Another one of those "damn - should have asked Steve....." situations.

I just dont know to be honest. Might be best to check with Hyperion.

Doug

Well - just got home.

It was a superb weekend - brief overview....

Met Nico ( Nix ) at Cambridge Station at about 1500 on Friday. First of all we parked in the Station car park, I walked into the station and couldnt find him. I went back to the car, got my UMSF badge, back into the station and Bingo - he comes over and says Hi

Made a total hash of the Cambridge 1 way system but got to Fitzwilliam Halls - where we were staying for the weekend - settled in, found a nearby restaurent and enjoyed nice pasta!

Then - walked to the Institute of Astronomy - and a slight change of schedule. Unfortunately, Ron Greeley's has had family issues w.r.t. Katrina, and thus is still in the US. He emailed his talk on MGS and MODY to Prof. Jan-Peter Muller who was actually due to give his MEX talk on Friday - but did an excellent job doing Ron's instead.

Then, after the talk the conference organisers opened up two nearby observatories - one including a 12" Refractor ( the Northumberland instrument - famous for NOT discovering Neptune, but it's thought that it should have done ) - various feint fuzzies were looked at thru this and a 7" refractor next door.

We retired to the kitchen of our accomodation for tea and muffins - Nico very kindly gave me an ENORMOUS print of a Bonneville pan ( it really it beautiful, and it may well live on our Dining room wall ) as a thanks for introducing him to the long, dark, spiral of dispair that is MER image stitching

Helen retired ( very wisely ) to bed and Nico and I compared MER imaging notes till 2am

Sat - the big day - breakfast at 8am - and a little minibus to the Cavendish Laboratory. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_Laboratory ) Whilst waiting for the first talk, we had a look around and infact saw the very cathode tube with which J J Thompson discovered the electron!!

I'll skip the amateur observational talks - although they all contained astonishing imaging - and show that actually, observations of Jupiter by amaters with scopes as small as 9" are doing genuine science about Jovian storms (is there a relation between oval aspect ratio and their speed - YOU BET YOUR ASS THERE IS...sorry - you had to be there - the chap who gave that talk was...how can I put this...VERY american!!)

Carolyn Porco's talk was, quite obviously, superb. Excellent imagery, some great movies of the shephard moons - many 'ooohs' and 'ahhhs' at some ring movies. Nothing that one could consider 'new science' - except some temperature values for southern Enceladus - the tiger stripes appear to be about 10K higher than the neigbouring terrain. I put my foot in it asking about the spokes - and they are currently not visible ( as we all know ) but they are considered to be a potential feature that will re-appear perhaps late next year as the solar angle increases.

John Zarnecki's Huygens talk was superb - some superb slides that I will post in a more verbose review at a later date - all fantastic stuff. I spotted a double spike in the echo-reflection that I asked about during questions "Well spotted" said John...but it was actually an error in their interpretation of the data and isnt real. A good job that publishing in Science takes so long

I spent lunch discussing orbital mechanics on a chalk board with Nico in the dining hall at the Cavendish Labs. I didnt say anything at the time, but on reflection, I wonder what scientific breakthru's have happened over coffee on those three blackboards - at arguably one of the greatest laboratorys in the world.

Done with lunch - more observational talks, and then after more tea that was too hot to drink before the next talk started, Prof. Mike A'Hearn - the highlight of THAT talk being a potential identification of the crater from VERY processed high res data - deconvolution of which has recovered all the data ( so he said ) specifically because of the nuences of that specific design of telescope.

And then...of course...Steve's talk. It was without doubt ( and I know I'm going to be biased ) the best of the weekend - even the event organisers agreed - not many pretty pictures in it, but he is without doubt the best speaker I've seen, very funny, informative, and un-waffling. Good science which I'll be writing much of about for my spacedaily article.

We briefly met before his talk, just to confirm that I was recording it - but ONLY for my purposes of writing a review of all the invited speakers for the BAA journal - sorry guys, you cant have a listen - but if you are within travelling distance..ever..of a Steve talk....GO. Dont think about it..just GO. If it's your Grandparents Diamond wedding anniversary...forget it - just see Steve.

And then...the big one. We had to leave the lab to conduct the Q'n'A, but leaving the lab you could see that Steve was excited just to visit the lab as whilst I was enjoying Mike's talk- he'd been up to see Thompson's Cathode Ray tube...we took to a park bench on the park beside the lab for the Q'n'A, for which he was happy to take as long as it took...45 minutes nearly

Ustrax...I have your Raving Mars picture signed - but he hadnt heard of Ultreya - infact they dont have a name for the dune field yet.

