It's a bold mission design - you have to give them that

Doug

That's what we're doing in the hills - seing the evidence of the water. To be honest - going back down onto the crater floor ( where there is no evidence of water at all ) and toward Home Plate may be scientifically less rich than the hills.

Doug

Do they even have a way to check if they got any material?

Natit was I ere I saw Titan

Hmm - doesnt quite work eh

Doug

I think we'll know in about 6 hrs or so.

Doug

There's a comprimise to be made between physical progress, and stop offs to do science. Sadly - as time goes on, those stop offs have to grow. A good mossbauer spec is now a 4 day exercise for instance.

However - I still think that the science has to be done and done properly. Everything needs context.

When they got to endurance crater - they didnt just do IDD work at the top, and the bottom, and interpolate between...they stopped all the way down doing rat hole after rat hole to read a history of the rocks infront of them - otherwise it would be like reading a history of the 20th Century as "Wright brothers built plane, Concorde was scrapped" - quite a bit happened in between

The same should still be true now imho - corners should not be cut simply to reach an arbritrary goal. Once we've 'done' this region properly - then we move on, as we did across the floor of Gusev getting to West Spur - it took only 60 sols of driving. The floor of gusev had been well characerised, they knew what it was all about - so foot to the floor and find something new at the hills.

To do the same at the Columbia hills now would be wrong. We've not characterised the whole lot yet - there's still more to be done. Once it's done though - I agree, the conecpt of a goal and a target date might be usefull to get across to something new. It depends, however, on what there is on 'the other side' of Husband Hill - that's the killed. we just dont know what we're going to find in the Ultreya region. To stand where we are now and specify a date for a distant target would be wrong, we dont know what targets there are between here and there. We knew it was all the same from Bonneville to Cahokia. Ditto Endurance to Vostok. Those were foot-to-the-floor situations. This isnt, as we dont know what lies ahead....


yet


Doug

And anyway - the phrase is Hoaglanderati



Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/climb.jpg

Doug

VERY fond memories.



Doug

Yup - or google for something called Quicktime Alternative.

Doug

Oh - I know - they're awesome, BUT, they're not from Inside the crater. I was looking for something a bit different

Doug

Sunset on mars. L4,5,6 - Opportunity, Sol 101

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...O101_sunset.mov 0.5 meg

Right - I've GOT to go to bed or I'll not get ANY sleep - I've gone raw image nuts thisevening

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...O089_shadow.jpg 300kb..ish

Just from L4 and L7 ( as there was a lot of L2-4-7 photometric stuff around sols 89 and 90 ) and one of a series of 3 x 1's which cover a few spots at different times of day - but this is my favorite...it's very VERY dark on the RAD's - but I've brought it up as much as is sensible

Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/O244_L2.jpg 250kb

I've been trying to find as big a mosaic of the inside of Endurance crater as I can- and sadly I think this is about it. There's the Burns Cliff pan - but that's 180degrees infront of a cliff...this is about 150 degrees looking back across the crater from below Karatape - and it's only L2- but I like it.

Doug

Well quite - of the planets on which one COULD land - it is only Mercury and Pluto from which we dont have surface imagery

Doug

Bieng /.'d is my #1 fear about this place

Doug

Well - studies dont equal flight hardware. Maybe some simulations, maybe some studies, some spreadsheets - but I doubt a single bit of metal was cut.


Doug

Ahh yup - thats it, I knew something was keeping a cover on but couldnt remember what

Doug

The MRO chaps said specifically no science during aerobraking at a press conf (and also no UHF between MRO and MER even as a checkout )

Doug

"probe in orbit that monitors the atmosphere closely."

Like MGS, or Odyssey, or MEX, or MRO.

Doug

Impactor could work

Doug

Somewhere deep and dark and nasty on my E:

I found a new MFD for Orbiter called 'Encounter' - that made all of this easy. Using the scenario from just after seperation, I cruised till quite late in the mission - they needed about 5% of the fuel to re-target to 35km altitude - to slide into a fantastic orbit

Question is- which is heavier, 90% of the fuel, or a heatshield of some sort for the 1.5G deceleration? I guess once of the strange inflateables might do it - could be ejected thereafter to minimise mass for orbital trim

Doug

Start at www.orbitersim.com - then www.orbithangar.com

Doug

Given RTG power - MSL is expected to have about 2200ish Whr's

Doug