That is just so very very cool. They should give 1080i MOV's to Apple to put on their trailers website

Doug

nahh - awards would always mean somebody not winning, and in some ways - we're all winners, or the winner is exploration itself.

Doug

I can't remember how and why I started the place, or how and why I came up with the UMSF URL....it's very strange.

DOug

They feather them in different ways to avoid the RCS exhaust from the shuttle causing any dynamic issues as I understand it.

Doug

My two favorite vehicles of all time - Thrust SSC, and MER - just about the fastest and slowest vehicles made my man.
My two favorite noises - a BRM H16, and a Delta II

Technology, engineering - I love it - in any form.

Doug

You've not seen me watch an F1 race

Doug

Which of the two (Jovian or Saturnian) splits up the simplest (i.e. Cassini+Huygens level split). Would one 'half' be a SEP module perhaps, in trade for a few instrument slots.

Doug

When poetry provides Whr's - let me know.

Until that point, the conservative option of heading for local, known, accessible, power positive slopes opens the opportunity for another full summer of exploration next year. The braver option might bring us those two new geological features more quickly - but it could very well eliminate the chance for any exploration beyond. i.e. an over zealous exploratory nature now, would eradicate further exploration in the future.

If you ignore the romance and the speculation and the 'desire' for exploration and simply put on a hat marked 'sensible' - they're doing the right thing. The right decision is rarely the most popular or exciting one.

Doug

That's quite a heavy and data-expensive way of doing it though - as well as requiring a lot processing after the flight...and assumes a clear day for the bottom, say, 1/3rd of the flight. Sensors + maths would, I'd have thought, done a better job

I thought it was planning to land on ice deposits

It's a fair point - but if you take the '01 hardware costs, the scout budget, and the little-bit-extra - Phoenix isn't something you could do from the ground up for a discovery budget. If you got to a genuine 'build to print' state, maybe it'd work?


Doug

Yeah - the observed brightness is holding at a roughly equal level. That's what I was suggesting...you've got X 'particles' blown out from the comet - and those particles can reflect a certain number of photons. If they do it over a bright patch that's 200,000 km across, or a dimmer patch 1,000,000 km across - the net photon count on my retina would be the same...ish. It's evolution over the next few months will be fascinating.

Doug

Phoenix in Leicester it is

Doug

Without doubt - that's the feeling that I got thru Binos - and indeed Helen even thought the same.

This might suggest one discreet major event - and we now have a set amount of material that is expanding and 'thinning' - producing a larger, yet dimmer coma over time - but maintaining a similar observed brightness.

Ditto - the entire turbulance-thru-cloud issue that we've talked about would be an interesting way to go. With SD / CF then we could have a high enough data rate to make it usefull, whilst having the space for a long flight (longer than a frisbee anyway )

Perhaps LDR's might work as inverted sun sensors? One on top/4xsides - then could technically interpolate a sun position..ish?

Doug

Drive to Goddard and Spirit WILL die.

Drive somewhere with better slopes, and it probably wont and Goddard will still be there next Spring.

It's a no brainer. Given our very low power experience of the dust storm- there's no reason to think this winter will be any less survivable than the last.

Excessive doom-mongering or misinformation (such as 'Undoubtedly it's last Spirit's weeks') are utterly unjustified and will not be tolerated on this forum.

Doug

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N-3MRhsyyYQ

Comparable, I think, to average Bino shots.

And a stacked still - attached ( and another of a well known cluster - and another process of the first stack )

That's tabloid sensationalism again. They had a senior EVA guy from the astronaut office at the press con yesterday saying that they're taping up any metal parts of the suit, they're using insulated tools - there's no chance of getting a discharge.

Doug

I've brought a camera home from work ( A Sony VX2000E Mini DV camera ) because I've got stuff I may want to film on Sunday...but I thought 'wonder if it'll see the comet'

Did it ever!!!

Screenshots and movies later.

Doug

Sad to see the end of Mini-TES, for now at least. Who would have guessed that this would have killed them, rather than the cold! But with 650 Watts..Opportunity can just go "Winter? What winter!"

Doug

Bingo. That's what I'd like

I don't think the view from Mars would be significantly different to that from Earth.

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=17p&orb=1

We're both in the same sort of direction from the comet - perhaps only 20 degrees different. Maybe worth a go if it's easy enough.

Looking more carefully, NH couldn't (it'd be far too close to the Sun)....Cassini, maybe.


Doug

They'll work with ISIS I presume - but I've not found a free ( as in beer ) tool to open cubes for either VIMS or CRISM easily for OSX or Windows.

Doug

Ulysses doesn't have any cameras.

NH and Cassini would be the only spacecraft worth having a go with, and even then I'm not sure the geometry is too good - and they'll just resolve little blobs - not much more than that.

Doug

The software to do it. You'd need to make a quicktime VR or other panoramic technology platform product - all of which typically require a commercial product over and above a normal panorama stitching program.

The images themselves are able to do it (see the polar projections) - it's just the means to deliver a 'panable' format that is the stumbling block.

They've backed it up half a bay - they're going for another half bay now.