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, 05:01 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
For a Mars mission, there are two kinds of distance to be traversed. All the previous missions that moved beyond the immediate landing spot have been rovers that moved to various locations on the Martian surface. But a mission could also take samples vertically, by means of a drill.
So if a drill could be extended out of the main hatch, it might be able to extract cores at various depths to be analysed by the huge mass of lab instrumentation on board the Red Dragon. The mission would examine a smaller number of samples, but with far greater depth of analysis. I am thinking along the lines of the NASA Ames proposal, which does seem to me to have the greatest scientific return using Red Dragon. |
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