Why Mars May Be Difficult 57
An anonymous reader writes with a link to this "dramatic article leading up to the three Mars probes for December/January at NASA's JPL (also hosted at Ames) on Mars risks: Two out of three missions to the red planet have failed. After 300 million miles of deep space, 'One colleague describes the entry, descent and landing as six minutes of terror,' says Dr. Firouz Naderi, manager of the Mars Program Office.
Descending at 1,000 miles per hour, with only 100 seconds left at the altitude that a commercial airliner typically flies -- things need to happen in a hurry. Doesn't mention solar flares, electronics shielding, signal snags or budget tightening. The previous account listed the top 10 reasons Mars was hard in 1976."
Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:4, Insightful)
All astronaughts know, the moment they step into a craft of any kind may be their last, their families do too. It's why Christa Maculafs backup said the next day after the Challenger disaster, I would go up tomorrow if asked, we know and she knew the risks of space travel.
The exploration of the world is now the exploration of the universe. There will be the next James Town on Mars and others.
This is the price and reward or exploration.
Steven
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:1)
There will be the next James Town on Mars and others.
Let's hope there isn't a Roanoke too.
CROATAN!
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the following:
Thus the problem is unavoidable-- you must go from 19,300 km/hr to 0 km/hr in a matter of minutes. If you can think of a method to do that that's less "stressful" than NASA's, we're all eager to hear it.
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:1)
"It needs to travel that fast to get out of Earth's grav-field" simply means that it needs that much speed initially to get out of it at almost zero speed... duh.
Coming closer to Mars will accelerate the craft (obviously) back to higher speeds.
And now, take into account extra thrust on route.
So, actually, it's the time we are willing to wait until the probes reach Mars that's setting the tempo (and the various other things like thruster power, fuel reserves, etc)
There ARE ways to do this "so
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:2)
Re aerobraking, there's no law that says you ha
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:4, Insightful)
There will be risks, engineering chalanges, and deaths but this is already the case with NASA. Think Apollo. The fact is, pusing the envelope of human civilization will never be "easy".
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:2)
OK, but look at source of these articles NASA. An organization that, these days, is about protecting bureaucratic empires, not about exploration. What NASA would love is for actual space operations to be suspended for a few decades, yet have unlimited funding for conducting "studies" and "risk assessments".
These days, the NASA behemoth is the world's biggest obstacle to space exploration. The sooner it's dismantl
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe it's our solutions? (Score:2)
Mars Express still on target. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mars Express still on target. (Score:1)
I RTFA, and I am in doubt.
It says 2 out of 3 mission failed.
But 2 out of 3 missions since whenever we started or 2 out of the three 3 currently on route? The latter would leave the european one still working, the first would leave us with 1 (US) dead, two (US and EU) on route. And wasn't there also 1 (japanese) craft about wich I don't know the current status?
TFA also described the landing sequence of one of the pods
Re:Mars Express still on target. (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think it means that there were three specific missions, and two of these have failed - I just think it means the overall ratio of failures has been fairly high, which means that getting to the surface of Mars safely seems to be a hard problem at the moment.
Re:Mars Express still on target. (Score:1, Informative)
Pictures From UK's Beagle 2 [ananova.com]
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:2)
Besides England uses metric not imperial these days.
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:2)
Please, no more lame references to the MCO loss! this was NOT because people didn't know that Newtons and Pounds aren't the same thing, but because two different organizations use the different units, and the software interface between them didn't do the conversion.
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:2, Funny)
Speak for yourself.. I'm English, 6'4" tall, weigh 13st, and drive miles to work each day.
Metres? Kilos? Kilometres? Pshaw, I can't be bothered to use them or figure out what they're worth in "real units", despite the best efforts of the BBC pro-metric propaganda unit..
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:1, Offtopic)
My "7 inch schlong" sounds so much more manly than my "14.5 centemeter prick".
