Lost landers from HiRISE, The next step |
Lost landers from HiRISE, The next step |
Jan 3 2007, 08:41 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 428 Joined: 21-August 06 From: Northern Virginia Member No.: 1062 |
Okay, we now have definitive pictures of VL1, 2, Spirit, Opportunity, and a Pathfinder coming up soon. So, now, what would the lost landers look like, starting with Beagle, MPL, and Mars 6, which will be the easiest to find of the landers. Just curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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Jan 6 2007, 02:49 AM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Yeah, I'd buy that as a probable alternative explanation.
IIRC, a 200 mph wind on Mars is equivalent in force to something like 25 mph wind on Earth, and the 1971 dust storm was a beaut. Might have been enough to tip a lander during terminal descent (esp. if it also hit a rock! ), but we probably won't know until somebody physically stumbles across Mars 3 during an EVA. (In fact, it'll probably be a homesteader circa 2600 AD...lucky guy! ) -------------------- 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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Jan 6 2007, 02:52 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Yeah, I'd buy that as a probable alternative explanation. IIRC, a 200 mph wind on Mars is equivalent in force to something like 25 mph wind on Earth, and the 1971 dust storm was a beaut. Might have been enough to tip a lander during terminal descent (esp. if it also hit a rock! ), but we probably won't know until somebody physically stumbles across Mars 3 during an EVA. (In fact, it'll probably be a homesteader circa 2600 AD...lucky guy! ) The Mars 3 lander transmitted from the planet's surface for 90 seconds, 20 of which involved returning an image that likely contained nothing but noise. Would the lander have been able to transmit at all if it had been tipped over? And would it have survived landing on a rock in the first place? Just imagine if Viking 1 had come down on Big Joe - we never would have found out what happened to Viking 1, that's what. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Jan 6 2007, 05:12 AM
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#4
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
The Mars 3 lander transmitted from the planet's surface for 90 seconds, 20 of which involved returning an image that likely contained nothing but noise. Would the lander have been able to transmit at all if it had been tipped over? And would it have survived landing on a rock in the first place? Just imagine if Viking 1 had come down on Big Joe - we never would have found out what happened to Viking 1, that's what. One theory put forth is that the parachute blew over the lander. My hunch is that the transmitter was the problem, since the Mars 2 and 3 orbiters didn't have a fully working transmitter between them. -------------------- |
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