Most of the talks I give are in the evening, and if I can, I end up with "and this was taken this morning"

It's a big gasp-oo-wow-laugh-woah noise, it's great. The only other time I've heard it is with the FHAZ Anaglyph from Oppy at Pan Pos 2 at Endurance, and 3D MEX imagery.

I LOVE showing the really dirty Sundial, mentioning the really low power situation, how close to critical etc - and then going "and then one day...." click...clean sundial - and it gets a big laugh

Doug

Sky News hasnt started carrying NTV yet, so I'm stuck with a feed at the moment.

Doug

It could be anything, active satellites, debris, upper stages, etc etc.

Just to confim, yes, all 5 solids are ground-start.

Doug

They have launched a 3-solids Atlas V, it's not that big a performance hike really.

It might be the biggest ILS launch, but Lo-Mart (the major player of ILS) used to do Titan's did they not - some of them were very very big.

Doug

A bit of maths for a laugh

MRO's Atlas V ( a 401, 4m fairing, no solids, one engine on the Centaur ) was 336,000 kgs, 57m tall, and had 3.8MN of thrust at launch. Inital accel of 1.5 m/s^2, thus 8.71s to launch to its own height, ignoring reduction in mass due to fuel consumption

NH's Atlas V ( A 551, 5m fairing, 5 solids, one engine on the Centaur ) is 573,160 kgs, is 59.7m tall, and has 3.8MN of thrust from the RD180 - PLUS - 5x1.64MN Solids ( for a total of 12MN ) - Initial accel of 11m/s^2 - covering it's own height in 3.29s

It's going to be fast

Doug

I always finish with the most recent imagery I can find - and I always try to highlight the achievment of longevity.

Another usefull tool is to overlay the routemaps on to a local map at the same scale, and include a circle of 600m radius at the landing site to demonstrate how far they were SUPPOSED to go.

Mentioning the problems they've had, and the workarounds or fixes they have formulated is a good educational experience. Perhaps pitch the problem of low solar power near hills to them, and see if they can formulate the concept of driving to positive energy slopes as a solution.

Obviously, show DD movies, Eclipse movies, Driving movies - these all bring the whole thing to life very easliy.

I've tried to work ways to show the full extent and resolution of Pancam imagery within Powerpoint but have, to date, not succeeded. I typically show a tiny version of the mosaic within the screen, and then simply show consecutive stills of various areas of interest one after the other - perhaps this could be augmented by having highlighted points on the first overview pan before showing full screen zoom-ins.

I've looked into doing animations of this - much like the NASA-TV shots one sees, Adobe After effects can;t handle the size of images, but more pro. packages can - I have tried using Discreet (now Autodesk)'s Combustion package, with variable results.

Use 3d images sparingly, they dont work for everyone. DO include the FHAZ from Pan-Pos 2 at Endurance as an anaglyph, and a Navcam anaglyph from just outside Eagle Crater.

Do mention the story of how MGS brought Oppy to Meridiani, the hematite etc. It's a good story.

I've given about 8 MER related talks in the past year, and to be honest - you can't go wrong as the material is, without fail, astonishing

Doug

The most recent drive was a very good one imho - complex, but good progress made. Perhaps they intend to head for the dip between the local summits in this line of humps leading toward HP

Doug

- compressed form (e.g. ZIP or GZIP).

That was something I mentioned specifically to Mark ( Mark Rose from AMES who's doing this ) - and that the small-bodies node has it down well, with all the DI data being zipped day-by-day, and the stardust encounter data being zipped up etc. For example, a single 9 meg DI ITS image zips up to approx 1/3rd of that.

I suppose I shoudl chip in with my suggestions which I emailed in before starting this thread...

"Deep Impact data at the Small Bodies node was great, as data is available, by instrument, on a day by day basis, with each day zipped (tar'd actually) up to download as one file, the same is true of all the sets at the SB node and it saves a lot of trouble, time, and hassle - but I think that everywhere that has a ZIP available, should also have that available as a folder to browse for specific content.

A classic example of this is the Geosciences Node for MER data. The mobility reports are available on a sol-by-sol basis as a single ZIP file, however those interested in mapping only want one file from each of those, a single png file that is about 5kb. Fortunately, Jennifer at the MER Notebook is looking into pulling those files out for me to save downloading >5GB per rover, for approx 500kb of data. But it does demonstrate that the combined availability of a ZIP of appropriate archives whilst very useful, should also be accompanied by a browseable version of its contents. The two together offer the best of both worlds. Those who want the lot can grab the ZIP's, those who want something specific can dive in and grab just the 2mb they want, instead of 1872Mb they don’t.