I didnt get thru all the questions, but I did get thru a lot - he was SO open and friendly and fun. I have a favorite question in mind, but I'm going to listen back to the Q'n'A before the final decision.

Steve gave us so much time, Nico and I almost totally missed dinner. Helen asked one question which has arisen elsewhere before heading off for dinner... she asked why he refered to the rovers as 'she' - and he confirmed that they do, as they're vessels of exploration just like ships.

Ever since - I've been thinking "I didnt ask him this...I didnt ask him that" - but the Q'n'A itself was as good as I could possibly imagined, Steve more friendly, enthusiastic and willing to answer questions than I could ever imagine...just...wow.

Before the Q'nA I gave him the 7 x 5 and he was clearly genuinely touched - the effort was appreciated.

Got back, amazingly the college kitchen had kept something aside for Nico and I, and then Nico gave up and went to bed, whilst Helen and I were back in the kitchen enjoying a movie by some people who went to Antarctica for an Eclipse. The penguins were better than the eclipse ( clouds ) - but it was a brilliant little video.

Sunday morning - another killer 8am breakfast - and a talk by the Terrestrial Planets head of the French Astro Soc - excellent mars imaging from earth - and Prof Muller gave a cracking talk on MEX - and explained why ESA and MEX imagery is so slow....European Law. There is an excellent website out there that collates Earth based imagery from every asset you can imagine, and he and his team are desperately trying to do the same for Mars...they just need some cash. The will to spread the data is very much there, they really want to spread it about, but European law makes it quite difficult. So I'm going to see what I can do in terms of figuring out how we can make progres in this w.r.t. talking to local politicians.

Then...BACK to the station...and much easier to find was Emily No badge required! Found somewhere not too bad for Lunch and spent a couple of hours putting the entire world of planetary exploration to rights - she's as friendly and knowledgeable a person as you could possibly want to meet. We discovered that we've had some similar thoughts regarding the whole Amateur imaging community, and we're going to have a little think about things, see what we can come up with.

Then, broke lots of traffic laws in finding where Emily's staying for DPS, grabbed Nico's stuff from the college, dropped him back at the station and headed for home.

A hell of a weekend, totally shattered, but frankly, one of the best weekends I could possibly have imagined!

Pics ( Nico has embarrasing pictures of me, being eaten by an OHP machine, meeting Steve ), a better write up, and then the MP3 of the Q'n'A....lots of cool stuff this week

And THEN - I've got to review Visions of Mars, and Bill Hartmann's book....busy busy busy

Doug

And is not visible if you're outside the USA as far as I can tell.

Right - I'm signing off for now - if there's any net access while I'm in Cambridge, then Myself and Nico will check in with a report on the talks we get to see, and how the Steve interview went

If you're wondering where we are...
http://www.britastro.org/news/items/2005008.html


back on sunday night

Doug

I wracked my brain trying to think of the right sort of token....none of the mosaics or panoramas that the MER team, or us lot have made are worth it really - he'll have seen them all.

Then I remembered two things. 1) SS is looking forward to MRO so he can see his rovers again. 2) He wants Bootprints in the wheeltracks at Eagle Crater ( read the book )

So I added together all the names I got - picked my favorite one-liner, but changed it a bit, and came out with this - which is printed as a 7 x 5 in a little frame



There's also a matching, identical one, but it's the full resolution simulated imaged - like this - http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/purgatory.jpg and just Simulated view of.... at the top - so if he gets bored of the MRO simulated image, he can switch to the better view


Doug

Cool - a new deck pan for Oppy as well

If they show the recent Spirit deck pan at the conference, I've done some of it with the 456's myself - you will not BELIEVE how clean Spirit is!!

Doug

He doesnt get to control all the images at all. Just like any PI - him and his team and invited scientists have access to the raw data for 6 months before going public with it.

Doug

That's something I've thought in the past - use MRo during aerobraking for relay - but it's not something they're going to do - the post launch press conf mentioned that.

Doug

I thikn they're something to do with pancam health-checks - but the newest one is > 80 sols old.

Doug

It's fairly simple.

With only 600 whrs, there's not much you can do really - basic function, couple of naps during the day, a uhf pass - jobs-a-goodun.

