Red Dragon |
Red Dragon |
Aug 7 2011, 09:46 AM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
'Red Dragon' Mission Mulled as Cheap Search for Mars Life
any opinion on this? would it really make sense adapting a manned spaceship to unmanned Mars landing? I am skeptical... if replying, please remember forum guideline 1.5 |
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Aug 9 2011, 12:51 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 29-August 06 From: Columbia, MD Member No.: 1083 |
Although I think this proposed proposal (how's that for redundancy?) would certainly win high marks in the "cool and awesome" category that would make it great for EPO, it has to compete against the other Discovery proposals in two areas: science return and risk.
Mounting cameras on the outside to just take some panoramic pictures certainly won't scientifically wow the review panel. Adding some seismic sensors and weather sensors might make it more interesting, but then basically you've made Red Dragon into a very heavy version of GEMS. Which brings me to: Risk. GEMS apparently won high marks for being low-risk. Although I'm sure Elon Musk and SpaceX would argue that Red Dragon would not be high risk, I think it would be very hard to convince a risk averse NASA review panel of that fact. Any new technology is always viewed as riskier than proven technology. I think the Red Dragon team would really have to wow the review panel with some amazing science to overcome their risk. Chris McKay and Elon Musk are smart guys though, so I'm sure they could pull it off if anybody could. I'd be rooting for it |
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