on the moon give us? Putting one of those rovers on the moon would be cheaper and give us more worth in exploration. Putting a man on Mars and then sending it back is the same thing, it gives us nothing a machine can't give us except PR and hopefully a change of attitude in people. Planning to put one there and not sending it back gives a whole lot since you have to solve how that person will stay alive without support from Earth for every little thing (as the space station get).
What does putting a man on the moon give us? We have already been there.... have we? How many people on this site were alive when the last moon landing happened? Anyone been to the moon in your lifetime? Yet you give a crap about a robot on mars????
I would kill to see a man on the moon. Its never happened as far as I know. Not in my lifetime. Once a decade just to prove it can still be done and that mars is still a possibility wouldn't kill the budget if they honestly and successfully did it as many times as they say they did. And what is the robot going to give them that a man on the moon won't? Dirt samples? Put a man on mars and hell yeah we are talking. That guy can get a spade and take more samples in 5 minutes than that robot can do in its entire life. That guy can travel further and identify oddities quicker and inspect them.
They could do a lot of things. But instead they waste time and money testing dirt and air on mars. It has no atmosphere that is survivable at the moment. Why bother testing it with a vehicle that can't dig deep enough or travel far enough to really find anything useful? Why not PROGRESS towards the goal of establishing a base there? You don't need the atmosphere if you have a sealed base. And a working livable base would mean a million times more effective study/testing/mining/exploring missions.
So why go to the moon... because its a stepping stone that needs to be stepped on. For progress' sake. Because if we can't afford to put a man there... mars is never happening!
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Italy12246 Posts
On August 06 2012 16:39 Bobgrimly wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 16:17 stratmatt wrote:On August 06 2012 16:15 Bobgrimly wrote:
May I ask why this is a big deal? They sent a rover a few years back. So they are sending another.... yay? Like the second one is going to come up with some earth shattering discovery.... no. If I was a geologist I would be slightly more interested. Or if they find large deposits of gold or other rare and valuable minerals and I am one of those new private space venture investors I might be happy. But otherwise why does this matter to anyone? There is no real gain or progress. Until they can maintain a base on the moon and travel to that repeatedly no mission to mars will ever happen. And anyone with half a brain will tell you even going back to the moon isn't likely to be viable. troll detected. Anyone with half a brain sees this as a humongous achievement for mankind so what happened to yours? Wrong. Its been done before so there is nothing to achieve. They will get more accurate data on some dirt and the air. Yay. While I don't begrudge it happening I fail to see why so many people in this thread are excited about something that has been done before. Yes the USA should put their military budget into NASA and get some real progress. But this isn't progress. Progress would mean something new happens. 20 rovers on mars isn't progress. A thousand robots on mars just means we are really good at polluting two planets now. So yes if you are a scientist this would be interesting. I love the idea of exploring space but missions like this kill any belief it will ever happen. Put a man back on the moon! Then worry about mars.
Pretty sure that mankind being able to build and operate more and more complex space vehicles is progress. Just sayin.
edit: jeesus christ you do realize how insanely complex it is to send a man on mars right? Currently no spacecraft is capable of keeping its crew alive for the months it would take to get there and come back. Seriously your ignornace is impressive.
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On August 06 2012 16:39 Bobgrimly wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 16:17 stratmatt wrote:On August 06 2012 16:15 Bobgrimly wrote:
May I ask why this is a big deal? They sent a rover a few years back. So they are sending another.... yay? Like the second one is going to come up with some earth shattering discovery.... no. If I was a geologist I would be slightly more interested. Or if they find large deposits of gold or other rare and valuable minerals and I am one of those new private space venture investors I might be happy. But otherwise why does this matter to anyone? There is no real gain or progress. Until they can maintain a base on the moon and travel to that repeatedly no mission to mars will ever happen. And anyone with half a brain will tell you even going back to the moon isn't likely to be viable. troll detected. Anyone with half a brain sees this as a humongous achievement for mankind so what happened to yours? Wrong. Its been done before so there is nothing to achieve. They will get more accurate data on some dirt and the air. Yay. While I don't begrudge it happening I fail to see why so many people in this thread are excited about something that has been done before. Yes the USA should put their military budget into NASA and get some real progress. But this isn't progress. Progress would mean something new happens. 20 rovers on mars isn't progress. A thousand robots on mars just means we are really good at polluting two planets now. So yes if you are a scientist this would be interesting. I love the idea of exploring space but missions like this kill any belief it will ever happen. Put a man back on the moon! Then worry about mars.
Arguing from ignorance is fun I hope....
New things in this mission:
-The big one.. The SIZE of this rover is basically the size of a mini-cooper. The largest by a huge margin... Large enough that it needed an entire new way of landing on the planet.
This landing method is how we would land humans on mars... So testing this, and seeing that it works.. Is ridiculously huge. Even ridiculously huge doesn't put it into perspective
-Where it landed
It has landed in a place that is ripe (or actually I should say 'the ripest for Mars) with the chance of finding evidence of life on mars. This is huge in determining if there is or was life on Mars. Things like this are essential for a number of reasons.. first.. If life was on mars.. and now its not.. Why?.. And how can we prevent what happened there, from happening on Earth, in order to save our own asses.
-Progress in general.... Discoveries of the best kind happen in places that are different, and happen when you are not expecting them to. Electricity, lasers, gravity, penicillin, optics... Those discoveries themselves..or what caused the research to find them.. were accidents, and most dealt with frontiers.
You do not progress by doing the same thing again (man on moon)....
Until today (and other landers), if aliens came from another planet and looked at our history of space travel (IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)... They would see this:
we use un-reusable rockets to go to space station - we use reusable shuttle to go to space station - we build a space station - we land on the moon!..
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EPT
