2009 Or 2011 ?, 1 or 2 ? Options

[helvick]

Well, if he was a Brit, he was being nostalgic...

As a scientist maybe but them Englanders (well Britishers) are still firmly wedded to miles. Confuses the hell out of me these days when I drive up to Belfast.
:-)

[RNeuhaus]

I remember that in the decade 80', U.S. has invested lots of money to convince the public to change from miles to kilometers but it was no success.

I would love that any measurements become with metrical system.

Perhaps, that is the evolution direction for near future, all thing will put together with: one currency, one language, one measurement and one goverment. This would be accelareted when the Earth has already colonized in some other planet.

Rodolfo

[odave]

Canada was much more successful. It seems like everyone I talk to when I'm over there uses metric units.

One time I borrowed a Canadian friend's car when mine was in the shop. His car was bigger than mine, and while driving it I encountered that difference in perceived speed thing. I looked down at the speedometer to make sure I was under the limit and was shocked to see I was doing 100. Then I realized that the large number on the top is kph, with mph underneath. In US built cars, the speedometer labeling is reversed

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Perhaps, that is the evolution direction for near future, all thing will put together with: one currency, one language, one measurement and one goverment. This would be accelareted when the Earth has already colonized in some other planet.

Rodolfo

Well, if that one language ends up being English, I hope we at least have the decency to modify the language to simplify both its spelling and its grammar. As a "Frankenstein's monster" language stitched together out of pieces of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and God knows what else, it's currently so riddled with numerous exceptions to every single rule of spelling, pronunciation and grammar that forcing adult foreigners to learn it ought to be outlawed by the Geneva Conventions.

Of course, the way things are going, it's at least as likely that the world language will be Mandarin (in which case I hope they get rid of those damned ideograms...)

[dvandorn]

Careful, there -- oriental languages, which depend on tone to differentiate meaning between otherwise identical sounds, are *much* harder to learn as an adult (for those who did not grow up with such a language) than any other style of language in the world.

-the other Doug

[Guest_exobioquest_*]

Way don't we all just learn Esperanto or some modernized more internationalized version?

Anyways I got a question, perhaps I should put it under the MTO cancelled article but I feel this is better due to how off topic you people get. With MTO gone (though jpl still talks about it on there Mars tech page, I guess they will push for it again for 2011 or later) will MSL have a direct to earth antenna, just as a back up at least? Maybe they could just slap one of those on top of the pancam to save weight (use the pancam motors and mast instead of a separate set).

[mike]

The real issue with language is that it's forever changing, due both to entirely new concepts and inventions and the fact that people just like to make up their own words for things (particularly children). The thing I like about English is that it tends to take the best words for various ideas from all languages and meshes them together. And English isn't so hard to learn that it's impossible for foreigners to understand and speak. I'd much rather have a language like English, which openly changes itself regularly to adapt and become more expressive, to a language like French, where government powers actively try to keep the language 'pure', whatever that means in the first place..

[Rakhir]

I'd much rather have a language like English, which openly changes itself regularly to adapt and become more expressive, to a language like French, where government powers actively try to keep the language 'pure', whatever that means in the first place..

Do you really think that some government actions can have any effect on the evolution of a language ?
Unless in some public services papers.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

"60 Minutes" did a marvelous piece a few years ago on the increasingly desperate efforts of the French government to keep the language pure of the vile English pollution -- including an angry debate between two advocates of the idea which ended with one of them yelling "Shut up!" at the other in English. I honestly don't understand why the French are so barmy on this subject.

As for MSL: yep, it has had a DTE antenna added, and you can find an accurate picture of the new setup at http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/MSL.cfm?Project=3 . (The new antenna will be provided by Spain, and the DTE system adds fully 50 kg to the rover's previous 700-kg mass -- but they haven't had to take anything off to compensate. They are approaching the upper limits at which a Viking-type parachute works on Mars, however.)

[Guest_exobioquest_*]

As for MSL: yep, it has had a DTE antenna added, and you can find an accurate picture of the new setup at http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/MSL.cfm?Project=3 .  (The new antenna will be provided by Spain, and the DTE system adds fully 50 kg to the rover's previous 700-kg mass -- but they haven't had to take anything off to compensate.  They are approaching the upper limits at which a Viking-type parachute works on Mars, however.)

