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Red Dragon
Fran Ontanaya
post Aug 12 2011, 02:20 AM
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Maybe it could orbit Mars, mapping with a big gamma ray spectrometer, then do the landing demo and use some extra instruments. The GRS could collect data about the capsule shielding too.
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ZLD
post Aug 12 2011, 02:43 AM
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QUOTE (Jim from NSF.com @ Aug 11 2011, 06:41 PM) *
]There is out of the box thinking and then there is off the reservation which most of the ideas are.


Jim, I honestly don't understand your line of thought here. How is using the Dragon module an impossibility for an unmanned mission to Mars? Are you a qualified engineer, able to determine this as a certainty? As I've read, most of the ideas tossed around here, have been at least somewhat reasonable for inclusion on a Red Dragon mission. Would you care to address why they are unreasonable on an individual basis, rather that offering a blanket statement? It just seems you are opposed to the idea of the mission without offering any further thought or discussion on the matter.


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Greg Hullender
post Aug 12 2011, 03:33 AM
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I hate to appear to agree with Jim, but I'm just not seeing how the thing can land on Mars at all without big modifications. Is there a paper where some of the Dragon engineers worked through this?

--Greg
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stevesliva
post Aug 12 2011, 05:45 AM
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On the other hand, NASA also has a history of designing a platform and then figuring out what science might fit it, too. Not so much on the unmanned side, which might be why it seems to radical to propose a mission w/o mission objectives.
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ElkGroveDan
post Aug 12 2011, 05:56 AM
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QUOTE (ZLD @ Aug 11 2011, 07:43 PM) *
Jim, I honestly don't understand your line of thought here. How is using the Dragon module an impossibility for an unmanned mission to Mars? Are you a qualified engineer, able to determine this as a certainty?

No Jim isn't an engineer. But he does have conflict of interest issues in opposing SpaceX and the Falcon rockets. So take his criticisms at face value.


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If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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nprev
post Aug 12 2011, 07:15 AM
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"A solar-powered rover lasting for over seven terrestrial years on Mars??? Ridiculous!!! Can't be done!!! It would have to rove FAR off the reservation!"

Yeah, Jim, c'mon...enough already. REAL easy to belittle, so very much more difficult to imagine & innovate, after all.

Engineering is the art of making apparent miracles come true by thinking of ways to not only perform within constraints, but so often & predictably transcend them.

I must also add that ZLD's observations are correct: Blanket criticism is entirely unproductive in the concept development phase of ANY project, where any idea, no matter how apparently wild, must be heard and evaluated on its individual merits. You have made no real attempt to do so, and in fact your comments would act to stifle creative thinking in an actual developmental environment.

Any engineer...in fact,, any person with a modicum of creative capacity...understands this obvious fact instinctively. You clearly either do not, or refuse to do so for your own reasons. Neither reason supports your argument.


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djellison
post Aug 12 2011, 08:00 AM
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Jim has been asked, in private, and publicly, by UMSF admins, to behave in a cordial manor.

He has refused to do so, repeatedly. His time here is done.

I suggest we just ignore his comments and move on.
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SteveM
post Aug 12 2011, 04:48 PM
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"The idea is like grass,
It craves light, likes crowds,
thrives on crossbreeding,
grows better for being stepped on."

Ursula K. LeGuin
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Drkskywxlt
post Aug 12 2011, 05:08 PM
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I think people have posted several ideas of how SOME science could get done with a Dragon, but I don't think any of that science is compelling enough to outweigh the great risk of trying to land a very large unproven system on Mars. Dragon is simply not optimized for unmanned robotic science missions...really no great surprise there. Still, if anyone can sell this, Chris McKay and Elon Musk can.
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Astro0
post Aug 13 2011, 06:32 AM
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"...but I don't think any of that science is compelling enough to outweigh the great risk of trying to land a very large unproven system on Mars."

Oh well, better not send Curiosity to land on Mars using Skycrane then! ph34r.gif laugh.gif
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Guest_Oersted_*
post Aug 13 2011, 08:00 PM
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Guests






I imagine a snake crawling out of the hatch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VLjDjXzTiU

Or maybe a flying tadpole:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2...-flight-testing

- Would be cool to have such a relatively low-cost delivery system to Mars one day!
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Drkskywxlt
post Aug 15 2011, 12:50 PM
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QUOTE (Astro0 @ Aug 13 2011, 01:32 AM) *
Oh well, better not send Curiosity to land on Mars using Skycrane then! ph34r.gif laugh.gif


Don't remind me... tongue.gif
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Syrinx
post Aug 18 2011, 08:42 PM
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It might be worth simply emailing Elon Musk and asking him to comment. He's not 8 levels high in a government bureaucracy. He's just like the majority of us on UMSF (gear heads), except he's got more money and toys. Or at least more than me. I don't know how much you guys are worth.
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Paolo
post Nov 9 2011, 07:45 PM
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there is an article on Red Dragon on this week's Nature:
Dragon offers ticket to Mars
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Drkskywxlt
post Nov 9 2011, 08:46 PM
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Usually teams that are proposing Discovery or NF missions keep the details pretty close to the vest. Interesting that the Red Dragon team is doing almost the exact opposite and advertising this mission a couple years even before the next Discovery AO is released.
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