Cleaning events are great, yes -- but you have to be able to get into the proper place for them. Obviously, Spirit is not well located for such an event at present, and is getting dustier and dustier.

We could lose Spirit to even a small, localized dust event at this point, she's so dirty. And it'll be a little difficult to drive Spirit anywhere that sees regular "high" winds, I'm afraid.

That said, I'm always very glad to see cleaning events for either rover. As long as Oppy remains here at Victoria, I think we have some real opportunities to drive her over to a windy spot along the rim and clean her off when she gets REALLY dusty...

-the other Doug

If terrorists get hold of the resources necessary to push asteroids around, they won't have any trouble planning the trajectories, ITAR or no ITAR...

-the other Doug

I think the likelihood of whirlwinds forming on Mars at night is a lot less than them forming at night on Earth. There is a lot more energy in the terrestrial system than in the Martian system, held both in the ground and in the air. Mars gets significantly less insolation than Earth and the ground re-radiates stored heat much faster than on Earth, due to the far thinner atmosphere.

Dust devils have not been observed at Gusev during the daytime in winter months. It doesn't get warm enough for them to form until late morning, at that. One can conclude from that fact that there is not enough energy in the system, even during daily daily heating, during the winter months to form them. I'm certain that physics can describe the reasons in terms of the energy needed to energize updrafts sufficiently for creation of dust devils.

There is a lot more energy in the system during daylight hours in the winter than there ever is at night during the summer. If dust devils cannot form during the day in the winter, physics requires that they cannot form at night, even in the summer. It's not necessary to bring in the McGuffin of inability to observe them at night, especially since it's impossible to prove a negative. For example, if you want to try and go hang gliding at night, even though physics tells you that there won't be any thermals to ride, heck, you can't observe whether they're there at night or not, so, hey -- go for it. You first.

-the other Doug

Remember, too, that these hot Jupiters are some of the easiest planets to find with our current tools. They may actually be somewhat rare, but since they're the easiest to detect, we're seeing an abnormally large sampling.

It may well be that most solar systems have a fairly recognizable mix of rocky and giant planets, and these fast-orbit hot supermassives are the exception, not the rule.

-the other Doug

Actually, my prediction is that the people who developed MSL's landing architecture will be standing in the control room on landing day, and the following thought will flit through their heads at some point or another:

"This is *crazy*!!! What the heck were we *thinking*?????"

I predict that this will happen regardless of the landing architecture selected...



-the other Doug

The New Horizons program was the same "Passport to Pluto" program that Discovery produced for the launch of New Horizons. They simply updated it to include about 15 minutes of new material, which covered the Jupiter encounter. (Which is *really* good planning on their part, I think!)

They've done the same thing with their Cassini program, "Rendezvous with Saturn's Moon," which was originally broadcast back when Huygens landed. The last time I say it, it was up-to-date enough to include the Saturn-backlit shot and also details on Enceladan plume activity.

-the other Doug

For those of you who may be interested and to whom this is available, you may be interested to know that "Mars Rocks: One Year Later" (a sequel to "Welcome to Mars," which documents the first year of surface operations for the MERs) is running right now (from 5 to 6 p.m. CDT) on The Discovery Channel.

Another documentary, "Moon for Sale," which claims to be about a "second race to the Moon," is on from 7 to 8 p.m. CDT tonight.

And finally, for those who haven't yet seen it but who get Discovery, "Roving Mars" will have a sneak preview tonight from 8 to 9 p.m., CDT.

Just thought it worth a mention...

-the other Doug

I just *knew* someone was going to make that point! Please edit my remarks to reflect the concept of launches from EARTH...

-the other Doug

True, although if Wally had been promised one of the first moon landings and thereby had a stake in currying favor, I imagine he would have worked on being less of a pain in the butt than he was on that mission.

Besides, Deke would have had to break his crew rotation rules to fly Schirra twice in four missions. Deke's rotation was that a member of a prime crew could be named a member of the *back-up* crew three flights down (i.e., fly one, skip two, backup one, skip two...). Had Schirra decided he wanted a moon landing (assuming Deke would have given him one) and stayed in the program, the best he could have hoped for would have been being back-up CDR of Apollo 10, which would have led to being the CDR of Apollo 13. (After Schirra retired, Gordo Cooper was given the BCDR slot on Apollo 10, but Slayton was leaning towards *not* giving him Apollo 13, if he had a choice.)

