ExoMars |
ExoMars |
Guest_Sunspot_* |
Aug 25 2005, 11:22 AM
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180840.stm
Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet. It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package. |
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May 22 2007, 12:32 PM
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#2
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
I hear what you're saying, Analyst, I really do, but the problem here - and I think it's a basic one - is that we'tre preaching to the choir here. Everyone here knows this stuff already, you could say it's in our blood, so we don't need to be convinced anything that leaves Earth is "sexy". It's what we do.
... but the people Out There, the ones struggling to pay their rents or mortgages, or fill their cars with petrol, or pay for their prescription drugs, or buy a new pair of shoes for their kid to go to school in, don't see things the same way. Many of them completely disagree with spending any money on space travel, they just see it as a waste and can't be convinced otherwise. We'll never win them over, and I don't even try any more to be honest. The people I do work on are the ones who support space exploration but only if it results in scientific progress here on Earth, or, at the very least, provides us with something pretty or amazing to look at. Take DEEP IMPACT. In the build up to that I was giving lots of talks, and describing its mission. It soon became clear that if I told people how scientifically valuable the mission would be, how it would provide us with insight into the chemical composition and physical structure of a cometary nucleus, they would look at the walls and their shoes or pick their noses with an air of "So what?" about them. Ah, but when I told them that we were going to fire a copper cannon shell into a space iceberg, that would blast a great big hole out of it and let us look into a great big crater, well, they wanted to know more. That's not dumbing down, it's finding the right approach. (With them leaning forwards and not picking their noses any more I could hit them with the science...) So, we have to give them - the People Out There - space missions that will give them something back, and that means space missions that have a good chance of succeeding. In this modern visual age, "succeeding" really means - again, for non UMSF people - sending back lots of amazing pics. If the MERs had landed safely, with everything working except their cameras, they could still have done some science but there would have been zero public interest in them. So, ExoMars will only succeed if it "does a MER" and send back amazing pics. I think that, as it is, it is too complicated a beast to work, especially as it's a virgin design and being built and operated by people doing this for the first time, who are also leapfrogging less ambitious and challenging projects to get to Mars. It's all about maximising chances of success and building foundations for future programs. Take a shortcut and you risk getting lost. -------------------- |
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May 22 2007, 02:42 PM
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
especially as it's a virgin design and being built and operated by people doing this for the first time, who are also leapfrogging less ambitious and challenging projects to get to Mars. Stu...I really can't understand you... Where's the poetry when you need it, the will to challenge to take a step ahead, to innovate and not only emulate? Are we scared or what? Scared after MEx, VEx, Rosetta, Huygens? OK, its a rover...Isn't ESA, and its contributors allowed to be bold? They're doing it, or at least trying to do it for the first time, to them all my respect and admiration. How many other failures brought us here? How much did slipped the budget for Phoenix which we all eagerly wait to succeed? I truly hope they dare to advance and reach their goals, they deserve it. Because I want to see that proudy, shiny ExoMars in "your" museum. EDITED: I really want to see what will be the consequences of this... -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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May 23 2007, 06:54 AM
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#4
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Are we scared or what? Scared after MEx, VEx, Rosetta, Huygens? OK, its a rover...Isn't ESA, and its contributors allowed to be bold? Bold? Yes. Run before they can walk? I'd rather they didn't. It's about the right mission at the right time. Maybe they'll decide to build ExoMars in full, with all the bells and whistles, spend €1B, and in 6 years time it'll all work beautifully. BUT - the need for a set of smaller missions (the NetLander idea) is just screaming out to be done - and it is SO right for ESA right now. Landing on Titan is - once you get there - comparatively easy. Big thick atmosphere, low gravity - couldn't be a better place to land. Mars is REALLY hard - much MUCH harder than Titan. We need to practice it. We're not going to be spending Viking type money, but we're trying to jump to MER before going through Pathfinder. That's just no very sensible. NetLander gives us the opportunity to do something utterly unique, and get huge landing experience at the same time and maybe even pay back NASA for the millions and millions of €'s worth of relay and DSN time we've used by using the orbiter to relay data from some of their own spacecraft. ExoMars has issues at this stage. Mass issues, or the ssue of fitting a payload that JPL are using a 700kg rover for, into an MER sized rover, or even the simple fact that the the #1 experts in the field of landing with airbags are abandoning it in favour of something else because they can't make it work for payloads heavier than MER...payloads like ExoMars ( which, with an MER like rover, and an active left-behind component - it would be ). And the final point - if ESA put ExoMars on Mars tomorrow, succesfully - then we would all go utterly utterly insane as a beautiful vehicle rolls around mars taking stunning pictures every day - and we don't see a damn thing. I want ESA to grow up in terms of outreach expectations and standards before it blows it completely on a mission like ExoMars. Maybe they fly it in full, maybe it works, maybe they 'get' Outreach, maybe they find the right landing site, maybe the instruments work. Too many maybes for me. Doug |
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