No -- but can one order one of the Mars Lander Ladies? (Top row, middle.)



-the other Doug

I've seen that artifact many times -- it even appeared on the same tracking camera during the New Horizons Atlas V launch.

There was once a long discussion of it on sci.space.shuttle, and it was decided that it must be a real image artifact that occurs between the rocket and the camera, and not a camera artifact. I'm still not completely convinced, though.

-the other Doug

Gee, Rob, you guys better stop making such systematic errors, or the next time y'all need to ask NASA for an extra $80 million or so to get your babies off the ground, they'll just take you to task for designing and building the things *too* well in the first place!

-the other Doug

Down in the Front Page Stories board, Phillip asked what all of us UMSF types think Home Plate might be made of and how it was formed. He actually wants Jim Bell's speculations, but asked for UMSF's speculations, as well.

Since we're getting close to getting there, it's time for any of your uninformed speculations out there to be recorded for all posterity...

I posted the following in that thread, but it really belongs here, so I'm reposting it here and inviting discussion. I figure that a lot of us don't bother to read the boards we don't stay actively involved with, so for all of you, this is new. Otherwise, I apologize for the repetitiion!


Look at the vertically-exaggerated image posted here.

Home Plate seems very obviously, in this stretched image, to be the remnant of an impact crater. There are several impact crater remnants in the inner basin, here. Each seems to have been formed in a surface that was a good many meters higher than the present surface -- those missing several meters have been deflated from this terrain, by some process, leaving the shocked "pedestal" remnants of the deeper cratering forms.

Remember, when you make an impact crater, you don't just affect the surface. The disruption caused by the cratering event goes well under the surface, consisting of impact melt (if the impact is energetic enough) and shocked, brecciated rocks.

The crater remnants we're seeing on the surface look like the brecciated and shocked rocks that were originally created in a bowl-shaped lining beneath this cluster of impact craters. I can see traces of at least five different craters within the inner basin, here. (The ridge of rock Spirit is passing right now is, in fact, a small crater remnant.)

As for Home Plate, it sits within the largest and most well-defined of these crater remnants. Maybe such layers were exhumed in *all* of the craters here, and have since been completely eroded away -- but that doesn't seem right. We have traces of several craters, and in only one of them do we see any trace of this lighter-colored material.

I'd have to think that either the impact target composition was different where the Home Plate impact occurred -- which seems a little unlikely when you consider some of these impacts are only a few tens of meters apart -- or that some other substance was deposited in Home Plate crater that wasn't deposited in the other craters. (Or that has been completely deflated from the other craters, if it ever existed there.)

So, logic *seems* to point towards post-cratering material deposition accounting for the light-rock ring. Personally, I think it could have been water deposition. Home Plate could have been a puddle that was filled and dried thousands of times (maybe with an internal artesian spring) that resulted in aqueous transport and deposition.

Or, it could have just been a good wind trap and it trapped a lot of light-colored dust. Hard to say.

I'm not only interested in the light-rock ring's composition, I'm getting very curious about the erosion process that deflated the original surface. Could aeolian erosion have deflated *that* much surface, even over a few billion years? Do we need to postulate aqueous erosion, or even glacial erosion?

Maybe the specific composition and erosion patterns we see on the light-rock ring will help us puzzle that out.

-the other Doug

I was born October 17, 1955. I was just short of two years old when Sputnik 1 was launched. I was five and a half when Gagarin orbited the Earth (and I actually remember the event). I was 8 years old when Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and I was three months short of 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and when Mariners 6 and 7 flew past Mars.

I was 23 when the Pioneers flew past Jupiter, and I was 34 when Voyager 2 and PBS gifted me with "Neptune All Night."

I'll be three months shy of 60 years old when New Horizons encounters the Pluto system.

Then again, I was 48 when MER-A and MER-B landed on Mars. I'm 50 now, and the MERs are still going strong. Sort of puts it in perspective.

-the other Doug

I was drawing breath before there were *any* artificial satellites!

Don't no one talk to me about feeling old (he said grumpily)...



-the other Doug

And so, we see here the thrilling new theory by Dr.... er, I mean, Mr. Ellison, that the feature called Home Plate is, in fact, the quadrangle at King's College London!

-the other Doug

Yes, HP *seems* to loom large... but according to the route maps, we're barely halfway between the base of Husband Hill and HP.

Do we anticipate that it will take a *lot* less time to cover the remaining distance than it has to get this far?

-the other Doug

Look at the vertically-exaggerated image posted here.

