Cough ahem That was me reporting from Europlanet

The potential for this stuff are amazing - some of the idea that Kevin Hussey and his team have in the pipeline are just brilliant.

Doug

I've ordered mine.



http://www.cafepress.com/chrislintott

The imagination to come up with the phrase ' high speed turtle ' is superb. I'm really looking forward to giving talks in a few months where I can use these as a great lesson in para...paradoil - peradoil..err...screw it - that 'seeing faces in stuff' effect.

Doug

Damn - I'm traveling at that time. I'l email you

Thanks to Jorge for spending some weekend answering questions!!

Doug

Even at UMSF, we've had explanations as to the likely operating schedule for MSL, and it's surprising similarity to MER ( do stuff, then charge )

People may have presumed ( as I did at first ) that an RTG means it's a 24 hour science party - but it isn't - and I don't think MSL was ever actually expected to be.

Doug

Really? Where did you read that? I've never seen MSL described as driving at night, or driving hundreds of KM.

They described it during the conference as, in true colour, being very very much black and white.

Doug

Current total - £2177 (including some cold hard cash, and a cheque ( whatever that is) )

The domain is now with a new registrar which is a great move, as we have control over it and where it points to.

Helvick's now testing the forum on a sandbox server to see what needs to be done to get better performance out of it - at which stage we'll have a spec for our new server and go hunting for the right hosting package.

Doug

As described, it's the MSL decent stage, without a winch. It will have to tick almost all the same engineering boxes required for the skycrane manouver. It's much much closer to MSL than MER. One could argue that MSL is just a smart, capable, liquid fueled, horizontal velocity nulling MER backshell system....with a winch. The moment you decide to come to a standstill, and intelligently throttle out the cross-terrain speed, you're basically building Viking/MPL/Phoenix etc

(the hardware is decent stage, the maneuver is skycrane, although even I say skycrane in error half the time )

" The last stage of the descent is performed with throttable liquid rocket engines which will compensate the horizontal wind component and stop the Descent Module in mid air, about 10 m from the ground. The Lander will then be dropped and the Descent Module backshell will fly away."

That's a liquid fueled, actively guided decent stage. Maybe it doesn't hover like the MSL decent stage (although 'stop in mid air' is a pretty accurate description of MSL) , but it's a lot more like MSL than the RAD's of the MER design.

Doug

Skycrane AND Airbags AND an orbiter that gets thrown away AND a year long wait on orbit.

AND making the assumption that MRO/MEX/MODY will be in a position to offer relay, 8 years from now without providing any alternative of our own.



I really am sorry to sound so negative about Exomars...it just seems like the wrong way to be going - lots of decisions that seem to be inappropriate compromises to problems that should be engineered out of the equation. I really really don't want to see ESA spend this much money and get it wrong, and I think they are. Big Kudos to Ustrax for getting us some lovely juicy details!

Doug

Watch it guys - this thread is getting a bit personal, and is certainly going back over the old ground that we've closed up elsewhere. The use of absolutes ( it can't be this, it must be this, it's never been this, it's always been this etc etc ) is just plain ignorant. We are basically going back over the same ground, two camps that don't see eye to eye. Don't make me close this thread as well because it's crashed into an infinite loop.

If you really really want to carry on in that way, do it elsewhere, or via email.

Doug

1) This debate is, really, nothing about that
2) That debate is on the 'banned' list for UMSF.

Multiple posts have been deleted, and Laurele has been suspended for 2 weeks for ranting. A breach of the written 'don't rant' rule, and the unwritten Pluto debate rule.

It's a fairly black couple of weeks really, in terms of anniversaries.

Such is the price of exploration, and the cost of heroes. The world is a poorer place without them.

Doug

I flicked thru it very quickly for a first glance. I then had another look at the most exciting parts.

I WANT THAT MISSION.

No offense to people who rather we reinvestigated Europa and its friends - but TE gets my exploratory juices flowing like nothing else. In an ideal world, we would do everything, tomorrow. But this isn't an ideal world.

