MSL landing site: Gale Crater |
MSL landing site: Gale Crater |
Jun 23 2011, 05:13 AM
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#1
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
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Jun 23 2011, 07:09 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
Very nice, Doug. Is that with or without vertical stretch?
I was surprised by this from the Nature article: "Mawrth Vallis has been ruled out, even as they acknowledge that its lack of scenic vistas — important in drawing the public into a mission — could be a major failing." That's quite a strong statement. Did this really carry any weight in the selection process? If so, it would be saying a lot about the public impact the MERs have achieved. That's something to cheer certainly, but at the same time it's rather sobering. Much as I love the vistas, I find myself wondering how far I'd want planetary exploration to move in the direction of crowd pleasing. |
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Jun 23 2011, 07:17 AM
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#3
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Is that with or without vertical stretch? Without. QUOTE Did this really carry any weight in the selection process? The conclusion of the 5th landing site meeting was this - ALL the sites were scientifically interesting and all met the engineering requirements. There was no scientific consensus that puts one above the other. So - did aesthetics play into it? They were certainly mentioned at the landing site meeting - and all other things being equal, I don't know why they shouldn't. If you have four safe, interesting landing sites that the science community can't choose between, then why not go to the most spectacular one? One good side-effect of Gale - it's a very very low landing site. This could offer lots of spare time margin for EDL. |
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