M-ODY safe mode. Nothing to worry about. Not the first time it's happened, wont be the last - just one of those things.

Doug

I've heard that mentioned before but not seen it anywhere.

Doug

But it was also mentioned that they wouldn't go up to the sides of the capes because of the shadowing (sun and telecoms) they would cause.

BUT - it's still enough to shed 90%+ of the entry velocity. To try and land on something as massive as Mars without using the atmosphere would take the payload-to-entry ratio currently about 1/4 and make it a whole lot worse.

Doug

Beagle 2 would have imaged itself using the Wide Angle Mirror - that would have been quite cool.

Doug

Philae imaging Rosetta, XMM-Newton on board camera, Beagle 2 deployment images, Huygens imaged from Cassini.

Doug

You underestimate the level of creativity of those guys. They'd claim that either the hardware had been deposited, unmanned, more recently - or that the visiting spacecraft was simply part of the conspiracy itself.

Doug

You slut for things shiny

Rumours has it we might be getting it in the UK soon - I'm going to struggle to not cave in and get one - nice though the iPod touch is - it's screen is not as good as the iPhone

Doug

Thinking out loud - if you can get to GEO as a piggyback - (not gto...GEO) - then the dV to get to the moon drops - significantly. The TLI is <1km/sec instead of 3km/sec. If you're really cunning about it - maybe even only 900m/sec.

If you can take 2km/sec off the requirement like that - then you get a mass fraction of more like 70%. If someone's prepared to have a 500kg hitch-hike to GEO - you could put as much as 150kg on the surface. Thing is - which kind-soul telecoms company is going to give someone a free lift to GEO..anyone....hmmmm....it's gone quiet

Doug

I didn't know Kaguya had it onboard - hopefully we'll be seeing some ultra cool footage in the not to distant future. . It's about time that 'our' generation ( i.e. born >Apollo 17) got our Earth rise moment....But when you're 3 tonnes and have 3.5 kw to use.....HDTV's not too big a challenge (any lunar orbiter's a challenge, but you know what I mean) Size 46cm x 42cm x 28cm Mass 16.5kg Power consumption 50W
That description describes the HDTV cameras onboard Kaguya...and probably not far off the bottom lines of size, mass and power for a Falcon 1 launched landed payload in full.

Doug

How much of that is fuel tankage, engines, plumbing, basic structure etc etc. My bad-maths said something like 70-170kg on the surface - so your proper maths does do a better job But given the demands of the prize ( 500m, HDTV ) with the landed payload...I just don't see it as possible. Would a hugely optimistic figure for the 'dead' mass of the vehicle be something like 40kg? Leaving a 30kg vehicle for power, cdh, >1mbps downlink caperbility, and sufficient mobility to drive across the moon. For $27m plus whatever else you can generate from it. I just don't think it's feasable. I would love.. and I mean absolutely LOVE to be proven wrong - a rover on the moon would be utterly fantastic. I just don't see this $30m as making a whole chunk of difference in terms of the likelyhood of it being done privately in the next 5 years.

Doug

http://www.spacetethers.com/massfraction.html

VERY VERY rough figures - but that would suggest a mass fraction of approx 75-90% to achieve 6km/sec delta V. Staging might help (at that scale?) - so you've got something like 175kg to 70kg of vehicle structure, engines, systems, fuel tanks ( carrying 600kg of fuel). What's left for the actual rover? To coin a phrase, roughly 9/10ths of 4/5ths of 'f' all

Doug

Sadly, no. I don't think anyone will be prepared to take the financial risk. All credit to Elon for offering cheap Falcon 1 launches - that's a starting point - but that's an LEO payload of about700kg. Within that 700kg - you've got to get a 3km/sec TLI, another 3km/sec or so to get onto the surface when you're there - unless your lander is little more than a cube sat - I don't think the maths adds up. And once you've got a cube sat with wheels on the surface.... HDTV? Not likely.

A cheap orbital mission challenge would have made more sense - but all credit to Google for trying anyway.

Doug

I call this one... dip and dive

I can understand how and my why the first X-Prize was won... it was essentially a back-dated seed-fund for sub-orbital tourism. What does this seed? I mean - a little rover on the moon - very very very very cool - cool beyond words - but where's the commercial return on it?

Doug

Using the Prius as an example of good efficiency is also rather poor - as on long duration high speed journeys (such as Dawn) - a Prius will offer significantly worse economy than a small diesel car (by about 50%)

Doug

A bit of photoshop, a lot of MMB..the view of the 'dip'

Doug

If I could afford to take the time off work - I'd go - 400D and tripod in tow....but sadly, the grim reality of 'normal' life takes priority. I've already done Rosetta and Europlanet on my 'holiday' time.

Doug

Is there a way to automate the exporting of screengrabs? command-t comma command-t comma etc etc gives me finger-ache

Doug

Not for me yet. An interesting DNS race

Doug

Not a great stitch - but 21 frames of it none the less - a very very wierd place.

Very

Wierd

Place

I imagine it'll take 24hrs for the DNS stuff to refresh it's way around the web so everyone's looking at the proper site again.

Doug

Doesn't look like a hack - looks like a hosting company not renewing the URL pointing. It happened here - even when I'd paid for the renewal. A reasonably prices, honest, reliable hosting comapny is almost impossible to find....

A lookup on the URL shows..

Record expires on 07-Sep-2007
Record created on 07-Sep-1999

Doug

He's using a really really big newtonian

Doug