I feel a little guilty, what with all of you trying to keep a streaming video connection going so you can see blurry images of the rocket.

My cable system got its act together a couple of months ago, and we once again have a very nice, clean NASA-TV signal. And I have a DVR, so I'm recording the launch (though I've got a good hour of the thing just sitting on the pad at this point... ...)

-the other Doug

Oh... hey... there is orange soil here!

Oh, all right -- on Mars, there is orange soil everywhere. But some of the overturned dirt in this particularly interesting set of tracks is really orange-red in these true-color images. Moreso than the regular reddish ground soil.

-the other Doug

Also, MSL's wider wheel base will help its off-road driving. The further apart the wheels are, and the greater the distance between the front set and the back set of wheels, the larger a given obstacle has to be to block your path.

-the other Doug

I know, it's almost definitely an image artifact. But... it looks like a plume to me. The top of an umbrella-shaped plume from some massive vent or cryovolcanic eruption, propogating through the visible atmosphere and out into the haze layer.

What kind of energy would you have to generate to force a plume through the atmosphere and into the haze layer?

-the other Doug

Sounds a little like STG's (and later MSC's) reliance on Max Faget and his small cadre of engineers to design various manned and unmanned spacecraft.

Heck, the CEV will be the *first* American manned spacecraft that was *not* designed, at least in part, by Max Faget.

-the other Doug

So, has anyone heard any explanations yet as to why the tracking telemetry showed none of the anticipated deceleration during most of the drogue chute phase of the descent? Is there any story about this, any theory? And, heck -- is there any way they can recover the drogue chute? I mean, it had to come down *somewhere*...

-the other Doug

In re the Apollo 13 RTG, it's important to note that, for the Apollo ALSEPs, the RTG was sent to the Moon unfueled. The fuel was held in a special reinforced carbon cask, which was opened with a special tool after the lunar landing. The radioactive element (a rod-shaped bar containing the plutonium) was inserted into the RTG just before it was taken to the ALSEP site and deployed.

Since it was always known that a Moon-bound LM might end up coming back to Earth, the RTG fuel element's traveling cask was designed tough, to be able to survive atmospheric entry and landing hard -- all without failing. The one time it was relied upon to protect us from its contents, it seems to have worked well. There has never been any trace of radioactive release from the Apollo 13 RTG fuel element.

However, I thought it was worth pointing out that the Apollo 13 RTG fuel wasn't even loaded into an RTG when it came back to Earth -- it was protected better than most pre-loaded RTGs protect their fuel elements.

Current fuel elements contain their plutonium within ceramic shells, the fuel being several handfuls of plutonium-cored ceramic "beads." This keeps any spilt Pu from fragmenting and posing a toxicity risk, plus it moderates the radioactivity threat from any individual "hot" bead. That's not at all how Apollo's RTG fuel element was designed.

-the other Doug

Actually, none of those locations are remotely near either pole. Flamsteed, for example, was in the running as the landing site for Apollo 12, and is in the Moon's equatorial region. The Aristarchus Plateau is something like (quoting from memory here) 20 degrees north of the equator, near the crater Aristarchus and on the edge of Mare Procellarum.

-the other Doug

Yes, MSL is a good amount larger than MER. But MER, to me, is more aesthetically pleasing -- like a Lambourghini set up next to a Volvo.

-the other Doug

In fact, here is the above image, with some rather crudely drawn red arrows pointing to some circular formations that look a lot like micro-craters to me. I'm especially certain of the topmost, leftmost arrow.

(The arrows are a little small and thin, you'll probably have to show the image full-sized to see them.)

-the other Doug

Looking at these drfits/ripples, I can convince myself that I see three or four micro-craters, most of them fairly well degraded...

-the other Doug

Sort of like the guy who signed the inside of the MESA blanket on LM-5, with a note wishing Armstrong and Aldrin well? As I understand it, Neil told NASA about the note, but being certain the guy would get canned if he was identified, did *not* tell them whose name was signed there...

-the other Doug

And, well -- catching you is one thing, getting you to pull over is quite another!

Besides, how are they gonna check your registry? I don't see a license plate on that Atlas V anywhere...

-the other Doug

For its final incarnation, Bill -- you know, the one with motorized wheels and moving IDD -- might I suggest that some of the solar panels might be *real* solar panels? Charging a battery located in the WEB, that would power the wheels and the radio system you'd use to drive it...?

Heck, you could even use the LGA as the antenna for its radio system.

And, of course, you need to put a few webcams onto the thing -- maybe below the deck, a couple of each facing forward and backward? And maybe, I dunno, four separate lenses on top of the PMA mast? I bet you could arrange some mirror assemblies.

Now, let's talk about launch vehicles...



-the other Doug

Reminds me of when I was 14 years old, and bored to death one winter day -- I took my 1/48th-scale Apollo Lunar Module model and started taking measurements here and there... and before I knew it, I had constructed, out of cardboard, a 1/6th-scale Descent Stage main body. Using a school ruler and my knowledge of scaling equations, I did all the math in my head and measured out the entire LM.