Good, though that antenna should only be needed in case something goes wrong with the orbiters, if they need to save weight they can ditch its mast and motors and put it on the pancam, if the pancam motors fail we will loss the antenna but since it is redundant to begin with it should not be as bad as the supersonic shut failing or worth the money of having to design a new one.

If the arm on that preliminary design is what the final is going to look like then it will only have a core drill and a microcam, that means it can sample and run over to another rock while analyzing the sample from the first one! That will be great but I worry about how long the core drill will last and how much CO2 will be available for cleaning the sampling carousel inside the rover. Extra drill bits and an “air” pump will definitely add more weight though the air pump with extra filters could be used to get pure samples of Martian atmospheric dust and could be classified as a experiment in its self.

[mcaplinger]

if they need to save weight they can ditch its mast and motors and put it on the pancam...

First, we call it the Mastcam. Or maybe the MastCam, I'm not sure. The whole mast is generically called the Remote Sensing Mast (RSM), since the navcams and the LIBS (aka Chemcam, or is it ChemCam?) is on it as well.

Second, there's just no way the extra mass and volume of an antenna could be supported by the RSM.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Well, the antenna doesn't have any mast to speak of -- it just sits on a 2-axis gimbal sitting right on the rover's deck. Second, as Mike Caplinger says, it's much too big to be supported by the camera mast. Anyway, the separate camera motors are miniscule in weight compared to the whole DTE system -- you wouldn't be saving any weight to speak of (and probably none, since you'd have to provide a stronger, heavier camera mast to support the antenna as well).

[Guest_exobioquest_*]

BruceMoomaw

Well I figure the thing was as light as small satellite dish. Forgive me for thinking jpl could at least equal the capabilities of satellite television provider.

When i said mast, I meant the slender vertical structure that holding up the dish in the picture you provided, forgive me if there is some other word for it.

mcaplinger,

Seriously, I feel I may I might have offended you with that suggestion, take no offense I’m not challenging you, quite the opposite: I want to understand. If I ask why not do something differently I’m simply wondering why you did it like that, I’m not trying to make suggestion into a field that is very foreign from my own, rather I’m looking to be answered and enlightened, not respected. If something seems wrong to me I’ll ask the experts why it like that, why it’s not done the way I think it should be, they will hopefully explain to me, I will argue with them until I understand why it like that and then it won’t seem wrong to me anymore. Most people ask why and are given a simple answer, usually they don’t feel the answer was adequate but don’t ask for further explanation out of fear of being embarrassed for some perceive stupidity of not understanding already. I lacking a sense of honor or dignity and I’m willing to make a fool of my self until I understand.

So please don’t get angry with further questions like why not design the “MastCam” to handle the weight, why would two separate structures weigh less then one?

[mcaplinger]

If something seems wrong to me I’ll ask the experts why it like that, why it’s not done the way I think it should be, they will hopefully explain to me...

I think Bruce explained it pretty well. The mass of the motors and antenna is only a small fraction of the whole DTE system (if the total mass of that is 50 kg, they really aren't trying very hard, but that's another story) and trying to cantilever more mass up at the top of the RSM, which has to be stable enough to support Mastcam imaging, has to move rapidly to take mosaics, is a meter or more off the ground when the antenna has no need to be that high -- well, it just wouldn't end up saving mass.

Not the mention the fact that they have to have a fat waveguide between the power amps and the transmitter (presumably in the main rover warm box) and the antenna.

But we're just designing the cameras. JPL designs the mast and its pointing and deployment mechanisms. All I can say is that the RSM design is hard enough to make work as it is.

[edstrick]

[quote=exobioquest,Dec 3 2005, 07:13 PM]
Way don't we all just learn Esperanto or some modernized more internationalized version?

I'm TOLD (don't know for sure if it's true but I would NOT be surprised) that Esperanto is no longer the most widely spoken artificial language. That record now goes to... Klingon!