FYI - I'm going to close this thread as we're going to get confused between this and the other Vic thread...

Future discussion here...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...3056&st=135


Doug

How did you do the middle one?

Doug

Polo minted

Beautiful stitch Mike - superb horizon, much better than I can manage with PTGui usually - I can never get them that level.

Bit of a Nic-o-vision look back stretched anaglyph - shows the terrain quite nicely.

Doug

I've been tested to 4,273 posts in another forum, but that doesnt mean the keyboard stops at 4,274

Doug

Here's a question. What is 'round'. We need to have that defined. The Radius must vary from the mean by no more than 10% say. Something like that.

Doug

We should get a week of reasonably good driving I think - perhaps half the way to Vic if they're bold.

Doug

I'm British, so my emotions remain comparatively reserved and hidden, but I actually let out a "YES!!!" when I saw that RHAZ

That's twice that's happened today (I'm a speed record nut, and JCB Diesel Max did a 300mph run yesterday and got on top of their engine-sync troubles...so that got a "COME ONNNNNN!!!" at Breakfast when I read the news )

It's not like the ground from Eagle to Endurnace, but it's certainly like the ground from say, Triplet to Vostok.

We are very nearly as close to Victoria here, as we were to Endurance when sat in Eagle crater.

Doug

Yup - and it's entirely at my discression who does and doesnt become one. It was simply a case of giving someone the option to attach a larger image than 1mb. Not something I normally do (and not something I'll be doing very often in the future) but I think we can all agree this was a special case.

Doug

I set Tim to be a senior member - just a few switches etc to let him attach a >1mb file, but it looks like he went the other way

Doug

And no one said "Play it again Sam" either..
Rant over

Google Mars is fairly low res - even the very best coverage would have an entire MER traverse in the space of 100 pixels...
http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-14.584912...mp;map=infrared

Doug

False colour images are beginning to appear of the Beagle pan at the PC website, and as there are Tif's available, they offer less compression...so....a rough hack that I'll improve on when more frames come down..

Doug

If you're trying to tie each new site down to the orig lander frame - I think all you need are these....

http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/anteam/me...ra_traverse.txt
http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/anteam/me...rb_traverse.txt
from
http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/anteam/merb/mer_osu.htm

Doug

I don't believe any placement info for the MI is involved in the PCDB

Doug

Wow - nice MI sequence.....trying to merge with Pancam now

(nope - can't match with PC - it's all too samey)

http://www.b3tards.com/uploads/pedants.jpg

Pedants r us.

Doug

Well - you may struggle with Clementine being a military operation - but if anywhere will be able to help, it will be here..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/space-modelers/

Good luck.

Doug

I must admit - I was explaining all this to my ever fascinated colleague Josh ( for those that watch QI I said "How many planets are there Josh" "Nice?" "BZZZZZZZZZ -awooga...awoooga" ) and we debated the point of Charon getting an upgrade.

Why should the movement of the barycenter from 1m below the mean radius to 1m above reclassify the system from being planet + moon to being binary?

Systems evolve, that reclassification could occur during the lifetime of a system, and I don't think a body should be reclassified from moon to planet just because it got a little further away.

A body is what a body is....it doesnt matter where it is (as the rest of these new rules would have us believe)...and I think it makes a bit of a farce of the system if suddently we have to go back to our text books because a system has evolved and scrub out 'moons...1' and instead right "binary planet"

BUT....then...there ARE likely to be binary systems out there, so at what point do you say "ok - this is now a binary system, not planet+moon" - mass, radius, etc etc....you do need a cut off, but I don't think it should be one that can change.

Doug

And just for good measure, an article about a backward polarity sun spot today describes sun spots as being 'planet sized'

PLANET SIZED

What the hell does that mean

Doug

Totally unrelated politics and political imagery removed. You all know the rules guys.

Doug

Yes. It is the first sol the rover spends at the site and drive number where it takes the large pancam mosaic that will obviously be taken of the crater. It's not the day that mosaic starts being taken, it's the day the rover is first on that site.

That definition has been in place for several months, and is something that I will determine at the time ( which is why I asked previously for my guestimate to be taken out for the sake of impartiality )

However despite a clear definition, I'm sure, as I expect will be the case with the far/near rim nonsense, it will results in a lengthy, pointless argument and debate that will end up with some deleted posts.

Doug

I really don't buy the nuclear launch story....surely one could just inform the appropriate people and advise "we will be launching one of these, between these hours, from this place"

Doug

Nothing from this end. No bad words, no contact at all. People just sometimes drift away..it happens sadly.

We've already got people trying to get in touch with Bob though - perhaps he's on his hols or something? Believe me, no one is as frustrated and pissed off as I that Bob can't get on to the board from his NTL connection - but I have tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that I possibly can to sort the situation. I am fully out of ideas, options and choices in terms of sorting that situation.

Doug

It's only a couple of Kg - it may well be that the trajectory for the initial launches were such that additional payload capacity was available for V2 and thus it was tanked up a little heavier. (Identical LV's on slightly different traj's would suggest slightly different mass budgets perhaps)

Perhaps because V1 was the first one out the gate, the lessons learnt on how to minimise fuel useage were learnt on V1 and carried over to V2.

And it's not hard to imagine one extreme safing event causing a big chunk of fuel useage at some point during a 20+ year mission.

Lots of reasons that could cause the difference.

Doug

Perhaps characterise the dune material in this region before spending a month or two driving on it toward Vic.

And, just speculating, perhaps whilst sat here with the arm out, they might do the switch to the new flight software?

Doug