Yes.

-the other Doug

I played a little with brightness and contrast on what I think is Skeet Shoot 1 (at least it's the first one to be posted in the thread), and I'd like y'all to take a look at this and tell me if you see what I see:



It looks to me like there is a braided channel in the bottom of this big crack. The lighter-toned material appears to flow around darker material, and the whole thing bears a remarkable resemblance to braided river beds on Earth.

I'm having a hard time imagining the kind of processes that might account for this kind of thing in Enceladan conditions. Any thoughts?

-the other Doug

Which takes us back to the very origin of the word planet. Back in the days when the only way we could chart the seasons and predict celestial events was to examine the sky and the stars. Some of the most revered astronomers of the early ages spent lifetimes plotting the movements of the stars in the heavens. And while most stars moved in easily predictable patterns, some of them -- and indeed, some of the brightest of them -- moved in odd and eldritch fashions, passing through the static and unchanging constellations in non-intuitive, hard-to-predict patterns that repeated (with major variations) over the course of months in some cases, or over the course of decades in others.

These were the planetes, the wanderers.

So, the original meaning of the term had absolutely nothing to do with the physical characteristics of the bodies. It only referenced the different way in which they traversed our skies from all of the other stars.

As I said, as time goes on, context changes...

-the other Doug

Ah, but that kind of thing goes on all the time. Music is redefined into different catagories as time passes and it is seen in context with its moment(s) in history. And, of course, *anything* that is categorized as "modern" is doomed to be renamed as it fades into the more and more distant past.

Much moreso, far more basic categorizations and names change constantly. Meet anyone from Stalingrad lately? Or someone who lives in Czechoslovakia? Or Persia? Just ask the Poles -- they've gone through periods in history when their entire country ceased to exist, for decades and more at a time. Or the Slavs in general, who were enslaved so many times by so many conquerors that the very name of their ethnicity entered many languages as the definition of the very concept of slave.

How different is it to go to sleep in the Soviet Union and wake up in the independent state of Kazakhstan than it is to go to sleep in a solar system with nine planets and wake up in one with eight? Or 30? Or 3,000?

Things change as time goes on, and as they change we have more and more information -- more and more history -- that puts bits and pieces of our Universe into a new context. From whether the world calls it Peking or Beijing to whether Pluto is called a planet, a dwarf planet, an icy dwarf, or a cartoon dog.

This way we have of changing/refining the categories as we learn more and put things into better and better context helps us understand and come to terms with our place in the Universe. And as the old saw goes, it's not an event, it's a process. What is debated today and decided tomorrow will inevitably be re-interpreted, re-debated and re-decided over and over as time goes on. The best thing we can do, exactly as Alan has said, is try to attain a consensus that satisfies the maximum number of people, that is driven by relatively rational principles, and that reflects our *best* understanding of the science involved.

-the other Doug

About the Saturn V, I would have said (as NASA and its contractors said), before it flew, that it "will be" the world's most powerful rocket. There was always the chance that it would never successfully fly. (And in fact, the N-1 was more powerful, at least in lift-off thrust -- would you have the N-1 usurp the Saturn V because it was more powerful on the drawing boards, even though it never had a successful flight?)

I don't know why it grates -- it just sort of feels like calling someone a Pulitzer-prize-winning author, when his/her first book is still in galley proofs. It *might* be a true statement at some future date, but at the present, it still has the feel of vaporware.

-the other Doug

I think there's something wrong with the processor in my head -- when I read the subtitle to the thread, I get a "Divide By Zero" error in my brain...

Seriously, I *do* hope SpaceX gets its ducks in a row and manages a few successful launches. But that thread subtitle still strikes me as not yet an honest representation.

-the other Doug

Ummm... an adopted brother? I'm available for adoption...



-the other Doug

As I've said before -- I'll believe it when I see it.

Haven't seen it yet.

-the other Doug

Truly outstanding presentation, Kwan.

I do find myself wishing I could see an image post-'chute-deploy that centers on the chute and not the aeroshell/lander. From the motions of the aeroshell, it's obvious that it's swinging pretty fast under that 'chute. I'd love to watch that dynamic.

-the other Doug

Oh, come now, Stu -- you *know* that geologists just made up words like "friable" so's they could say a rock was crumbly and sound all ed-jee-cated while saying it...

