Martian Cave Probe?, Designs for the DEEP Search for Life |
Martian Cave Probe?, Designs for the DEEP Search for Life |
Nov 14 2007, 12:18 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1229 Joined: 24-December 05 From: The blue one in between the yellow and red ones. Member No.: 618 |
Does anyone consider it worthwhile to speculate on how we might explore Martian caves or lava tubes for the traces of life - past or present? I have not yet run across any 'official' proposals for "spelunker probes", so perhaps we could have some fun and get in on the ground floor with some feasible early designs. With the engineering and scientific expertise we have at UMSF we should be able to whittle down the possible features for such a rover to a practical core. If the planned surface scrapers and drillers don't turn up conclusive evidence to answer The Big Question, can we justify a search of the Martian Underground?
I can envisage a RTG-powered rover that enters a cave, or rappels down a skylight opening, leaving a base communication stage outside connected to it with a fiber-optic umbilical cable. Some form of laser or other illumination - in the visible and/or infrared - would presumably be required. How many of the MSL instruments could be included? What novel instruments would be appropriate? What is the optimal size and mobility design? 'Do we yet have 'hot' prospects for accessible caves? How should we choose the best candidates? We can leave this to some JPL bright spark to develop, or we can dive right in. Any takers? -------------------- My Grandpa goes to Mars every day and all I get are these lousy T-shirts!
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Nov 17 2007, 11:29 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
All over it, Boss! Gonna stick to my guns on Shelob going home, though; these advanced (and delicate) instruments you cite would have a far greater probabilty of surviving long enough to function if they remain on the surface vehicle & the spider comes back. Certainly there should be some in situ instruments: an imager (duh), a light source, a microscope, and maybe a mini-mini-TES. I see the balance of the Shelob payload as collection machinery, though.
EDIT: Just to be perfectly clear: when I say the spider should go home, I mean it should return to the surface & deliver its samples to the rover/lander where all the advanced analytical instrumentation would be. Nohow, no way am I suggesting returning living Martian organisms to the Earth (if found); we got enough trouble in the US with kudzu alone... Couple of thoughts on ingress/egress methods as well. I can't see Shelob walking up to the edge of a hole & just jumping in (AAAaaahhhhh....splat...or, whack, whack, bang, bang against the sides on the way down...or, even worse, snagged on a projection on the side of the wall, helpless. Crawling down the wall would seem safest, but don't forget that there probably would be some discontinuity in the descent, and gravity sucks...) Seems like you'd have to get the rover VERY close to the rim, extend a good-sized boom, and carefully lower the descent platform with our intrepid spider perched thereupon. Depending on the depth of the hole, you might get a moment arm significant enough to topple the rover...game over. Therefore, the rover would almost certainly have to have some heavy-duty pyro-fired soil anchors to prevent this (added benefit: we could put some chemo or seismo sensors in the anchors!) A design heuristic emerges: the lighter the spider, the longer the boom, and therefore the better the chance that we can get a straight drop down... -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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