Mariner 4 Alternate Universe, What if...? |
Mariner 4 Alternate Universe, What if...? |
Sep 29 2006, 11:01 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
What if Mariner 4's flyby had occurred right across Tharsis & Coprates Chasma, showing volcanoes & canyons instead of heavily cratered terrain? (I understand that trajectory determinants prevented this from happening, of course, but still...). Do you suppose that Mars exploration would have been thrown into hyperdrive during the heady '60s, perhaps enough to sustain manned efforts beyond Apollo?
Doug, my apologies if this is OT for this section...there seem to be some interesting implications here for the imaginative, though. -------------------- 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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Oct 1 2006, 09:17 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
The Mariner 4 sim looks entirely reasonable. Note that Mariner did see graben radial to Tharsis crossing the large crater in frame 11 as a "lineation" which was noted, but not resolved as an actual graben.
Mariner 6 clearly recognized chaotic terrain, tentatively identified as "thermokarst" as well as the large chaos regions on the east end of Valles Marineris. The chaotic terrain was seen in 2 or 3 narrow angle frames, while eastern Valles Marineris was poorly seen in high-sun wide-angle frames, disappearing into camera-noise toward the noontime limb. The large depressed areas were also sort-of recognized in UV spectrometer rayleigh-scattering atmosphere depth sensing and IR spectrometer CO2 absorption depth sensing. |
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