That also brings up the fact that had Schirra decided to stay in the program for Apollo 13, there would have been the same issue that Cooper had with Shepard, once Smilin' Al was re-certified to fly. If Al was going to bump Cooper, he would also have bumped Wally. And I doubt Wally would have stayed in to back up Shepard and hope for command of Apollo 16. Cooper sure didn't (though Cooper probably wasn't going to get 16, either).

One final crew rotation note -- there was one and only one instance during Mercury, Gemini and Apollo in which someone went straight from prime to prime after skipping only two flights. That was Tom Stafford, who was the PLT on Gemini 6 and the CDR on Gemini 9. This only happened because the original Gemini 9 crew, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, were killed in an airplane crash; otherwise, Stafford would have gone from prime on 6 to back-up on 9, and would have ended up commanding Gemini 12. The interesting thing is that, because of the failure of Gemini 6's Agena target vehicle and the plan to press Gemini 7 into service as Gemini 6's rendezvous target, only one mission was launched between Stafford's two Gemini launches. The order of launch was Gemini 7, Gemini 6, Gemini 8 and then Gemini 9. I'm not certain, but I believe that the roughly six months between Stafford's two Gemini flights was the shortest time between launches for a single person in American spaceflight history. (There was a Shuttle flight that was aborted after only a day or so in orbit, due to a fuel cell problem, which was re-flown with the same vehicle, payload and crew several months later, but I'm pretty sure that more time passed between that flight/re-flight than between Stafford's two Gemini flights.)

-the other Doug

Oh, please, don't get me wrong. I meant no disrespect for the MRO teams. I was just curious as to why some of the data handling tools weren't ready to go when the craft got to Mars, is all. I figured it might be due to a lot of the things tuvas pointed out, but I wasn't sure, and was simply curious.

After all, guys -- these machines are made and operated by human beings. They do incredible things, but their makers and keepers are only human. And if there are any jobs out there that demand that you can *never* make any mistakes, or misestimations, etc., etc., then I know for sure I'm not qualified... and I suspect that no other human being is, either.



-the other Doug

Yep -- I see the journals haven't changed their ways...

-the other Doug

I have a curiosity, here.

It seems that the HiRISE team is still learning how to handle their data products. Y'all have known exactly what formats, etc., your data products would be coming down in for years before you had to start handling them.

I'm just highly curious as to why all of these data handling techniques have waited to be developed until after MRO is in orbit and sending back data. Was there some kind of lack of test data for calibration purposes? Did the calibration data have flaws or lacks that didn't allow you to develop these techniques until you were working with live data?

I know it's not because y'all didn't know that you would be wanting to put together color images, for example, or wanting to release these massive images in a manner that the public could look at them easily. And yet, HiView seems a long way off (still), color images are trickling out at a very slow rate... and all because, it seems, the techniques for doing these things haven't been finished.

Is it a manpower issue? Or did the original budget and schedule account for all of this, but as with all budgets and schedules, things have just run behind...?

Just curious...

-the other Doug

Steve has spoken. Let no mere mortal question...

-the other Doug

"As you can see, Dr. Floyd, MMA-1 is very well depicted in these magnetometer graphs. In fact, that's how we found the damned thing."

"Deliberately buried, eh?"



-the other Doug

Just to try and wrap up this off-topic discussion, here, I'd like to point out that this scientific publishing system is in danger of failing. You see, the vast majority of all of these scientific journals have as their primary circulation university libraries. Most actual scientists can't afford to order these journals for themselves, but most actual scientists work directly for universities.

In America, at least, university funding is hitting all-time lows. Universities are cutting back on "frills," and subscriptions to every minor Elsevier publication are more and more being thought of as "frills."

Unless trends reverse direction soon, Elsevier and the other science publishing houses will find that their subscription income has dropped to almost nothing, and with that, advertising revenue will also dry up. These journals will go out of print.

Either the whole "publish or perish" process will need to be changed, or the publishing process itself will have to change. For myself, I'm beginning to think it's something that governments might have to take on...

-the other Doug

Hey, there's no reason not to keep poking your head in on this board, tuvas. We value your insights and personality here in this community, whether or not you have inside info about MRO and its results. It seems obvious that you have an intrinsic interest in planetary exploration, and regardless of your place of employment, we'll always enjoy hearing your opinions.