But if you've got 950 whrs - you can do a couple of UHF passes, loads of imaging, loads of Minites work, lots for the rover to do - you can expend all that energy

But so well insulated is the WEB, that doing all the work generates a lot of heat (anything except mobility and IDD work involves heat being generated in the WEB ) - 300 Whrs of it Thats like putting a really REALLY bright lightbulb in there for the afternoon. No wonder it can get so hot in there! So - to stop it overheating - you throttle back on what you want to do in the day.

Doug

Nope - back when Spirit landed, it got so hot they started taking UHF passes out from the afternoon session to let it cool down

On the upside - they can do lots of night time stuff with all that power,

Doug

They are bound to replay it - but I will TRY and get a capture of it. If not - spaceflightnow.com (well worth the subscription) will surely have it as a QT movie in a day or so - or even just the audio as an MP3

Doug

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/public...ts/S08data.html

The number of public target images is very impressive imho. Malin might likt to hang on to his data very tightly, but this campaign of public imaging is to be applauded!

Also - the next 6 months of MOC imagery should be released soon.

Doug

Right - my list of questions is all written - it's about 4 pages long - but I've put it into a few catagories.

Pre MER

Spirit Science

Opportunity Science

Rover Tech and Rover Future

Blue Sky and the Future ( not blue sky as in the sky on mars is blue - blue sky as in imaginative thinking )

Those who def. have quesitons in at the moment are...

Me (qiute a few times ) Sunspot, Philip, Cosmicrocker, Tman, dvandorn, Cosmicrocker again, David Ellis, Ustrax, Philip again, akuo, Garybeau, Henric, DEChengst, dot.dk, GS Norgathon, George Purcell, Ron Jones, A.Spyros, SFJCody, Helvick, Avronperlmann, Mhoward, Marsman, degrlr6328, lyford, Philip again (wow, that's 3 - good questions Philip), Paxdan, remcook, and me again

Of course I dont know how much time we'll have, and I dont know how much things will change with tonights press conference - but I'll do the best I can for everybody.

Doug

Correct me if I'm wrong - but Messenger's imager is a 1024 x 1024 instrument isnt it? - I wonder/hope if they captured that data at full res, or downsampled it to 512 x 512. If they DID do it full res, I promise - hand on heart - to make a full resolution version when the data is released.

Doug

JUST A FLESH WOUND



Doug

"As the ice starts advancing off Mars’ northern polar cap and moves southward, Phoenix will become entombed in several feet of solid carbon dioxide. The lander is not designed to survive being buried in solid ice for six to seven months, Smith said."

LOL - didnt think it would be that bad!

The exhaust plume contamination of local soil was something I read about w.r.t. MPL years ago - so I'm sure it's not something they've just thought of.

Doug

I think it's Phobos and Deimos again - that's what was on the Pancam database anyway.

Doug

Dark dune field just the same as the one visible from Larry's Lookout - (coughahem as I predicted cough ahem ) - of course, it might get more interesting a little closer to the hill.

Doug

give a deceleration of 1 mN on 400kg - you've got an acceleration of 0.0000025 m/s^2

So the 12km/sec would take about 152 years

Doug

But then - at the beginning of that burn, you're having to decellerate 3 tons as well

It's called the rocket equation I believe, cant remember the specifics of it - but it's the equation that tells us that at launch, not only is a rocket launching it's payload, but it's launching all it's fuel as well - which gets consumed en route.
Put it this way - 12km/s is 60% MORE than the speed required to orbit the earth - and you have some very mighty rockets to start doing that

Doug

Well, a low circular orbit of say, 100km around pluto would require...
umm

a=v^2/R f=MA f=gM1M2/R^2...

UMM

ahh

right

boil all that down and basically the orbital velocity of any spacecraft is....

Sqrt of G M1 / r

where G is newtons tiny number, M1 is the mass of the body ( pluto ) and r = radius from the centre of the body

I get 865 m/sec for an orbital velocity - so you'd have to have a delta V of 12.1km/sec - Consider MRO, which is 50% fuel by mass - and can manage a Delta V of about 1km/sec

Of course - if you broke into a very eliptical orbit - it would be less delta V than that - but that maths is beyond me

Doug

That 225 million years involves an orbit...around the galaxy

Doug

Yeah WMAP was one of those missions that isnt a 'pretty' mission -it's just data coming down, takes a while to assemble it into anything visual.

Doug

Balghgh - thankyousteve@gmail.com it is then

Doug