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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory |OT| 2,000 Pounds of Science!

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Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
BruiserBear said:
I only recently learned about the landing on Titan, and I was surprised I had never heard of it before.

But until you posted that, I had no idea anyone had ever landed on Mercury, and sent back pictures! Crazy.
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Uh Venus actually.

Also, how do we know surface temps? The Venera probes didn't measure them, did they? Also, the space crafts had contact with one of the probes for almost an hour, and the second, for 2 hours. I guess if the surface temperatures were really that high (over 400º C) the probes would melt instantly. Idk, I think there's something wrong with this information. Like Jupiter, many people thought its atmosphere was cold as fuck, then Galileo plunged into it and its equipment showed us it was actually a lot hotter than thought.
 
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evilromero

Member
Castor Krieg said:
Recently Steven Hawking predicted we need approx. 200-300 years till the beginning of interstellar flight, so if we won't go extinct in that time frame we will be fine. By the time Sun turns to red giant we will have sufficient tech to build ourselves a new star.
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lol. Our sun is so young that humans will be long dead and gone before our sun begins the early stages of star death. In fact, we'll be a twinkle in the eye of Earth history by that time. As if it never happened.
 
S

SniperHunter

Banned
evilromero said:
lol. Our sun is so young that humans will be long dead and gone before our sun begins the early stages of star death. In fact, we'll be a tinkle in the eye of Earth history by that time. As if it never happened.
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so young? It's halfway through it's lifespan and it's getting bigger slowly....there will be a time when it will be large enough to start effecting weather in a big way. It doesn't have to swell to the red giant phase to cause damage to earth. Regardless of it's age, we should be thinking about getting away from this solar system anyway.
 
K

KimiNewt

Scored 3/100 on an Exam
Insane Metal said:
Uh Venus actually.

Also, how do we know surface temps? The Venera probes didn't measure them, did they? Also, the space crafts had contact with one of the probes for almost an hour, and the second, for 2 hours. I guess if the surface temperatures were really that high (over 400º C) the probes would melt instantly. Idk, I think there's something wrong with this information. Like Jupiter, many people thought its atmosphere was cold as fuck, then Galileo plunged into it and its equipment showed us it was actually a lot hotter than thought.
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We've known them through indirect methods (microwaves and stuff, I don't know much about it but you can look it up).
There's also a euro orbiter called Venus Express which sent back very detailed temperature data.

And as you can see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elements_by_melting_point
Whilst 400C is really hot, most metals will not melt at that temperature (400C is 673.15 kelvin)
 
G

Grym

Member
Live press conference in about 15 minutes


NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover
News from Mars: Hear from my team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Live today Aug. 17 10:30 a.m. PT (1730 UT): http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

Audio: http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html
Visuals: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/telecon/index.html


full res self portrait
677445main_pia16063-full_full.jpg
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landing site and where Curiousity is headed
677716main_pia16064b-43_946-710.jpg
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first target planned to be zapped by Chemcam
677542main_pia16072-43_946-710.jpg

677538main_pia16073-43_946-710.jpg
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G

Grym

Member
Apparently they are getting weather data back. I don't remember if he said the high or the average but he said the temperature reading from Mars was 276 Kelvin (internet conversion telling me is it 37.13 F/2.85 C). Sounds nicer than the winters here ;)
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
I always thought those Venus pictures looked like you'd be walking around in cat piss vapors. Beyond that, something about them is completely unsettling. Raises my hackles looking at them.
 
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Leeroy3101

Banned
I never knew the martian landscape soil was that fine grained and loose. That explains the debilitating dust storms for me with the impact of that heat shield. Looked like it just landed in sand.
 
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timetokill

Banned
Leeroy3101 said:
I never knew the martian landscape soil was that fine grained and loose. That explains the debilitating dust storms for me with the impact of that heat shield. Looked like it just landed in sand.
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Yep. I mentioned earlier in the thread, the dust/fines also get EVERYWHERE. It causes a real problem for spacesuit design as well.

The dust is about 50x finer than the dust on Earth, and since it's so tiny it easily gets into the suit, gets into mechanical openings, etc. Walking around or touching the dust would cause it to gather a charge and stick to you as well. That's something they've seen on the rovers. Then what happens when you touch something else? static discharge, like feet on a carpet. Which of course could wreck instruments.