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:3, Funny)
My "7 inch schlong" sounds so much more manly than my "14.5 centemeter prick".
Agreed...
especially since 14.5 cm is less than 6 inches.
- nic
Re:idjits working in English units (Score:2)
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Re:idjits working in English units (Score:1)
I'm English 6'1 weigh 18st and travel in miles... but when I get to work its metric all the way
Its strange for me I emote in imperial and work in metric
Re:idjits working in English units RANT (Score:2)
No, the problem was that the contractors used imperial while NASA works in Internation Units.
In fact, its not just NASA, its almost the entire world.
I still can't believe the U.S. chickened out of the switch. Canada and Mexico didn't!
And BTW:
How much do you weight in meters?
How many centimeters does it take for water to boil?
Its the International Unit System, not the Metric System...
Re:idjits working in English units RANT (Score:2)
I thought what had happened was that the (imperial) contractors had converted their answers to metric, and passed that to the other team. The other team assumed the answers were in imperial, and converted _again_.
Or something.
(so I agree with you btw)
Top 10 Reasons Mars is Difficult (Score:5, Funny)
9. Mars needs women. Stay home, Joe.
8. It's the Red Planet. Capitalist running-dog lackey not welcome.
7. Ever since I saw that awful movie that had Arnold with the bug-eyes, I just can't look at the place again.
6. The hassle of Martian businesses having to change 24/7 on their promotional material to 25/7.
5. Disney owns it already, why bother.
4. When you get a hole in the housing module, you can't go to Wal-Mart for ductape.
3. SCC got their first, just in case a mars mission tried to use Linux.
2. They don't take American Express.
1. Val Kilmer's rabid robot dog is still running loose, last time I heard.
0. "Angry Red Planet"? Forget it, I have too much stress already.
Re:Top 10 Reasons Mars is Difficult (Score:5, Funny)
-2. Whaddya mean, less than 2 days a month.
-3. Whaddya mean, those are both the LONG month?
Re:Top 10 Reasons Mars is Difficult (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 Reasons Mars is Difficult (Score:2)
Re:Top 10 Reasons Mars is Difficult (Score:2)
difficulties (Score:4, Insightful)
And it doesn't help if idiots on Earth submit values in Imperial when the craft needs Metric, or vice versa.
Re:difficulties (Score:4, Interesting)
I have my own theory about why Mars has such a bad record. Although Mars is the closest planet to the Earth, it is in one respect the most inaccessible . Mars has the least frequent launch window of any major object in the Solar System, it coming around only once every 26 months. This means that any engineer who reports that one section is not quite ready to go, or could use more testing, becomes responsible for a delay of almost 2 1/2 years. Obviously, there are considerable career and institutional reasons not to do so.
This factor will have to be dealt with carefully on an institutional level if a manned Mars mission is attempted, or astronauts will certainly die.
NASA obesity (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe thats what NASA has been doing wrong
Beagle 2 weighs 33.2 Kg
Time will tell...
the REAL problem with Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
Because it is hard (Score:1)
Re:Because it is hard (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Moon Landing (Score:2)
Space is hard. Making unsupported and unwarranted allegations about the incompetance of NASA managers is easy.
Re: (Score:2)
our tech sux (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't come from space. We need to make them here.
We can test them in a variety of environments, cheaply.
If we, the collective humanity, can stop wasting money making faltering attempts at greatness and just set reasonable goals (sustainable deep-ocean habitats,sustainable polar habitats, better/safer/reliable energy) and create the technologies necessary to make them happen _here_ we will flourish anywhere.
Until then, it's all hand-waving and one-upmanship nationalis
Re:our tech sux (Score:2)
Ever tried to "opt-out" of the tax/public services system ? You cannot, you're tossed in jail. Ever tried to do away from the government's money monopoly ? Same result. Many people tried to create their own countries, so far only one managed to do it (Major Bates with the Sealand Pri
Single Event Upsets... (Score:1)
33%. Ouch. (Score:1)