Home Plate seems very obviously, in this stretched image, to be the remnant of an impact crater. There are several impact crater remnants in the inner basin, here. Each seems to have been formed in a surface that was a good many meters higher than the present surface -- those missing several meters have been deflated from this terrain, by some process, leaving the shocked "pedestal" remnants of the deeper cratering forms.

Remember, when you make an impact crater, you don't just affect the surface. The disruption caused by the cratering event goes well under the surface, consisting of impact melt (if the impact is energetic enough) and shocked, brecciated rocks.

The crater remnants we're seeing on the surface look like the brecciated and shocked rocks that were originally created in a bowl-shaped lining beneath this cluster of impact craters. I can see traces of at least five different craters within the inner basin, here. (The ridge of rock Spirit is passing right now is, in fact, a small crater remnant.)

As for Home Plate, it sits within the largest and most well-defined of these crater remnants. Maybe such layers were exhumed in *all* of the craters here, and have since been completely eroded away -- but that doesn't seem right. We have traces of several craters, and in only one of them do we see any trace of this lighter-colored material.

I'd have to think that either the impact target composition was different where the Home Plate impact occurred -- which seems a little unlikely when you consider some of these impacts are only a few tens of meters apart -- or that some other substance was deposited in Home Plate crater that wasn't deposited in the other craters. (Or that has been completely deflated from the other craters, if it ever existed there.)

So, logic *seems* to point towards post-cratering material deposition accounting for the light-rock ring. Personally, I think it could have been water deposition. Home Plate could have been a puddle that was filled and dried thousands of times (maybe with an internal artesian spring) that resulted in aqueous transport and deposition.

Or, it could have just been a good wind trap and it trapped a lot of light-colored dust. Hard to say.

I'm not only interested in the light-rock ring's composition, I'm getting very curious about the erosion process that deflated the original surface. Could aeolian erosion have deflated *that* much surface, even over a few billion years? Do we need to postulate aqueous erosion, or even glacial erosion?

Maybe the specific composition and erosion patterns we see on the light-rock ring will help us puzzle that out.

-the other Doug

I've been to the top of Pike's Peak -- the drive is a lot of fun. I've done the drive twice myself, and first went up the hill when I was about 11 years old, on a family vacation.

Trail Ridge Road, out of Estes Park, Colorado, isn't a lot lower in altitude -- something like 3,900 meters. But since it traces out the *high* pass out of Estes Park through Rocky Mountain National Park, it's not a as much of a switchback climbing event as it is a winding mountain road -- just among someof the highest mountains in the continental U.S. I've done the Trail Ridge Road drive three times.

I love the mountains. It's been way too long since I've been out there. Time to go again soon.

-the other Doug

Yes, you have the description of Apollo 6 pretty exactly. I know I read the same accounts you have, and while I'm not sure which book it's in, I recall the third stage being described rather anthropomorphically -- saying to itself "I have to pick up speed, the best way to do that is to fire down into the gravity well," then saying "oops, I need altitude, I better swivel around and fire sraight up," and finally saying "Now I'm going too fast -- I better slow down!" and turning all the way around to thrust retrograde just prior to shutdown.

And yet, NASA declared the mission a "qualified success" since the booster did not have to be destroyed, the payload made it into orbit, and the faults that appeared were easily diagnosed and fixed. Had that *not* been the case -- had the booster tumbled, for example -- it's likely that Apollo 8 would have been a third unmanned test of the Saturn V, and Apollo 12 (crewed by Armstrong, Aldrin and either Collins or Lovell) would have achieved the first lunar landing sometime between September and November, 1969...

-the other Doug

The interesting thing is that Apollo 7 was the *only* Apollo flight for which the crew was required to wear their pressure suits during entry. After coming to such a Donnybrook over the whole thing, the people in Crew Systems Division decided to let all of the remaining crews enter in shirtsleeves.

-the other Doug

Now, that is, without a doubt, an example of fines sapping into a set of subsurface cracks.

That doesn't necessarily prove that the mini-craters are all evidence of subsurface sapping, but that's what this surely is.

-the other Doug

They simply opened a valve that opened the cabin air system to the outside air once the outside air pressure reached about 8 psia or so. The pressure rose gradually within the capsule, and such a pressure rise (and the introduction of more and more nitrogen in the air) doesn't have any particular ill effects on the human body.

The one thing the crews may have needed to do during descent was to pop their ears, as the pressure rose. For the later Apollo flights, when the crews entered in their constant-wear garments, this wasn't a problem. But on earlier flights, when the crews were wearing pressure suits and helmets, it was a concern. So there was a small post built into the helmet, just in front of the nose, which let you press your head forward and close a nostril at a time so you could clear your ears. It was called the valsalva device, and it was more useful, throughout the course of a mission, to use for scratching one's itchy nose than for helping pop one's ears.

