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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Spirit _ Spirit route on Earth

Posted by: climber Apr 11 2006, 06:12 PM

I can read here how people are intimely associated with Spirit and Oppy exploration. Some of us dream about them, dream that they are on Mars with them, some say the importance of following them each day or even each weel turn they ride.
I was lucky enough myself to be in Pasadena with the Planetary Society for Spirit landing. It was such a event! Now, that we've all seen those wonderfully-exceptional maps from Phil, that give more broad view and feeling about what Spirit has accomplished so far, I want to share with you how I've followed Spirit progress myself by just looking at the scenary in front of where I live. I'm (also) lucky enough to live in the country, South west of France, on the top of a hill some +60 meters above the plain, with Pyrénées mountains lying about 70 km in the back-ground. I guess, you've already understood what I’m going to show you. You'll find here 3 pictures. One is the general context using an IGN map that show Spirit track from "landing site to my house", the second one is a real picture that show were Spirit has landed, then her weel track up to the base of the hill, and finaly the third one show the final approch to Husband Hill summit …were I live. This is for REAL! I've realy mentaly imagined this all the way from landing to the Summit and Phil's map decided me to draw the path on the map (ok, it's very very rought). I realise that each of us need to have some spatial references to figure out how it is on Mars and, for exemple, putting a Rover on a pictures near HP is a real need to figure out the scale. As you can see the Mountains/Gusev crater rim lay some 70 km away. Even if you know that the horizon on Mars is closer than on Earth, it still give you a good spatial reference. I cannot show you the descent from Husband Hill to Home Plate because of a forest on the other side of my house, but still, I can imagine were Spirit is by now. So, Tesheiner and All, if you need help, just ask : I can make a "ground trust" if needed!
I’m going now to put the real path the best I can on my map and try to follow it from landing to summit. My idea is to respect the scale of time by travelling in, say, 4 hours, that will be represent the 620 sols it realy took Spirit to do it. All UMSF’ers are very welcomed to come to my place and have a try. I also hope I’m not the only one to had such an idea and I also hope you can do it from where you live.
Enjoy the ride !
Climber


Posted by: Richard Trigaux Apr 11 2006, 08:38 PM

Héhé le coin des français. Lavaur...


Nice Mars dream...
To be noted that, from this distance, the Pyrenees mountains can be easily seen as soon as the weather is fair. That gives an idea of the transparency of martian air, where Gussev wall is not alway visible.

Posted by: climber Apr 11 2006, 09:45 PM

QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Apr 11 2006, 10:38 PM) *
Héhé le coin des français. Lavaur...
Nice Mars dream...
To be noted that, from this distance, the Pyrenees mountains can be easily seen as soon as the weather is fair. That gives an idea of the transparency of martian air, where Gussev wall is not alway visible.

Merci Richard. L'Isle en Dodon...
I apreciate particularly your contribution to this forum and your sharp comments. I have to have another look at the transparency of martian air by looking at Gusev's rim. I thought that TAU was measured by the rovers by looking up. Do they also use this kind of mean ?

Posted by: helvick Apr 11 2006, 10:06 PM

QUOTE (climber @ Apr 11 2006, 09:45 PM) *
I thought that TAU was measured by the rovers by looking up. Do they also use this kind of mean ?

Tau is measured at various times during the day. If you look at the tau data files on the MER Analyst Notebook site you can see that the measurements are based on times that are substantially removed from noon.

QUOTE
CODE

Product_ID                          L_s      R_au         Sol        AM         Flux        TAU     Rel_err
"1P128366760ESF0100F0006L8M1"     -20.4     1.507       1.544      1.046     623.146      0.909       0.015
"1P128462671ESF0200P2600L8M1"     -19.8     1.508       2.625      1.410     467.240      0.877       0.012
"1P128534453ESF0203P2600L8M1"     -19.3     1.510       3.433      1.100     551.236      0.972       0.005
"1P128535043ESF0203P2651L8M1"     -19.3     1.510       3.440      1.081     568.587      0.960       0.005

Posted by: AndyG Apr 12 2006, 08:20 AM

Your map has a place called MOLAS on it: so there was more than one Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter? ;-)

Andy

Posted by: climber Apr 12 2006, 08:49 AM

QUOTE (AndyG @ Apr 12 2006, 10:20 AM) *
Your map has a place called MOLAS on it: so there was more than one Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter? ;-)

Andy

This is a very good pick! I didn't even thought at this one! Molas is a village (you can see it with its church rigth in the middle on picture N°3) that extend down to the little river that Spirit has followed since "landing". Follow the water Spirit, follow the water smile.gif

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