Q & A With Steve Squyres, Coming in September |
Q & A With Steve Squyres, Coming in September |
Jul 27 2005, 11:46 AM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
As previously reported, there's a great lineup of speakers at the BAA out of London meeting on September 3rd - including MER Principle Investigator Steve Squyres.
Steve has kindly offered some of his time so that we can meet up and do a Q'n'A based on questions submitted by you lot. Obviously - there will be loads and loads of questions you want to ask and only so much time in which to ask them - however - I'll do what I can to pick as many of the best as I can squeeze in in the time available. There will be a write up here, obviously, and I will try and record it as an MP3 and post that here as well. Steve's book 'Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet' is published next week - and a signed copy will be winging its way to the person submitting the best question! * If you have questions you want me to pitch to Steve, then drop me an email to doug@rlproject.com with the subject SS Q&A As a heads up - please take note of the other speakers at the BAA meeting - and if you have specific questions you'd like asked of them - I'll do my best to try and get them in after their presentations at the meeting. The last two ( Profs Greeley and Muller ) are on the Sunday and the Friday respectively, but I will be trying to get down to those presentations as well - but no promises. -Prof. Carolyn Porco, Principal investigator, Cassini imaging system -Prof. John Zarnecki, Principal investigator, Huygens surface science -Prof. Mike A'Hearn, Principal Investigator, Deep Impact, -Prof. Ron Greeley, Scientist on several planetary missions, Chairman of NASA & NAS Mars exploration panel -Prof. Jan-Peter Muller, Scientist on Mars Express hi-resolution camera team, University College London. Doug * 'best' to be picked by SS and myself on the day |
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Aug 17 2005, 12:03 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 154 Joined: 21-April 05 From: Rochester, New York, USA Member No.: 336 |
I'm curious about the strategy behind building ever-more complex spacecraft. Given the high cost of creating new designs, what do we give up by, say, making "n" more rovers just like the current crop and sending them different places?
I guess my question nets out to the question of wider surface coverage vs. new types of data. |
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Aug 17 2005, 01:27 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 290 Joined: 26-March 04 From: Edam, The Netherlands Member No.: 65 |
QUOTE (craigmcg @ Aug 17 2005, 12:03 PM) I'm curious about the strategy behind building ever-more complex spacecraft. Given the high cost of creating new designs, what do we give up by, say, making "n" more rovers just like the current crop and sending them different places? Compare the science output of MPF with MER, and you know that technological renewal of spacecraft is important. I understand what you mean, because the output of MER we see now is absolutely astonishing and it would be great to see, let's say, 4 other sites with clones of Spirit and Oppy. But: We need to move on. Considering the landing tech. (airbags) of MER, only a couple of % of the Martian surface can be reached (flat, low, near the equator). What we want now, is look somewhere else, and we want to look for other things. Higher latitudes, other kinds of terrain, maybe even polar regions. Also we want to follow the carbon (besides the water). And therefore we need a whole bunch of new things that can't be integrated in MER. RTG's, chromatographic columns, spectrographs, lasers, high def. video, maybe even a skycrane (or 2). Et voila: a whole new design is needed. But believe me: We will absolutely not believe our eyes after MSL landed. It will be the same giant leap from MER to MSL, as it was from MPF to MER. I can't wait. PS: Another thought that adds up to it: The MER design isn't gone. It worked out as a great design and it learned a lot of people a lot of things. This knowledge is "in the pocket" and lot's of aspects will be used in new designs. It is not just sci. research on another planet, it is learning how to get there, how to squeeze out the optimum output of the project (people, limited amount of sols, route, etc.) AND, how to use this experience in making the next one even better. People will never stop to improve technology. |
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