-the other Doug

That is, no more or less, exactly what Alan has posted here as *his* definition of a planet.

Well, at least they swiped their definition from an authoritative source.

-the other Doug

Interesting concept, but I would imagine they'd have to build a new Gemini. All of the existing Gemini capsules, by the early 1980s, were either scrapped or sitting in museums.

One Gemini capsule was flown twice -- it was the Gemini 2 capsule, IIRC. (In any event, it was the capsule, of the two unmanned flights, that was actually recovered. I seem to recall Gemini 1 was merely to demonstrate that the booster could lift the capsule; the Gemini was never even separated from the Titan second stage. Gemini 2 tested the heat shield and recovery systems.)

NASA gave that capsule to the Air Force, who refurbished it and added a circular hatch that ran from the back of the capsule between the seats, through the heatshield, and into the MOL laboratory. That capsule was launched during the only MOL test flight I can recall, to test whether or not the heat shield would work properly when you placed a hatch in the middle of it.

It worked.

But as for there being any actual Gemini hardware, available and in flight condition (or restorable to flight condition), by the early '80s? I doubt it.

Oh, here's a little-known fact -- Skylab's airlock module had, of course, a hatch that opened out into space. (Wouldn't be a very good airlock if it didn't, right?) That hatch was a Gemini hatch. They simply took an existing Gemini hatch from a scrapped vehicle and installed it into the side of the airlock module.

It was a nice touch of continuity...

-the other Doug

Perfection! As always, my memory is good but not perfect -- I had always recalled the H-3 Littrow site as being only 35-40 km west-northwest of the Serenetatis rim, and thereby the Taurus-Littrow valley. But, as always, I bow to the more learned mind in the subject area...

I *do* recall that the approach to H-3 Littrow flew uncomfortably close to the basin-rim massifs, and that a "notched" approach, which leveled off the descent profile a bit during high gate before beginning a slightly steeper-than-normal low-gate approach, was going to be required. A very similar approach was actually implemented for the J missions, partially because 15 required it to clear the Appenines (and specifically Mt. Hadley), and because it allowed a little more weight to be landed per ounce of fuel.

-the other Doug

The choice of landing site for Apollo 14, assuming a successful Apollo 13 mission, was dependent on the time of year 14 was to be launched. Littrow was only available in fall and winter months, Censorinus was only available in spring and summer months.

When Apollo 13 was scheduled for November, 1969 (continuing the every-two-month flight pace, and assuming an Apollo 12 mission flown in September), Apollo 14 was scheduled for a January, 1970 flight. (If Apollos 11, 12 and 13 had failed to land, Apollo 14 could have been pushed up to December, to try and beat the end-of-decade deadline.)

By the time a landing site was being considered for Apollo 14, however, the flights had been paced out to once every four months -- and, even before Apollo 13 flew, that was stretched again to five-six months. Had Apollo 13 flown in March, 1970 and Apollo 14 in July (the situation when landing sites were first being discussed), 14 would have landed at Censorinus. However, when 13 was pushed back to April, 14 got pushed back to October. At that point, Littrow was available, so as of mid-January, 1970, Shepard and Mitchell began to train for a landing at Littrow.

Now, to be clear, the H-3 Littrow site was *not* the Taurus-Littrow site visited by Apollo 17. The H-3 Littrow site was about 30-40 km to the west of the Taurus-Littrow valley, out in the Sea of Serenity. It was at the boundary of the dark-mantled mare surface, at a place where a wrinkle ridge is coincident with the albedo boundary. Had the H-3 site been visited, the ancient nature of the dark mantling would have been clear, and Taurus-Littrow would likely not have been a later landing site.

If Apollo 14 had flown in October, 1970 and landed at Littrow, H-4 (assuming we flew out through Apollo 18 or 19) would have been flown to Censorinus in April or May, 1971.

After that, well -- Apollo 16 was always targeted for Descartes, and would likely have remained so. In this scenario, it would have been the first J mission.

Hard to say where Apollos 17 and 18 would have ended up. If the program had ended with Apollo 17, then Schmitt would probably have been skipped ahead onto Cernan's crew, as really happened, and the mission would likely have gone (IMHO) to Hadley-Appenine. If Apollo 18 was flown, though, I bet they would have saved Hadley for it -- a fitting end to Apollo's explorations. Perhaps Cernan and Engle would have gone to Alphonsus, and then Gordon and Schmitt would have finished out the program at Hadley. (Alphonsus was always the first or second runner up at each of the J mission site selections, with the Marius Hills finishing about the same. So, the additional site could have been one of these, or perhaps somewhere else... it's truly hard to say.)