I am not sure of the structure for Cassini releases, but something which the MER releases might benefit from is splitting them into a release-by-release structure (i.e. one folder for each data set, for each 3 month release). Were the contents of these 'zipped' also, then when a new release arrives, people could simply download that, and add it to their own archive.

The difference between these areas is something of a problem however - node-to-node there are huge differences in structure, delivery format etc etc. Standardising across all nodes would be of great benefit, with all data sets available to browse online, grab appropriately 'sliced' ZIP's, and navigate via FTP.

I think there would be some excellent value in having a compiled distribution of WGET for all suitable platforms, with verbose instructions and example batch files to grab select file types and data sets, in bulk, for download. Perhaps an online tool to generate WGET command lines given spacecraft, instrument, data type, date range etc? This would be a huge asset.

I think an emphasis on attaining and maintaining a local copy of specific data sets would be valuable, and an ability to be more specific in this, i.e. only one type of data product per folder 'above' the date, orbit or sol number. For example, Navcam release have, in each sol, many different data products ( terrain wedges, IDD reach ability and so on and so forth) - WGET has solved this problem for me in an instant by specifying specific codes within files ( i.e. *RAD* etc ), but the ability to navigate through.

If possible, any directory navigable via a browser should be navigable via FTP also, as whilst WGET and other downloading programs are useful, FTP probably remains the easiest, most reliable way in which to grab large quantities of data within a directory structure"

Doug

I've been Out MER'd

Doug

Oh, I intend to record tonight as well. It's set to 4 hrs, so whatever happens, I should get everything that they cover.

I'm sure www.insideksc.com will carry a divx before too long as well

Just watching the MRO launch - it took 7 seconds to get from lift off, to the main engine being level with the top of the tower. I wonder how NH will do

Doug

HGA gimble assembly

Changed my mind, IDD shoulder joint.

Doug

Remember - except for the comet encounter, and two specific interstellar collecting periods, the array was tucked up in bed in the capsule

Doug

One thing I've often thought of is that we have these great anims from time to time, but they're not 'real time'

What would that eclipse have looked like in REAL time?

It lasted about 80 seconds end to end, so I mocked up something in 3ds Max, and uses Quicktime to add a few effects to it, and this is what it might have looked like, if seen in real time.

Doug

Correction, USED to be , havnt posted in months, it's just not my sort of place anymore. It serves its purpose, and I'm very glad it exists as it gives a outlet for certain types of poster, but it's not really my thing.


Doug

Wow

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/141267m...e01007_high.jpg

Doug

The more data sets they have on these events, the more they can bring in the limits of +/- on variables. Imaging at 10s gives another step in the level of accuracy available. It helps constrain the orbits of the moons, and mean better targeting for observations from orbit.

For total 'wow' factor, I'd very much like to see 10s sampled Navcam imagery of the terrain during a Phobos eclipse, as it gets quite dark during those. Pity there was no chance to do this from Husband hill, as the shadow might have even been visible racing across Gusev crater.

It would mean forgoing the Pancam imagery of the sun during that time, but ... it'd be cool

Doug

Emily's asked me to comment on PDS usability etc as there is something of a review going on as to how it might be improved. We're just the informed-amateur's, but any input might be useful. If anyone has anything specific, then scribble it down here and we'll see what sort of consensus we can form.

Doug

It's better to use Navcam for dust devil or cloud hunting because of it's wider field of view.

Doug

Frames at 10s intervals instead of the 20s intervals (iirc) they used to have.


Doug

I have 20 minutes or so of DVD recordings of Sky News with "Space Shuttle Launch" in the corner.

Doug

WOAH
The largest is around a millimeter, Brownlee added, and the biggest track is nearly large enough to insert your little finger. In the largest aerogel tracks, investigators can see the black comet dust at the end of the track.

Webcam of the analysis site
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/webcam.html

DOug

That's a good point - MSL could do DTE comms at any time of day It will never need to 'deep sleep' so that will help keep the electronics at a steady temp etc.

Doug

And I can't live without http://www.astronautix.com/

Doug

Anyone seen any images other than the two nasa-tv caps of the capsule since they opened it out. I'm a bit disapointed that we've not had any new pics etc.

There's a press conf scheduled for 1900 UT tomorrow, but that will clash with NH launch.

Doug

Just the first. They will have the power for many years, and it's predictable, unlike solar arrays ( i.e. so much power they had to have afternoon sleeps with Spirit 100 sols ago, and now down to amost half that power makes long term planning hard ) Being 'around' and being 'mobile' are not one and the same But - given lessons learnt with MER, I'm sure that they could build MSL to be certain of lasting at least 2 earth years

It's the Mossbauer that has the short halflife material and MSL has an APXS, but no Mossbauer. APXS's sample half life is, ermm, it's in the Steve Q'n'A - can't remember, but it's years and year - 20something

Doug