Spirit Route Map, Small and Large Scales Options

[dvandorn]

Dough, when you talk about "EVA with Apollo 14" are you referring to a particular episode? I missed it...

I'm not Doug, but, um... I *am* Doug (the other one), and I can answer your question...

On Apollo 14 (as on most of the other moon landings), the lack of atmosphere made distant objects look closer than they really were to the moonwalking astronauts. Shepard and Mitchell mis-estimated their position almost continually while trying to reach the rim of Cone Crater, which lies upon the summit of Cone Ridge.

In the end, they had to walk a good 40 minutes longer than they thought they would have to just to get there, and they were all of 40 meters away from the rim and couldn't see it. So they sampled boulders 40 meters from the rim, and headed back -- all the while having no clue whatsoever where they had actually gone and how close they had actually come to their goal.

I think Doug was just saying that your sense of distance seems about on par with Shepard and Mitchell's...

-the other Doug

[djellison]

Bingo

[dilo]

Dough, when you talk about "EVA with Apollo 14" are you referring to a particular episode? I missed it...

I'm not Doug, but, um... I *am* Doug (the other one), and I can answer your question...

On Apollo 14 (as on most of the other moon landings), the lack of atmosphere made distant objects look closer than they really were to the moonwalking astronauts. Shepard and Mitchell mis-estimated their position almost continually while trying to reach the rim of Cone Crater, which lies upon the summit of Cone Ridge.

In the end, they had to walk a good 40 minutes longer than they thought they would have to just to get there, and they were all of 40 meters away from the rim and couldn't see it. So they sampled boulders 40 meters from the rim, and headed back -- all the while having no clue whatsoever where they had actually gone and how close they had actually come to their goal.

I think Doug was just saying that your sense of distance seems about on par with Shepard and Mitchell's...

-the other Doug

Thanks, I didn't know this interesting episode (I was 7 years old! ).
Exactly, when they realized that they were only 40m from the rim?

[djellison]

Thanks, I didn't know this interesting episode (I was 7 years old!  ).
Exactly, when they realized that they were only 40m from the rim?

I'm only 26, so I was about -8 They kept climbing and climbing thinking they'd get to the crater, but then they just had to give up with their walkback limit closing in on them

It was only after looking at the photos back on earth that they figured it out

I believe a case of scotch was forfeited over the whole episode
Doug

[dvandorn]

Thanks, I didn't know this interesting episode (I was 7 years old!  ).
Exactly, when they realized that they were only 40m from the rim?

I'm only 26, so I was about -8 They kept climbing and climbing thinking they'd get to the crater, but then they just had to give up with their walkback limit closing in on them

It was only after looking at the photos back on earth that they figured it out

I believe a case of scotch was forfeited over the whole episode
Doug

I'm 49, so I was 15 at the time. I remember it *quite* well...

Shepard and Mitchell had stopped *way* short of the planned interim sampling stops, thinking they had gone farther than they actually had. As they climbed Cone Ridge, they came up to a ridge crest that was about 20 meters below the very top of the ridge. As the came up to that crest, they thought they were coming right up on the rim, but they weren't -- and boy, did they sound surprised!

At that point, Shepard estimated it would take another half hour to get to the actual ridge crest, showing how far they had overestimated their previous progress.

Shepard thought they were approaching the rim directly from the west, while Mitchell more correctly thought they were approaching the ridge crest to the south of the crater rim. When, about 20 minutes after Shepard estimated another half hour, they reached the actual rim crest, they were about 60m S-SW of the rim. They walked to the very middle of the ridge crest, about 50m directly south of the rim, and then walked back N-NE another 10-15m to reach a boulder field about 40M from the actual rim. After 10 minutes of sampling, they had to head back because of walkback oxygen and water restraints. (All told, they were about 1.1 or 1.2 km away from the LM at that point.)