-the other Doug

When I first saw Roving Mars, while I was totally entranced by the whole thing, it was the first landing sequence (at Gusev) that brought tears to my eyes. It was, specifically, the point where I was watching Spirit rolling to a stop, and I suddenly said (out loud,as I recall) "Hey! That's Sleepy Hollow!" When I fully realized that we were seeing an event that was never visually recorded, I nearly lost it.

I was more prepared when it came time to watch Oppy make its hole in one, but that nearly brought me to tears, as well...

-the other Doug

There are times (pun intended) when I think like a time-traveler. In particular, I think about what the world would be like if time travel was possible.

For example, if time travel was possible, you would expect that there would be attempts to change erstwhile-historical events. And so I wonder -- what would be examples of attempts to change things?

One thing that has come to mind more than once is Apollo 13. Suppose that LM-7 was the one and only LM whose ascent engine had a hidden flaw, which would have caused it to fail to ignite (or worse, fail shortly after ignition)? And suppose that you don't have the ability to go back and fix the LM, but you do have a very short window in which you could effect some other small, minor change?

Might you not make a change which would prevent the use of that particular LM's ascent engine in flight? Such as re-attaching a bolt on a service module's oxygen tank shelf just before it was due to be removed from its SM?

I keep wondering how many serious, eye-opening but yet non-fatal accidents might have been engineered to prevent worse events? It's a modus operandi that I might adopt, under similar circumstances...

-the other Doug

I propose that this new planet be named after the founder of our own UMSF forum.

Planet Doug.

If it has a moon, we can always name that The Other Doug...

-the other Doug

Unless there are some of those endlessly fascinating festoons just lying on the ground...

-the other Doug

Otherwise known, in NASA curcles, as "the gray tape."

-the other Doug

The Apollo pressure suit assembly wasn't an integrated thing, believe me. The PGA (pressurized garment assembly) was integrated with a lot of stuff, including the pressure bladder, the plumbing and electrical connections that interfaced with the suit circuit or the portable life support system (PLSS). But the gloves, helmet, visor assembly, etc., were all added on to the PGA.

As for the boots -- the PGA did have integrated foot boots, of course. But there were "lunar overshoes" that fitted over top of the PGA boots. Those overshoes were the actual treaded boots that left footprints on the Moon during Apollo.

The overshoe assemblies were made primarily of foam rubber, and weighed something along the lines of a good pair of boots -- a couple of pounds, at most. But you have to remember, they left a LOT of things on the lunar surface. Their boots were only one set of items -- the left the PLSS backbacks. They left their cameras (with the exception of a single movie camera). They left armrests that were only used during descent. Several of the stowage "bays" in the LM were made up of big, shaped canvas-like bags (made of Beta cloth) that were pulled out, filled with trash and left on the surface.

During Apollo 11, they easily could have returned the lunar overshoes. Heck, they probably could have brought back the PLSSs -- there was a fair amount of performance margin on Apollo 11. But they were going to maintain that margin on the first landing -- they weren't going to bring back unscheduled items just because they had enough margin to do so.

Remember, Apollo was a rather fragile daisy-chain. No one knew just how difficult it would be to lift off from the Moon and rendezvous with an orbiting mother ship. If you get any significant out-of-plane error during orbital insertion, you can end up with any number of fuel-expensive trajectories (look up the term "whifferdill" in Mike Collins' excellent book "Carrying the Fire" for an example) to get yourself safe and sound into a ship that can actually bring you safely home. The heavier you are, the more fuel it takes to change your orbit, and since we had *never* done it before, they wanted as much propellant margin as the system could provide. So, no additional weight that wasn't in the plan...

-the other Doug

Okay, now I'm having one heck of a time trying to square the shape of the dark streaks with a surface-level wind pointing in, towards the rim. That's about as counter-intuitive to me as it's possible to get.

-the other Doug

I think we *have* seen a great example of saltation in these latest images, though. The movement of the berries is a perfect example of the wind rolling larger masses along the ground.

I do wonder whether or not Oppy's presence might not be causing greater wind turbulence right here. After all, the Martian atmosphere does get denser right at the ground -- it's possible that outcrops and other irregularities create a greater degree of turbulence than we'd think, using our terrestrial experience as a guide...

-the other Doug

And don't even get me started on what and American and a Briton think constitutes a billion... *sigh*...

-the other Doug