-the other Doug

Yes sir -- and these chemical oxygen generators are both used in manned spaceflight, and have been involved in a couple of disasters.

The Mir fire occurred when an "oxygen candle" of the type described here started to release oxygen too fast, started burning too hot, and lit off a serious fire. Since the source of the fire was creating more oxygen than the fire was taking from the cabin air, it was an extremely difficult fire to put out.

Also, a jetliner (I think it was Air Blue, but I could be wrong) was lost, with all passegers and crew, when lithium perchlorate oxygen generators caught fire in the plane's cargo hold just after takeoff, and nearly burned the plane in half before it could turn around and land.

Sorry about the side-trip, here. But even though I know that these chemical oxygen generators can be very useful, every time I hear about them I shudder and think thoughts about nasty, hard-to-control technologies.

-the other Doug

Most of what was named "chaotic terrain" ended up being large areas that seem to have had groundwater sapped out from under them. Most all of these landforms are at the heads of the catastrophic flood channels. It's consistent with large masses of groundwater being suddenly released (possibly by the breaking of ice dams) -- the lands that covered the huge aquifers collapsed, and the lands downstream of the massive water release were scored and flattened by the floods, with characteristic teardrop-shaped "islands" being carved by water passing to the sides of areographic high points.

So, yeah -- they're not "exotic chaos features," they're understandable and recognizable (if very large) collapse features.

-the other Doug

I'm no chemist, so let me ask the chemists here... what happens when you take the boundary layer of ice, dust and small rocks (which may be rich in chlorine salts) and *melt* into it with hydrazine/nitrazine rocket exhaust?

Can the process produce small amounts of perchlorates? What all would you have to have in the mix in order for that type of event to produce perchlorates?

Let us not forget that Phoenix's rockets cleared off relatively large patches of ice and seemingly melted down into the ice at various points. I'm sure most of it exited the vicinity as rapidly sublimating steam. However, the MRO images clearly show that the entire area around Phoenix is covered with material ejected by the rocket exhaust at landing, and that material is *significantly* darker than the natural surface surrounding it.

Is it not possible that some of that color change is due to chemical alteration, and not solely from albedo effects in re stirred-up vs. eons-deposited soils?

Just putting it out there...

-the other Doug

But, but, but, but... they offered me *cash*, Stu! Twelve whole dollars! And all these really neat trinkets!

Sorry, everybody...

-the other Doug

Well, all of this is certainly having an effect. I just took a peek at the current stats, and there are three members and 112 guests visiting the site right now. At 10:15pm CDT on a Sunday night.

-the other Doug

Failed during first-stage flight. Onboard video showed it snapping crisply around some rather tight deadband in roll. Thing was just snapping left, right, left, right... and then the video cut off.

Followed by "We've had an anomaly with the vehicle," two more sentences, and then credits roll on the webcast....

-the other Doug

They're at T-9 minutes and counting right now. Amazing.

-the other Doug

Well, last time they had an engine ignition and shutdown, and they recycled and launched a little more than an hour later. But that ignition occurred at T-0. This ignition occurred *after* the cutoff was called and after the comm chatter started concentrating on the safing of the vehicle.

That looks and sounds a lot like a GINORMOUS OOPS to me, boys...

-the other Doug

I've always had a lot of fun (and a fair dose of frustration) pondering just where the Apollo landing sites would have been located had Apollo 13 not aborted and Apollos 15 and 19 not been canceled.

At the time Apollo 13 flew, landing sites for two of the remaining Apollos were relatively well locked in. Apollo 14 was going to a Littrow landing site roughly 40km west of the Apollo 17 Taurus-Littrow site. They would have landed near the edge of the dark mantling that extends out onto the lava floor of Mare Serenitatis, within walking distance of two distinct ground albedos and a wrinkle ridge. Samples from that Littrow site would have pinned down the dark mantling as the admixture of ancient dark (and orange!) volcanic glass from fire fountains into the regolith, and the Taurus-Littrow site would never have come up for later landings.

