The range per sol of MSL has been greatly reduced - it's down in the MER range. Bruce will be able to tell you more.

Doug

I've read 15 minutes for a Saturn V launch. Give than a Shuttle launch is less than 9 minutes, the average acceleration would be lower for Saturn V, but there may be peaks that are higher than the Shuttle

Doug

Well - I recognise the colour and the size as being from MODIS on either Terra or Aqua for sure...

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ is their website, and it cant be TOO hard to find, after all - how many years must you wait for a clear view of the UK from orbit - The Gallery is nicely present imagery, the real-time is raw - usually about 2hrs delayed.

Ahh - found it..

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery...07.1200.2km.jpg

Whadda you know -it's a composite of imagery from both Terra AND Aqua ( I think Terra orbits at abour 1200 local, and Aqua about 2 hrs later ) - to get the width they wanted in the one day.

http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/# has imagery as well

Not sure if you coult botch something together from multiple images to make the whole USA

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery...16.2115.2km.jpg (West)
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery...04.1535.1km.jpg (East)
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery...95.2040.2km.jpg
(Central)


Doug

Are those accurate bearings?

Might take an hour or two to get thru the system - but it's working my end ( i.e. I can send it an email and get one back )

Try again tonight.


Doug

'Skidmark' is probably the point at which Oppy came to a halt with that reset

Doug

Jason - are you trying to say something about this fair isle

http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=1381



Nice pic from Modis on either Terra or Aqua though - I have one a bit like that, but a bit clearer - printed really large on my wall - you can make out Leicester quite clearly - and infact you almost can on that tiny version of it

Doug

I doubt I'll have t'internet access whilst in Cambridge - I'm certainly not counting on it. The end result's going to be an MP3 of the q'n'a with Steve, and an article for Space Daily.

If I'm allowed, I'll record his (and everyone elses) talks at the conferences, but at lower quality ( Mini Disc recorder with a brilliant little microphone )

The names thing is something I did for Beagle 2 when I just had a little Beagle 2 Yahoo group. I did a Christmas Card the day before landing - and delivered it on Christmas eve....and we never heard from the lander again. So clearly, it was all my fault because I cursed the whole thing.

Problem with some sort of pressie is that he's got to carry it all around with him, and back to the US on a plane.

Dont worry - he knows about you lot and how greatful you are - one of the things I'm going to talk about is the paradigm shift created by putting the raw imagery out there daily, who thought of it, how it works, what it's achieved etc etc - BUT...if you want submit to a list, then I've made a new email address

thankyousteve@gmail.com

Put your real name, your forum name, and a single line of thanks - send it to that address , and I'll see if I can sort something out before heading off on Friday. No promises, but I'll see what I can do.

Cut-off for that is mid-day Thursday GMT. (you've got 2 days )

Doug

Right - time's up - I need a couple of days to sort thru all the questions I've had via email ( like I asked ) and here ( like I didnt )


Doug

I've got it, read it, and am doing a review after I've done the Steve Q'n'A this weekend.

I can sum it up though

"Get it"

Doug

Know about what, I dont know anything.....

Nico can buy me a drink on behalf of everyone on Friday night - you'll all owe him about 0.8 pence

Truth be told - the reward is in the content. If it was just me going la la la pretty pictures..it'd get real boring real quick - but seing everyone elses imagery makes it very worth while. Hell - I get to meet Steve Squyres on Saturday, and THAT is cool.

Doug

Looks like there's a drive for Spirit today - penultimate / ultimate / post drive imaging sequences at the pancam site

Doug

It does everything it was designed to do, just too infrequently and too expensively.

Doug

They look FAB

Phoenix is important as a GRS groundtruth for near sub surface ice. It's work that needs to be done as part of the grand scheme of things.

Doug

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

I've done one of the Opportunity empty-nest image and it's going on my office wall

Doug

1) Cant happen with solar power - you'd need a big, heavy, unavailable, expensive RTG.

2) You'd need a much larger spacecraft to do that

3) All sorts of reasons why phoenix cant do that

What're you suggesting isnt changed to Phoneix - is a $1Bn mission all of its own called Mars Deep Drill

Doug

I think that might be bits of clumped soil from the wheels, but I might be wrong.

Doug

Less than a week until it gets to the asteroid then - at which point I assume they'll match speed using bi-prop thrusters.

Doug

Well - they also had Gyroscopes and Accelerometers on board that could tell the computer how much it's rotating and how much it's accelerating along or around any axis ( the data sets for this are available online )

So - they could calculate rotation, and pull that out of the dimes imagery, and from THAT - calculate how fast and in what direction they were moving when they took the dimes pictures - sort of a 'baseline' of motion at a specific point in time.

From THAT - you then can use accleration and rotation from the gyros and accelerometers to keep your motion updated - so that you can figure out in which direction and how fast you're drifing at the moment you need to fire TIRS.

Now - I'm actually guessing most of that - but they accel and rotation data is on the web
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/merimu_1001/ and it's the only way I can think of it.

Doug

The 'H' on Titan is the best. Someone actually believes it's artificial, because there is an H shaped lake in the Sahara

Doug

I've not been able to figure that out myself - but I need a favour - could you take this mosaic - http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...b_al_khali.html - and project it onto a flat surface like you have with other imager, and render it out as quite a large jpg?

I used 3ds max myself - but can not figure out how to do that

Doug

It couldnt be more tantalising if you scripted it

Doug

Nice view Ol It shows better than anything else that we're actually on top of a hill

Doug

Ahh yes - Manhattan - and of course there's Volkswagen Beatle as well.

Of course, in the UK we have Phonebox, Double Decker Bus, Nelsons Column, the M25 and Wales

Doug