The reason the crater rim was invisible was that the near rim was higher in elevation, by about 5m, than the far rim, so the near rim simply made up what looked like a ridge crest. It was really impossible to tell that Cone Crater really *did* drop off right beyond that one crest, and that crest didn't look all that much closer or farther away than most of the rest of the horizon.

Oh, and there were two cases of Scotch at stake -- one for reaching the rim of Cone, and another for carrying the MET (the "rickshaw" they used as a tool carrier) all the way up to the top. They won the latter, since they carried the MET all the way (at one point literally carrying it off the ground when the regolith got too bumpy), and the former was ceded to them after postflight analysis showed just how close to the rim they came.

-the other Doug

[tedstryk]

Thanks, I didn't know this interesting episode (I was 7 years old!  ).
Exactly, when they realized that they were only 40m from the rim?

I'm only 26, so I was about -8 They kept climbing and climbing thinking they'd get to the crater, but then they just had to give up with their walkback limit closing in on them

It was only after looking at the photos back on earth that they figured it out

I believe a case of scotch was forfeited over the whole episode
Doug

I'm 49, so I was 15 at the time. I remember it *quite* well...

Shepard and Mitchell had stopped *way* short of the planned interim sampling stops, thinking they had gone farther than they actually had. As they climbed Cone Ridge, they came up to a ridge crest that was about 20 meters below the very top of the ridge. As the came up to that crest, they thought they were coming right up on the rim, but they weren't -- and boy, did they sound surprised!

At that point, Shepard estimated it would take another half hour to get to the actual ridge crest, showing how far they had overestimated their previous progress.

Shepard thought they were approaching the rim directly from the west, while Mitchell more correctly thought they were approaching the ridge crest to the south of the crater rim. When, about 20 minutes after Shepard estimated another half hour, they reached the actual rim crest, they were about 60m S-SW of the rim. They walked to the very middle of the ridge crest, about 50m directly south of the rim, and then walked back N-NE another 10-15m to reach a boulder field about 40M from the actual rim. After 10 minutes of sampling, they had to head back because of walkback oxygen and water restraints. (All told, they were about 1.1 or 1.2 km away from the LM at that point.)

The reason the crater rim was invisible was that the near rim was higher in elevation, by about 5m, than the far rim, so the near rim simply made up what looked like a ridge crest. It was really impossible to tell that Cone Crater really *did* drop off right beyond that one crest, and that crest didn't look all that much closer or farther away than most of the rest of the horizon.

Oh, and there were two cases of Scotch at stake -- one for reaching the rim of Cone, and another for carrying the MET (the "rickshaw" they used as a tool carrier) all the way up to the top. They won the latter, since they carried the MET all the way (at one point literally carrying it off the ground when the regolith got too bumpy), and the former was ceded to them after postflight analysis showed just how close to the rim they came.

-the other Doug

I had no idea about that incident...I have the age -8 problem at the time as well I would add that as someone who enjoys hiking, this is a very real problem traversing terrain. You always think you see the top of the mountain ahead, and when you get to that place, there is still further to go. Also, it is hard to realize how close you are to some things. I was hiking to a cliff that had has a particularly good view of the Clinch River the other day and, thinking myself to have taken the wrong trail, would have turned back twenty feet from the lookout had another hiker not happened to pass me by and think it odd that I was turning around.

[ustrax]

Corrections on this sketch?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v352/ustrax/sal.jpg
(view from west spur panorama by Tman
view of west spur panorama by horton
view of husband hill summit by ustrax)

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Ther's quite a detailed account of the whole affair in lunar geologist Donald Wilhelms' book "To A Rocky Moon". Wilhelms is still tearing his hair out over the whole affair because he regards the samples from near or at the rim of Cone Crater as the most important ones for understanding lunar history as a whole that would have been obtained from any of the Apollo landings -- and they only obtained a few ounces from their site within just a dozen meters or so of the rim, since they didn't know they were there. As he points out, though, that wasn't their fault; the terrain was simply too hummocky and misleading as seen from ground level. A range finder to the LM (which was seriously considered once) would have solved the problem.

