FOR SCIENCE! A Thread about Curiosity Rover and Nasa and only about the Curiosity Rover and Nasa

Status
Not open for further replies.
Silent Bob

Silent Bob

ThatNickGuy said:
So whatever happened to the manned mission to Mars?
Click to expand...
Well, I think it's still in the works. With this mission, we'll be fulfilling ultimately what Carl Sagan suggested be done before any manned missions commence. That is, thoroughly examine Mars for contaminants that may or may not be harmful and contagious for humans. He likened the scenario to a reverse War of the Worlds.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

Pretty sure lack of oxygen could be harmful to humans... :troll:

In all seriousness, I've not been following this nearly as closely as I should be... the sheer amount of awesomeness that is inherent in this is just too great...

Manned mission to Mars? Sign me up, son!
 
strawman

strawman

Psh. We spend 2.5 billion dollars and NASA can't get HD video for us? That more than NBC paid for the Olympics and I'm sick of looking at the pores on Michael Phelps nose.

Maybe we should have NBC bid on the next mars mission.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I sent a message to my brother-in-law and his wife:

Matt & Brenda,

I don't know if you have or had anything to do with Curiosity, but I damned proud of JPL and NASA tonight. Just watched the touchdown and watched as the first thumbnail images came back from the surface of Mars. I stand in awe of this accomplishment.

Well done, all of you!
Click to expand...
His reply:

Thanks Dave!

Yes, we both worked on it. Brenda was a thermal systems engineer responsible for making sure the rover launched, traveled there, landed, operates within acceptable temperature zones, etc (an enormous undertaking). She had several subsystem thermal models as well as the overall model of the rover. She also did analysis for several landing zones to help determine where Curiosity should land (including Gale crater where it did land). She was extremely involved and I'm sure I'm not listing half of what she did.

I worked on one of the ten science instruments called tunable laser spectrometer (TLS) as a mechanical design engineer. The suite of instruments is called SAM which stands for Sample Analysis at Mars. TLS is used to detect methane, carbon dioxide, and water (i.e. evidence of life). I designed, analyzed, fabricated, and oversaw the assembly of several key components as well as the final alignment. As with many of the instruments on board Curiosity in SAM, TLS has the honor of being the highest precision instrument of its kind ever sent to another planet.

As you can tell, we're both excited that the landing went very well. All initial assessments of the rover and instrumentation indicate everything is alive and well. The landing was "soft" per specification relative to the rocket blast to get it into Earth's orbit and send it on its way to Mars. I can tell you that the last calibration and check out on late June showed a completely healthy set of instruments as well as the rover. So, that means everything survived being strapped to a rocket so theres no reason to believe that the landing on Mars would have caused any damage. We will know more over the next days and weeks as we begin to wake-up the rover and it's instrumentation.

That's it for now...


Matt
Click to expand...

Awesome sauce!
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
stienman said:
Psh. We spend 2.5 billion dollars and NASA can't get HD video for us? That more than NBC paid for the Olympics and I'm sick of looking at the pores on Michael Phelps nose.

Maybe we should have NBC bid on the next mars mission.
Click to expand...
Reference the funny pictures thread. NASA = 14 minute delay from mars. NBC = 8 hour delay from London. You'd never SEE the pictures from mars till we were already living there.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I cut & pasted from my email, which comes in as unreadable on a dark style.[DOUBLEPOST=1344348655][/DOUBLEPOST]But I fixed it just now.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Cool, but maybe not daily updates.

Also when the animation is over, you can use the scroll wheel to reverse. Just in case you miss something.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Removed the minor squabble over Bobak. Not that it was bad or anything, but it had the chance of going off topic in a huge flaming way. If you guys disagree with my assessment, the posts were only soft-deleted and can be put back.[DOUBLEPOST=1344637649][/DOUBLEPOST]And I think daily updates would be smashing, baby!
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
A manned mission to mars is no longer a dream - it's a decision.
Click to expand...
A decision to be made by our children, not us.

Unfortunately, our children will be more concerned with paying off the national debt, student loans, getting jobs, etc...and that will delay the manned mission another twenty years or so... :(

--Patrick
 
Jay

Jay



Obviously, the first week or two will mostly consist of test after tests and once they are comfortable they will send their explorer along to visit the planet.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top