I believe that Phil Stooke has seen (and may have in his possession) maps of landing sites and proposed EVA traverses. I have seen a few of these, for such landing sites as the floor of Copernicus and the rim of Tycho, though I couldn't tell you where I have the bookmarks stored right now... *sigh*... I don't think I've seen EVA traverse maps for Littrow or Censorinus, though.

Perhaps Phil can help us out...

-the other Doug

The E mission would have performed a partial translunar injection, putting the CSM/LM into an elliptical orbit about 4,000 miles in altitude at apogee. After performing transposition and docking with the LM, the crew was to spend just three or four orbits in this configuration, using the SPS engine (in a simulation of a lunar orbit insertion burn) to place the spacecraft into low earth orbit. (The high orbit would have kept the crew passing through the inner van Allen belt too frequently to be viable for more than a few orbits.)

After returning to LEO, the spacecraft would have performed an Apollo 9-like mission, using different rendezvous techniques. As with Apollo 9, this would have been a pretty basic, 18-hour-lifetime LM.

-the other Doug

Get in line, buddy!



-the other Doug

To Alan, John and all others from the NH team who might poke their heads into this space on occasion:

Jolly good show! I know that, even after the metal is cut, the wiring installed, the instruments tested, spun, shaken and jarred, and the whole thing taken out to the pad and attached to a monster of a rocket... it wasn't going to be REAL until that monster flung your baby on its way.

Now it's real. New Horizons is on its way. Nothing, no one can call it back.

As I write this, your baby is passing the Moon's orbit. It's flashing away from us faster than any other man-made object ever has. And yet, even as it leaves us, it takes us with it. Our hearts and our souls.

And our enduring sense of wonder.

Jolly, jolly good show!!!

Now, let's go see what Pluto looks like!

-the other Doug

Heck of a thread, guys -- heck of a thread.

I got home a little while ago, put on my cable box's DVR and watched the launch. Then I read the thread while watching the later launch phases and the replays.

MAN, that thing leapt off the pad, didn't it? The pad base cameras were astounding views -- that sucker just shivered, spewed fire and shot away, leaving a billowing column of orange-gray-black smoke. Magnificent!

The little poke through the two low clouds was fun right at the beginning, too. I love watching big rockets flying through clouds.

The SRB sep was just gorgeous -- all in all, the tracking was superb. (It ought to be, NASA paid some really big money to upgrade it all after Columbia, so they could track Shuttle launches with keen enough resolution to see what happens to the vehicle if foam rips off.) The view of the payload fairing sep was outstanding, as well -- in fact, I didn't feel at all cheated on this one by the lack of rocketcams. The tracking cameras were that good.

It was good to re-live the day with all of you through this thread, guys. Makes it more special.

-the other Doug

Well, guys, I'm going to have to be at work during NH's launch window that opens in about twelve hours... so I'll leave it to you guys to get her off good and proper.

I'll be looking forward to reading the thread when I get home tomorrow night! And I'll have a bag of peanuts waiting to start munching at about five past noon, my time, tomorrow...

-the other Doug

That's OK -- somewhere I believe I still have a frame grab I picked up somewhere from February 1, 2003, on CNN News. They were covering the break-up of Columbia over Texas.

The graphic on the screen read "Shuttle broke up while traveling at 16 times the speed of light."

I kid you not.

When I saw that, in a rather obvious bit of gallows humor, I remarked, "Well, no wonder it broke up! It's not designed to travel anywhere NEAR that fast!"

-the other Doug

It's been asked, why would you want to try and develop a civilization capable of moving from one star system to another -- or perhaps, from one galaxy to another? These would be Kardyshev Type 3 civilizations, if I recall correctly.

One reason I can think of is that the Milky Way may well be doomed. Anyone living in about 60% to 70% of the galaxy can plainly see that M31 is heading straight for us, and that our two galaxies will collide in about 3 or 4 billion years.

We don't yet know if such a collision will have a really deleterious effect on the habitability of currently habitable planets in this galaxy. But perhaps the odds are good that most of us will be wiped out when the galaxies collide.

And that any sufficiently advanced ETI has deduced this. And has moved completely out of the doomed Milky Way -- perhaps to stars within the Magellanic Clouds, perhaps to a more distant galaxy not in quite so iminent danger of collision.

I know, it's a pretty far-out reason for the lack of advanced ETI in the Milky Way -- but it *is* a viable one.

-the other Doug