I think they have two - one built for mobility and one a full up model - and they're serial numbers 3 and 4.

Doug

I wouldnt want to see them brought 'home' - leave them where they belong, in their home, up there.

Doug

Galileo WOULD have launched in '86 were it not for the Challenger accident though.

Doug

It would have been a ground based image (going on his response)

Doug

Well - Genesis didn't use Aerogel for starters - it just used arrays of different materials ( silicon, aluminium, saphire I think at some point - all sorts of things - check the Genesis website for more info)

Doug

Dust Devils are seasonal - but remember, there is not evidence that an actual DD has ever cleaned Spirit - it's just good strong winds that have done that. Of course, stronger winds occur when there is more energy around, triggered by more sun, which happens during the summer. However - hill sides will always offer stronger winds that the inner basin.

Doug

Just a bit of fun

Consider a winter on McCool's Northern slopes - we could trundle along to the eastern edge - image the far Eastern Basin, then trundle back again ready to return to HP or other targets next spring. It's very very worth while getting there in my opinion.

Doug

Depending on how you define winter, we drove all the way from West Spur to the Wishstone area, several hundred metres in all.

The choice is - spend a few days getting the McCool where there will be several hundred metres of hill to explore during the winter, or park near a small local slope where there will be a few metres to explore and leaving that risks killing the rover.

The effort to get to McCool hill is very very worth while. If things get worse than they are now, there are parts of McCool that will offer some really good slopes to get the very best power we can.

Also - if you're doing mobility analysis on that FR wheel - doing it on the slopes of a hill where you have dozens and dozens of metres of driving available to you whilst maintaining a good slope is a viable option. Doing it on the edge of Home Plate isnt.

Getting up onto that Hill has the potential for stronger winds ( as we saw at Larry's Lookout ) and thus more cleaning events - something we've not seen since hitting the south side of Husband Hill 200 sols ago. Being higher up means that UHF passes will probably be a little cleaner and longer. There are lots and lots of reasons to get to McCool hill. Other than 'it's a bit closer' - I can see no reason to use some of the poorer, restrictive local slopes.

Doug

But do you want to spend 300 odd sols parked in one spot?

Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...em_columbia.wmv

Not very accurate yet - still working on it, but just for fun, there it is.

Doug

(PS - doh - wrong link - now fixed )

We are going SE generally. Any one day's drive may not be in the exact direction of the over all goal - but it may be the best route that offers progress in the route required.

That was made using an elevation map derived from a DEM (which Helvick should have shortly ) and then in a 3D animation package - I simply put a green light source to the north, and a red one to the south - so the related slopes were illuminated appropriately.

Doug

Yup - Mars Odyssey is doing good relay.

But they didn't have much involvement with the rovers as I understand it.

Doug

Well - chances are the rovers will both die in a whimper type fashion - slowly and painfully.

Doug

I KNEW there was something dodgy about you

Doug

Can you email me the IP from which you can't access ( same is true for every one )

doug@rlproject.com or unmannedspaceflight@gmail.com - either's good.

Doug

Green slope good, red slope bad - very rough and ready, but it gives some sort of idea

Doug

I think they moved to the nearest patch that offered a slightly better tilt w.r.t. solar power for a few days of analysis - toward or away from HP, I doubt they cared much.

Doug

The Decepticons were the Transformers enemy if I remember rightly - it was a very long time ago though - back when I lived up in the Wirral and Colour TV was such a novel idea, the BBC2 logo still said Colour under it

Doug

The less obvious (but more accurate) link is that Emily did research on Venus with Magellan data before working at TPS.

Doug

I love NH - it's a wonderfull mission - but it's not a Flagship - it's shouldnt be left to be the biggest mission of the next decade and a half.

If you're in your 20's - you have Cassini
If you're in your 30's - you had Galileo
If you're in your 40's - you had Voyager
If you're in your 50's - you had Viking

yes yes - lots of overlap and doesnt really sit in those catagories properly, it's a metaphor more than a real survey of the past - but there's nothing for our teenagers - where is their Voyager? Has there been a point in the last 40 years when the next really big mission wasnt at least in the planning stages?

Doug

I gave a talk to some 16-18 y.o. school students today - and I always finish my talks with the most recent image I can get before the talk starts...so today I finished talking about Spirit thus...

"To bring it bang up to date, this image was taken yesterday morning, and shows the front right wheel - the same one that was a temporary problem 600 sols ago, essentially stuck. A major stall of the motor suggest that something might be broken for good inside the mechanics of the wheel - so I'm sad to say that I leave Spirit with the news that yes, one of its wheels might be about to fall off"

For a bunch of typical teenagers, they got most of the space related gags, went oOoo at the right anaglyphs, wow at the right pictures - and indeed laughed at the idea of a dodgy wheel falling off. For the Brits ammoungst you, there's a joke about finding a Mars rover up on bricks with 6 missing wheels somewhere in there, with the mission engineers saying something like "I KNEW we shouldnt have had that engineering consultant from Liverpool in to do the job"


Doug

So are we likely to see, eventually, Google Mars with Themis, MOC and Hirise imagery in there?

If so - will the MOC-NA and Hirise imagery be referenced in such a way that one can refer back to the orig released imagery outside of Google?

The Themis and MGS MOC browsing maps are not too bad actually ( Themis just get's the nod, but obviously these systems take quite a lot of time and thus money to get working properly, and the MOC one is simply older) - but a unifed system is so overdue - and JMars is a clunky evil beast to use

Doug

I went to see it - but it wasnt on. I had to put up with Care Bears the Movie instead

I've never been the same since.

Doug