That seems to be an incredibly complex way to land a rover. Impressive none-the-less.
Fuck parachutes, I'll just hover to the ground.
Fuck hovering, I'll lower myself to the ground.
It seems like there would be much better ways to do this.
Silly NASA, don't you know there's no sound in space?
Well, the alternative is half-assing the landing procedure and having it blow the fuck up like Phobos 2 did.
how do parachutes work well in an atmosphere unlike ours? What kind of gases are causing the drag?
[QUOTE=SabreGrub;29080909]how do parachutes work well in an atmosphere unlike ours? What kind of gases are causing the drag?[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars[/url]
:science:
[QUOTE=SabreGrub;29080909]how do parachutes work well in an atmosphere unlike ours? What kind of gases are causing the drag?[/QUOTE]
Mars isn't like the moon, there is an atmosphere, as evidenced by the burning up on approach.
[editline]edit[/editline]
:ninja:
[editline]10th April 2011[/editline]
Oh, and for those who think that the landing is overly complicated, remember that this rover is gigantic:
[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/15/article-1312247-0B3277C3000005DC-571_634x420.jpg[/img]
I see no solar cells on that rover, I wonder how this one will be powered. Probably nuclear.
Very cool video nonetheless.
[QUOTE=green bandit;29081485]I see no solar cells on that rover, I wonder how this one will be powered. Probably nuclear.
Very cool video nonetheless.[/QUOTE]
Yep, Nuclear.
Also, that looks like a Flying Saucer. We are now the aliens.
That is the most expensive soil sample ever.
That's awesome. Too bad the process has to be so wasteful. It would be cool if it would be single vehicle which would leave our orbit and land on mars. Yes, extremely hard, probably pointless, but awesome.
[QUOTE=OvB;29081977]Yep, Nuclear.
Also, that looks like a Flying Saucer. We are now the aliens.[/QUOTE]
Exactly what went through my mind.
At least we can find out more about mars, until the day earth is overpopulated and we need more resources etc. so we colonize mars, maybe the soil samples will show water or new elements etc. or unusual elements.
[editline]10th April 2011[/editline]
They also need to install an Mp3 player to the rover, so if its successful they can just play a celebration song; such as; [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbr_tJh8E_o[/media]
[editline]10th April 2011[/editline]
They may as well if its nuclear powered, I would just nuts with accessories, like a fucking minigun in case its comes in contact with aliens.
I'm not one to question NASA or anything, but that seems [b]really[/b] overengineered.
Since it's powered by nuclear it's going to be much more efficient than the previous rovers which relied heavily on solar power. Solar power proved useless on Mars especially during the storms.
[QUOTE=ChristopherB;29080329]That seems to be an incredibly complex way to land a rover. Impressive none-the-less.[/QUOTE]
Mars' atmosphere is far too thin to have it parachute all the way to the ground, and the rover is massive compared to previous ones so it couldn't use the bouncy inflatable airbag things other rovers used.
The parachute is just to shed some speed, the rockets to actually slow it down to a stop, and I assume it lowers on the cable so the rockets dont get close to the ground, kicking up dust and debris and damaging the rover.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;29086585]That's awesome. Too bad the process has to be so wasteful. It would be cool if it would be single vehicle which would leave our orbit and land on mars. Yes, extremely hard, probably pointless, but awesome.[/QUOTE]
If you built a single craft to go from Earth surface to Mars surface it would be far more wasteful since by the time you got to Mars you'd have so much dead weight that no longer has any use and just needs more fuel to carry the dead weight. It's why rockets are multi stage, when you burn up the fuel in one part it's no longer doing anything useful, so you shed the dead weight. Rocket fuel normally costs more than the tank it's stored in so this method, although it doesn't look it is efficient.
[QUOTE=Squaar;29080393]It seems like there would be much better ways to do this.[/QUOTE]
The hundreds of JPL engineers and scientists beg to differ.
I found it pretty funny how it's all like "ROCKET! EXPLOSIVE BOLT SEPERATION! PARACHUTE OPENING! WOOSH BANG ENGINES GO ON" and at the end it's "whiirrrrrrrrrr".
I always wondered, what happens if a part of the rovers breaks?
[QUOTE=Karmah;29235336]I always wondered, what happens if a part of the rovers breaks?[/QUOTE]
It's fucked.
Like that one that got stuck
[QUOTE=mokkan;29235678]It's fucked.
Like that one that got stuck[/QUOTE]
That's what happened to half the shit we've sent into space. We just can't take a hint.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;29086585]That's awesome. Too bad the process has to be so wasteful. It would be cool if it would be single vehicle which would leave our orbit and land on mars. Yes, extremely hard, probably pointless, but awesome.[/QUOTE]
transformers more than meets the eye
this made me think of how boring and eerie it would be to be on Mars alone, with no outside contact.
[QUOTE=OvB;29081977]Yep, Nuclear.
Also, that looks like a Flying Saucer. We are now the aliens.[/QUOTE]
I was also thinking of it. I mean let's say Mars is populated with some kind of civilization with technology behind ours. If I was one of them and saw this thing land I'd call it a flying saucer / killing machine / alien invasion preparation probe without any hesitation.
[QUOTE=Third_Freako;29188128]Solar power proved useless on Mars especially during the storms.[/QUOTE]
Solar powered rovers worked just fine on Mars. They had issues, but are still running despite all estimates.
Those rovers always look incredibly fragile. Next time they should send one that can repair others.
I too was reminded of Mako landing.
It's all cool, but I'm kind of afraid of that part where it uses rockets to slow down. We can do stuff like that? I always thought it would take a weak wind and it would go apeshit in it's trajectory.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.