The other site that had been nailed down was Descartes for Apollo 16. The planners knew they needed the capabilities of a J mission for this site, and while they were still vacillating between two different sites, one just outside of Descartes' wrecked rim (the site that was eventually used) or another closer to the Kant Plateau, the planners had locked this site in for Apollo 16. The Apollo 13 and 14 Hycon cameras were designed to provide stereo coverage for site validation for the two finalists for the Descartes site, and the 13 abort put great pressure on getting acceptable coverage during 14.

So, with those two sites locked in, we are left with another H mission (Apollo 15) and three more J missions (Apollos 17, 18 and 19) for which we need to find landing sites.

Now, Apollo 14 went through a couple of landing site selection cycles, as its launch date changed. When it appeared that Apollo flights would proceed every four months, Apollo 14 was scheduled for a July, 1970 launch. Due to seasonal impacts on lunar trajectories, the Littrow site is not readily available in mid-summer, it becomes impossible to reach the correct orbit within the mass and propellant margins available to Apollo. So, for a July, 1970 mission, Apollo 14 was provisionally assigned a landing site about 500 meters to the west (IIRC) of the crater Censorinus. It's a moderately-fresh large crater (3.8km wide) with a very bright ejecta blanket, southeast of the Sea of tranquility, near the crater Maskelyne.

When Apollo 14 was pushed back to October, 1970 with the spreading out of missions to five-to-eight-month intervals, Littrow became available, and was assigned to Apollo 14.

So, let's assume Apollo 13 did not abort, and, for the sake of future crew selections, that Ken Mattingly was not scrubbed from the flight. In other words, let's take the unnatural drama away... *smile*...

Apollo 14 flies in October, 1970 to Littrow. As I mentioned above, it solves the riddle of the very dark soils seen from Earth and from orbit. Checks off that box, so landing on or near very dark soils becomes far less of a factor in future site considerations.

Since a great deal of work had been done on the Censorinus landing site, and since Censorinus is closer to the equator than Littrow and thus available for greater parts of the year, I've always figured that an H-mission Apollo 15 would perform the Censorinus mission in April or May of 1971. The EVA-2 on such a flight would certainly have returned some impressive pictures, taken from the very rim of a moderately fresh, nearly 4-km-wide crater.

That would lead us to a winter 1971 flight of Apollo 16 to Descartes, which is once again close enough to the equator to be available most all year 'round. This is the one mission that would have likely gone off pretty much as the one we all remember. Young and Duke on the plains of Descartes, albeit with Jack Swigert running the first SIM bay and making the first cislunar EVA.

The thing about this is that, if we're going to carry it out to the full complement of missions, the backup crew for this mission would be the crew for the final lunar landing, Apollo 19. Slayton's original backup crew for 16, when he thought there was a chance at an Apollo 19, was Fred Haise (CDR), Bill Pogue (CMP) and Gerry Carr (LMP). However, Slayton named that crew after Apollo 13 aborted, and Slayton had a rule -- no one got more than one lunar landing.

Slayton's basic rotation was that he considered CMPs to be second-in-command on the crew, trusted to run the CSM solo. They were commanders-in-training. The rotation took a CMP from one flight, made him the backup CDR three flights down the road, and prime CDR three flights later.

So, in Slayton's original rotation, Ken Mattingly would fly as CMP of Apollo 13, be the backup CDR of Apollo 16, and fly as CDR of Apollo 19.

So, it's my belief that had Apollo 13 not aborted, the final Apollo lunar expedition would have been manned by Mattingly-Pogue-Carr.

Back to the last three J missions. I think Hadley was irresistable, and would have been the target for Apollo 17 or Apollo 18. It depends on just how hard Jack Schmitt, who would have been the Apollo 18 LMP on Dick Gordon's crew, would have fought for Hadley over a somewhat less interesting sight like the Marius Hills. Considering the obviously volcanic nature of Marius, I'm pretty certain it would have taken the other spot.

Apollo 17 would have been Cernan-Evans-Engle, and would have been a summer or fall 1972 flight. After Apollo 17, Skylab would have flown. The hiatus would end with the flight of Apollo 18 in the spring of 1974, flown by the Gordon-Brand-Schmitt crew.

So, we have 17 and 18 going to Marius and Hadley, in one order or the other, bracketing the Skylab missions. We're left with 19.