It has three large chunks that could, if required, be international interfaces (Orbiter US, Lander ESA, Balloon CNES/JPL).

It's the most expensive, but boy oh boy are we getting a lot of return. I don't think any of the others would grab the public imagination like this.

Doug

They've locked that folder on their server I think - to stop the likes of us sneaking a peak of what's coming next.

Doug

Don (and others) theory of Meridiani etc. has been discussed to death and beyond in its own thread. http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=4308 which has now been closed, as it was going around and around in cirlces and getting nowhere. There's >40,000 words of Don's thoughts in there - enjoy.

Doug

I've done the full 511 swath. 720p, motion blur, atmospheric haze, the works

http://www.rlproject.com/HRSC/511_full/511_full_hi.mov (41 meg)
http://www.rlproject.com/HRSC/511_full/511_full_lo.mov (16 meg)

A Mazda RX8 PZ please. Always wanted an excuse to use the word 'wankel' on UMSF. (look it up)

We've got 'enough' (basically £2000) to see us thru for 16 months without any trouble. The experience of the last few days of Farking has perhaps pointed in a particular way for what a server needs to be responsive ( less than we thought ) - so I'm happy that we're good, basically, until MSL launches. That's another key exploration milestone for which UMSF will be a focus of attention again - and we'll get the cap out and come round asking for more, if we need it, at that time

Doug

I've deleted a few posts. If you're going to identify other funny objects within the same pan, the sarcasm has to be obvious - or quite simply we can be copy and pasted and seem exactly the same as the people and places that spread the nonsense this thread explicitly exists to dispel.

Meanwhile - Phoenix is the first Mars lander since this place was formed. It would be naive to imagine we're not going to attract a lot of attention and thus traffic during that time. It would thus be irresponsible to not ensure the forum is on a platform that can handle that load. We're currently on a hosting package that if we become too busy, the host can simply turn us off. That's not a good place to be with potential heavy traffic.

Doug

We peaked at >350 guests earlier today, probably higher as I didn't check till after the peak on the bandwidth graph.

This is why we need a dedicated server before Phoenix

Doug

Hang on..

Did Emily just discover Callisto?



Doug

Well - Joe is doing a legendary job investigating the current forum in a sandbox server ( we think the nasty post-pause issue is resolved there, and that will get deployed here in the not to distant future ) .

We've already paid to move the domain registration from the current hosting company to an independent name registrar. This gives us control of the domain for when we actually get a dedicated server. That handover should occur in the next few days (but should be transparent as the domain will continue to point to the same place )

We're looking at where to spend the most money in terms of the server performance to host the forum ( Ram, HDD, Network, CPU etc etc ) so that we spend the most where it makes the most difference, and cut short where it's not needed - basically getting the very most out of the cash.

We have a hosting firm in mind, but if anyone has any specific dedicated ( managed or unmanaged ) server provider recommendations, let us know.

Doug

My WORD, never has a PDF made me want to animate stuff as much as the TE pdf.


Doug

Well - an update.

Total donations - £1422.77. This includes £925.95 of regular donations, and the first £500 of the matched donations ( it came out as £496.83 dspite our best effort to precalculate the paypal fees).

If you take our current total, plus the remaining matched donation to come - we're at £1,957.20

Now - if someone want to right an enormous cheque so we can live off the interest, then far be it from me to stop them BUt for now - that £1957 will see us run the forum for 12-16 months. We'll invest a little part of it in production of what we think will be a VERY popular DVD, and possibly a small pin badge, both of which should generate quite a nice profit. ( 50 dvd's at a cost of £114 with potential revenue of £600 or so ) That 12 month buffer will give us the time to investigate what does and doesn't make money, so that we can do more of it, and then limit the regularity and quantity with which we come back, cap in hand, to the members

Doug

Eric's image has just got us FARK'd. Currently >6k views on the image, and the largest bandwidth spike UMSF's ever seen.

Doug