Landing on Mercury on equator at perihelion |
Landing on Mercury on equator at perihelion |
Mar 21 2006, 12:18 AM
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#1
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 40 Joined: 20-March 06 Member No.: 720 |
How will it be to make a manned landing at Mercury at its closest to the sun (perihelion) on its equator when the sun is in the zenith ,what are the dangers of a landing then? Do we need to be protected against the sunheat and radiation then? How strong is the heat and radiation of the sun then ,and is it dangerous when the solaractivity is high then? What kind of spacesuits do we need then? Better protected suits than we have used on the apollo moonlandings i think. Can you explain how a landing on Mercury will be when it is at perihelion and land on its equator with the sun directly overhead? I hope it will ever happen. Lets start discuss about it.
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Mar 21 2006, 08:49 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Exploring Mercury is difficult. While it's relatively easy to use a single Venus flyby to fly a spacecraft past Mercury, it passes the planet at high speed. Such high speed that it would take an enormous propulsion system to simply get into orbit around the planet. The Mercury Messenger orbiter mission does multiple Mercury flyby's to reduce the spacecraft's aphelion and make it possible to get into orbit with a "reasonable" sized rocket system. And it will take many years to get there.
Landing on Mercury is harder. You are orbiting a planet with a deeper gravity well than the moon, and with no atmosphere to reduce speed from orbital velocity. You have to do it ALL with rockets. Bigger rockets than needed to land on the Moon. When you get there, you will find an impact generated regolith, made of basaltic to anorthositic (we think) rock, very similar -- indeed visually identical -- to lunar highlands plains and cratered terrain sites. If Mariner 10 had found a truely exotic planet, as un earth-like or un moon-like than Venus or Titan, we'd have a much greater interest in exploring the planet. Certainly, Mercury has been neglected, as has Venus in many ways. But for good reason, I'm afraid. |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Mar 21 2006, 09:08 AM
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#3
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Guests |
At least, and orbiter with high resolution mapping and imaging, and IR spectrum analysis, perhaps radar probing, would be fine. We know little about Mercury and we may find unexpected/unexplained things. And the big mystery is why Mercury has no volcanoes. As far as we know. Another thing would be to detect dust storms (from static electricity, as believed on the Moon) or Transcient "Lunar" Events.
After, a lander would have to check isotopes ratios and place a seismometre, so that we have an idea of Mercury inner structure. After? |
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