I was rather proud of that scratch-built model, though it went the way of all things many, many years ago. Its landing gear could be stowed and the supports all worked properly, it had a deployable MESA table, complete with a tiny B&W TV camera model stowed in the MESA, and the SEQ bay doors opened up, too. There was even a tiny canister attached to the ladder on the front leg that contained a 1/6th-scale American flag, complete with two-piece flagpole and a stiffening rod to hold the flag out.

It was all made out of cardboard and tin foil, of course -- esxcept I *did* use some old, frayed tinkertoys to reinforce the landing legs. Just think of it as doweling placed inside form-wrapped cardboard tubes.

I must say, I had a great time building it. I'm sure you'll have a great time building your MER model, too!

-the other Doug

That reminds me of a really great joke dialog box I saw a good 10 years ago. Remember this was back in the days when a 200MB hard drive was *huge* (how could you *ever* fill up such a big disk???) and there were no such things as CD burners.

The dialog box actually starts with "Do you want to download the Internet? Yes / No." Click Yes, and you get "Preparing to download the Internet. Please have 382,145,617,230,011 formatted diskettes ready." And no button except "Continue"...

-the other Doug

I agree. Also, you have to understand the situation with Iapetus -- that moon may embody a mystery, but it's a *frozen* mystery, frozen into Iapetus ever since the events that resulted in its current configuration and appearance. Whereas Titan and Enceladus are both exhibiting dynamic changes that can be studied during the course of the mission, Iapetus' secrets will stay safe and sound for many missions to come.

During the remaining time Cassini has to explore the Saturn system, I'd rather see it explore the dynamic systems available for obervation -- primarily, Titan and Enceladus, although Saturn and the rings also qualify.

If we can't unlock Iapetus' secrets in another two or three good, close flybys, I think we really ought to leave that mystery for later missions. That particular mystery isn't going anywhere. But it's always possible to see something unique in a dynamic system that will unlock a greater set of mysteries, either within the Cassini dataset or in combination with additional datasets collected, before, during and after Cassini.

-the other Doug

And I'll echo my oft-repeated note, here, that "as seen by the eye on Mars" colors have to take into account that the diffused light from the sky is quite a bit redder on Mars than it is here on Earth. A surface that looks perfectly white sitting in a parking lot, or a desert, or pretty much anywhere in daylight on Earth will look distinctly red-tinged on Mars -- even assuming that the surface itself has not changed in any way.

-the other Doug

I don't think we're barking up the right tree when we describe "alternate dimensions" as if they were classic, comprehendable three-axis dimensions that just don't happen to exist within our own dimensional frame of reference.

As I understand the "gestalt" of some of the cosmogenic theories out there, some of the ways the Cosmos shows itself to us seem to require that, very early on during the Big Bang, there must have existed a much larger number of physical dimensions than the three we can perceive. I know I've read one theory that suggests the expansion of the observable Cosmos is related to the collapse to zero or near-zero lengths between any two given particles along most of the other physical dimensions that exist.

If we're going to postulate moving through or within other dimensions, I think we should do so with the idea that we need to find a set of physical dimensions where all distances have collapsed to near-zero, but within which particles are separated *just enough* that we can correlate them to their positions in our perceived three dimensions. That would allow controlled information flow from any one spot in the Cosmos to any other given spot -- and that woud *have* to open up some pathways for physical travel. I would hope.

So -- the idea of finding "some other dimension" where the speed of light is faster seems a little, I don't know, parochial. I think that the real Cosmos will be much mroe complex and interesting than that.

And, BTW, if a really strong magnetic field can drop a mass into other dimensions, why doesn't the Sun drop into another dimension? Or Jupiter? Or Earth, for that matter?

-the other Doug

Hmmm... species survival...

Yes, there is a better way. Research human consciousness until we fully understand every mechanism, and then genetically alter the basic human genome to remove such psychological traits as contentiousness, agressiveness, and fear-based responses.

And arrange it such that there are no unaltered sociopaths, monomaniacs or megalomaniacs -- either during or after the change-over -- who could take improper advantage of the process.

Now, as a theory, the above only resorts to one single step in which a miracle occurs (and I bet some of you won't see which step that is). Doesn't that make it an acceptably testable theory?

-the other Doug

I was pleased to see a lot of footage on NASA-TV yesterday of Alan, John, several others -- and a *lot* of B-roll of NH being assembled and tested during ATLO.

Now, I *do* understand that when I turn my TV off, NASA-TV's ratings take an immediate hit... ...but you guys should enjoy what little measure of fame being on TV -- over and over again -- even if only on a poorly-carried channel -- affords you!

-the other Doug

I think that big drift formed around a ridge of evaporite left over from the jumble of ejecta around Erebus Crater. That would argue for that particular drift being *very* old...

-the other Doug

So, the reason we're here is because we're all pre-occupied with sex?

I'll have to remember that line... er, um, I mean, that fact.



-the other Doug

Darnit, I just sent my bejeweled battle shorts out to be polished!



-the other Doug

This one is one of my favorites for the year:

Link

Ah, the good old days...

-the other Doug