The perennial choice for a climactic J mission was always Alphonsus. But it was *so* perennial that the site selection committee was getting tired of hearing about it. I think the extra J mission SIM bay work might have found some other really fascinating place. For my money, I think landing midway between the Flamsteed Ring and the Surveyor 1 landing site would have provided a great finish for Apollo. Flamsteed is original lunar crust, and the lavas at the Surveyor 1 site have been argued to be some of the youngest on the Moon. A true oldest-to-youngest mission, with the added fun of picking up more pieces of unmanned landers... So, my vote for Apollo 19 is a flight in the winter of 1974 to the Flamsteed-Storms site, flown by Mattingly-Pogue-Carr.

Anyway, that's some of what bounces around in this head of mine.

-the other Doug

Count resumed with a recycle back to T-1hr, as near as I can tell. Launch now looks to be scheduled for 8pm PDT, 11pm EDT, 3am UTC.

-the other Doug

Excellent work, Don! I know that the Apollo 12 crew was frustrated over their attempts to capture that eclipse. In fact, here is a short excerpt from the post-flight debriefing on the subject:

CONRAD: We want to talk about the solar eclipse and the fact that we were all caught with our pants down. We should have had good camera settings and film available for that because it was certainly a spectacular sight.

GORDON: I feel very strongly about this. I think that someone, the crew as much as anyone, really dropped the ball on this. We knew this was going to occur before the flight and we mentioned it. The people who are interested in this kind of thing, if there was any interest, were very remiss in not planning further for this particular event. To us, it was one of the most spectacular things we saw throughout the entire flight. I'm sure there's obviously some scientific value in this type of thing. However, the reaction in this regard was virtually nil. In conjunction with this the response of the people on the ground, at the time that we reported this, was extremely poor. The crew was left on their own entirely to come up with guesses on camera settings, films, and film speeds. Repeated inquiries to the ground took a considerable length of time before any information was gotten out of the ground at all as to what type of film, what exposure, and what time settings to use on the cameras. It was a very poorly handled phenomenon we all knew about before flight.

-the other Doug

...and perhaps some air freshener?



-the other Doug

I dunno... a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I got a journalism degree in college, and actually worked in newspapers for a couple of years (until I discovered I could make *tons* more money in technical writing).

I have something of a clue of how these things work. And I'd bet y'all any money the sequence went something like this:

Craig Covault is sitting around his office and gets a call from a friend who monitors the White House beat (likely for some other news organization). Let's face it, Covault isn't a White House correspondent.

Covault's friend says, "Hey, I just got word that your Mars lander guys came and gave a special presentation to the President. What the <bleep> is happening over on your side of the street, Craig?"

Covault guardedly replies, "Nothing they've told *me*."

Whereupon friend correspondent says, "Well, they have to have *something* hot, or they wouldn't be briefing the White House."

Now, if you're Craig Covault at that moment, maybe having nursed some private concerns over the very, very little information that has been released from the first TEGA run and from the WCL runs, just how are you going to feel? Maybe just a little, well... blindsided?

I can't blame the man for reacting the way he did. If the above scenario is correct, Covault got his skinny from a political reporter, while his own contacts in the Phoenix team and in the space industry in general had not only not given him any hints of this, it might just feel to him like his contacts have been deliberately withholding information from him. (Please note, I am *not* particularly suggesting that is the case, or that it would be un-called-for even if true -- I'm only suggesting that this scenario may have made Covault *feel* like that.)

If it were me, and especially if private questions along the same lines had been stonewalled, then heck, yes, I'll ask the question at a press conference. If I'm feeling like my contacts don't respect me, then I'm more motivated to remind them that respect is a two-way street.

Again, speaking from the point of view of someone who has worked the reporter's side of the street, and knows a little bit about the somewhat lunatic dynamic between a beat reporter and his/her contacts.

-the other Doug

Ah, yes -- reminds me of the famous horce race call, when the low-rated Hoof Hearted came from behind to win...

Speaking of which, would these tholins have any particular scent if they were to be introduced to a terrestrial atmosphere (that was then sniffed into a human nose)?

-the other Doug

And now there is a note at the bottom of the continuing webcast saying "Webcast will resume 6:30 (PDT) / 01:30 (UTC)"

-the other Doug