That's not a parachute - it's exposed bedrock.

And just to further things a little -they took a movie of mine, without asking, compressed it so badly it was ruined, improperly credited the source, improperly cited the source of the data, screwed up the description...etc etc etc..... APOD is not something to aspire to in my opinion.

APOD don't tend to take submissions. They see stuff they like and publish it themselves, without actually asking.

That's what they've done with a couple of things I've made, anyway.

Of course - that's a plot against time, not distance. But I think we would see a stair-step entering the Yellowknife Bay area.

Read the PDF linked to a few posts above - you will see that fuel isn't the problem for the 2020 encounter. Funding is.

There's enough fuel to get it done. There's no funding for it.

And - as ugordan says - just pointing the spacecraft requires, essentially, no fuel at all.

It's a Version 2 of the image, so maybe a backed up downlink or ground processing thing.

We're at (or very close) to the triple point, so any time we exceed 0degC it would be sublimating off.

My take on anaglyphing a pair of HDR'd images.

The cameras were bolted to the spacecraft in that orientation probably about two years ago - and now lay smashed on the lunar surface.

I'm going to say yes...it's a bit too late.

As far as I know - those were the last frames taken by MoonKAM - I got the raw frames from Sally Ride Science last week ( although they've been on their website for a while ) and just did a bit of deinterlacing and rotating to get the best I could out of them.

Moreover - just because a site is in sunlight doesn't mean LRO is going to be over it quickly - the groundtrack of the orbit has to be taken into consideration also and it might be several cycles ( lunar days ) before a good view is available.

It'll be pretty much out of fuel - Cassini won't be getting extended beyond the current 2017 schedule. And No, Eyesonmars - it shouldn't be left lingering - it needs to be responsibly disposed off rather than offer a contamination hazard for possible habitats.

Attempts have been made in the past to try and image orbiters in known orbits from the surface, without luck.

V2 is clearly in a very different environment to V1. V2 has had a very gradual decline over the past year to about 50% of initial levels. V1 was almost static at a fixed level until a very sudden and rapid decline by an order of magnitude in literally a day that bounced back and forth a little then dropped for good. Fascinating.

Agreed - I see nothing especially unusual there.

It's been doing it the whole mission.

By all means offer up your own creation that ticks that box.

Read my words again....where I explicitly state "These features will still be there if they warrant further attention on the way back out of Yellowknife Bay in a few weeks."

There will be no forced retrace. They're going that way anyway.

And I repeat - the assumption that an analysis has be done and they've decided to not look at these more closely is support by exactly zero data. We have no idea what the science team might or might not think of those feature. No idea at all.

How on earth do you reach that conclusion? Second guessing the science team is a game not worth playing.

We don't have ChemCam, APXS or any other analysis of them. They currently have a clear stated goal of getting to Yellowknife Bay for a first use of the drill.

These features will still be there if they warrant further attention on the way back out of Yellowknife Bay in a few weeks.

They have some story about algae that make the atmosphere a) 100x thicker and breathable.

And yeah - AIMEE the robot that goes a bit psycho on them.

That's what Val Kilmer does in Red Planet ( although I think he walks it )

He rips Sojourner open to grab its radio. I was not amused.

The rover is only about 1/4 of the launch mass of the MSL payload. Trimming science payload doesn't get you very far at all

Page 2-107 of - http://www.scribd.com/doc/16924557/Lockhee...-Planners-Guide is where Atlas V C3 spec's are listed.

MSL's launch mass was 3,893kg

On the Atlas V 541 is used - the max theoretical C3 was approx 22 km^2/s^2 - mcaplinger is right - the MSL launch was not using it's total performance envelope. A similar massed vehicle could make any of those launch opportunities with the same rocket. To put it another way - there was about a 25% mass margin on LV performance for MSL.

Yeah - that (and others) were even looked at earlier in MSL development (my favorite was using tanks of mercury that could be pumped around the backshell) - but they were dumped just to keep the architecture simple. Mass wasn't a problem - complexity, reliability and schedule were - so they went with the simplest option.

To be honest, I'd expect them to do the same this time around.

Margin? No. It fundamentally enabled the guided entry that allowed MSL to have a small landing ellipse.

You could add approx 100kg to the mass of MSL within the current architecture - but it's not coming from the ballast.

Two ARTEMIS's also orbiting the Moon, the WIND spacecraft would be just between Mercury and Venus, and STEREO A a little to the right of Venus.

It's covered in spacecraft

No - this money was - at the presedential level - assigned to the Mars program. You cite Casey's article - but you've not understood it. The cost of the 2020 mission could not have been spent on a Europa or Discovery or NF mission.

NASA COULD NOT... let me repeat that - COULD NOT have spent this money on anything other than Mars.

The budget may not be flexible enough to respond to the Decedal - but this mission does the best it can to speak to the Decedal, for Mars, within the budget assigned.