[dvandorn]

Ther's quite a detailed account of the whole affair in lunar geologist Donald Wilhelms' book "To A Rocky Moon".  Wilhelms is still tearing his hair out over the whole affair because he regards the samples from near or at the rim of Cone Crater as the most important ones for understanding lunar history as a whole that would have been obtained from any of the Apollo landings -- and they only obtained a few ounces from their site within just a dozen meters or so of the rim, since they didn't know they were there.  As he points out, though, that wasn't their fault; the terrain was simply too hummocky and misleading as seen from ground level.  A range finder to the LM (which was seriously considered once) would have solved the problem.

Apollo 14's EVA troubles were as much a problem in process as they were a result of the hummocky surface.

There was ample observation from the first two landings that landmarks appeared much closer on the lunar surface than they actually were. This is due to the lack of any atmospheric haze and the lack of familiar objects with which to compare distant objects.

However, they didn't develop a traverse plan in which this difficulty was taken into account and walking speed estimated fairly precisely such that traverse time would give a decent estimate of distance covered. Instead, they designed the distance traveled estimates against passing of specific landmarks and sighting of other nearby landmarks -- a process which was a lot more prone to interference by hummocky terrain and difficulty in perceiving distance.

Because the landmark process was chosen, the Apollo 14 crew spent more time trying to figure out exactly where they were at all times than they spent actually moving towards their goal.

This is the kind of lesson that is valuable to be learned in *any* planetary exploration program -- you have to constantly re-validate your operational processes against your lessons learned. Failure to do so causes problems.

And, BTW -- yeah, I absolutely loved Wilhelms' book, too. My copy has been read over so much, it's in tatters... I also recommend Paul Spudis' "The Once and Future Moon." It does a very, very good job of explaining the petrology and geochemistry of the Moon.

-the other Doug

[jamescanvin]

Quite a few route maps (to Sol 450) have been posted by NASA here:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20050419a.html

JC

[Guest_Myran_*]

I follwed the link recommended by jamescanvin and noted one patch that have caught my attention before, so I try asking here since you seem to be knowledgable people here, so here goes:

What might that that dark spot in the inner basin be, volcanic ash?

[jamescanvin]

I follwed the link recommended by jamescanvin and noted one patch that have caught my attention before, so I try asking here since you seem to be knowledgable people here, so here goes:

What might that that dark spot in the inner basin be, volcanic ash?

Now that's a question that has been discussed WAY too much on various sites since Spirit landed! It's commonly known as the "Ultreya Abyss" do a google for lots of discussion about it

James

[jamescanvin]

I follwed the link recommended by jamescanvin and noted one patch that have caught my attention before, so I try asking here since you seem to be knowledgable people here, so here goes:

What might that that dark spot in the inner basin be, volcanic ash?

Oh, and just to add there is (no suprise!) a thread in this forum:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=585

That may be of more help than a lot of 'other' sites with there crazy ideas!

This would also be the place to continue any discussion about it!

James

[Guest_Myran_*]

Oh, and just to add there is (no suprise!) a thread in this forum:

Found my way there now and already spotted Pando stating: "It seems to be simply a darker-colored sand collected downwind." which corresponds with my own thinking. Though I keep my idea of volcanic ash material in reserve.

So I move over to that thread, thank you James!

[Phil Stooke]

Having nothing to do one day, I thought I'd play with a Spirit route map. So first I took the nice set of Pan Camera pics from Sol 498 looking ouit across the plains, and made a mini-panorama of them:



(reduced in size 50% and heavily jpegged).

Then I did a patented Stooke reprojection to put it in a VERY rough maplike geometry and began comparing it with the Spirit route maps plotted on MOC images, which we have all seen. This is the result:



I am very confident of the identity of Lahontan crater and the route from there towards the hills. But I can't identify Bonneville and Missoula with any certainty.

It would also be interesting to try to plot Dust Devil locations and motion on a 'map' like this.

Phil