When they did missions to the Moon, the dust on the moon would get into the suits, and they were breathing it in. Part of the problem is the dust on the moon was really jagged, and could cause serious respiratory problems.

We could be dealing with that kind of thing on Mars as well.
There are a lot of issues to consider!
 
H

HeySeuss

Member
What would really be cool would be if they made the LEGO set, a small portion went back to NASA for future funding. Then they could release all kinds of sets based on different missions and Space Shuttles. I'd buy a Hubble set or a Space Station set.
 
D

DrM

Redmond's Baby
It is quite interesting going through Wikipedia list of all unmanned space missions so far and read about some of the most epic failures in history.
 
P

Parch

Member
saelz8 said:
I had no idea we landed on Venus.
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You can bet the lack of coverage was due to a big reluctance by some countries to cover the accomplishments of Russian space programs. It really is a shame that politics and patriotism has and will be such a major factor for space exploration.
 
T

Tapiozona

Banned
timetokill said:
Yep. I mentioned earlier in the thread, the dust/fines also get EVERYWHERE. It causes a real problem for spacesuit design as well.

The dust is about 50x finer than the dust on Earth, and since it's so tiny it easily gets into the suit, gets into mechanical openings, etc. Walking around or touching the dust would cause it to gather a charge and stick to you as well. That's something they've seen on the rovers. Then what happens when you touch something else? static discharge, like feet on a carpet. Which of course could wreck instruments.

When they did missions to the Moon, the dust on the moon would get into the suits, and they were breathing it in. Part of the problem is the dust on the moon was really jagged, and could cause serious respiratory problems.

We could be dealing with that kind of thing on Mars as well.
There are a lot of issues to consider!
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How could dust get into the suits. Weren't they vacuum and pressure sealed? If air can't escape there's no way dust can get in
 
P

Partial Gamification

Banned
Tapiozona said:
How could dust get into the suits. Weren't they vacuum and pressure sealed? If air can't escape there's no way dust can get in
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when I read it, I was thinking that the astronauts were doing moon walks and going back into the lunar lander. changing in and out of the suit was where the dust got into the suits and the respirators, but I don't know. It does seem unlikely that the suits would be leaking dust into the suit, or that it could work its way in without causing an air-leak.
 
B

Bowdz

Member
birdcity said:
So great. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunately that's still only half the images taken. Can't wait for the full 1200 or so frames to come back!
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Are you serious? I was ecstatic when I first saw the grainy, compressed, potato video that NASA originally released. Than I learned they had HD images incoming. And now we still have half of the images to go. Things just keep getting better and better.
 
K

KHarvey16

Member
Partial Gamification said:
when I read it, I was thinking that the astronauts were doing moon walks and going back into the lunar lander. changing in and out of the suit was where the dust got into the suits and the respirators, but I don't know. It does seem unlikely that the suits would be leaking dust into the suit, or that it could work its way in without causing an air-leak.
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Yup, the dust would cling to the suits and then they would track it into the lunar module. It would get into the air and irritate the astronauts that breathed it in. NASA has an interesting article on it.
 
M

mik83kuu

Banned
Are there any documentaries etc. from the making of the rover? Or any other NASA related good documentaries where they show awesome techy stuff :-D
 
O

owlbeak

Member
Bowdz said:
Are you serious? I was ecstatic when I first saw the grainy, compressed, potato video that NASA originally released. Than I learned they had HD images incoming. And now we still have half of the images to go. Things just keep getting better and better.
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Yeap. That video is only comprised of around ~600 frames of the total 1200 or so taken. They haven't gotten all the frames back yet at full res. Gonna be so awesome! :D
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Parch said:
You can bet the lack of coverage was due to a big reluctance by some countries to cover the accomplishments of Russian space programs. It really is a shame that politics and patriotism has and will be such a major factor for space exploration.
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Behind the scenes, both NASA and FKA were pretty respectful of the other. One of the lesser known stories of Apollo 11 (and it was kept secret for a few years) was that a few medals of Cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov (both of whom had died) were brought and left on the moon. Another thing NASA kept quiet was that Buzz Aldrin was given permission to take a communion kit and perform communion on the Moon. They kept that quiet a few years becasue NASA had been sued by an atheist after Apollo 8 Astronauts read from Genesis on their Christmas Eve broadcast while orbiting the Moon (Supreme Court pretty much told her to piss off, and ruled that the Astronauts were out of their jurisdiction at the time).
 
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