NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover

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Discussion

Smiljan

10,772 posts

196 months

Thursday 25th February 2021
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Its fascinating zooming into this image and looking at all of the bits and bobs that I have no idea what they do.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8873/nasas-perseverance...

drdino

1,142 posts

141 months

Thursday 25th February 2021
quotequote all
Indeed!

I take it the finned bit at the back is the RTG?

ETA: It is!


Edited by drdino on Thursday 25th February 14:04

Smiljan

10,772 posts

196 months

Thursday 25th February 2021
quotequote all
Yep.



from here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioi...

$109 million each if you fancy one.

Fundoreen

4,180 posts

82 months

Thursday 25th February 2021
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CraigyMc said:
Fundoreen said:
They need to speak to some oil rig divers. At least they rotate out after a couple of weeks.
Maybe get some people to spend 1 year working and living underwater. Less dangerous and you have a way out if you go barmy.
Can't they just talk to the various astronauts and cosmonauts who have already spent long missions in space?

Valeri Polyakov has only been to space twice, but the first was on MIR for 8 months then the second for 14 months.

Gennady Padalka is the current record holder for human time in space at 879 days. He spent 38 hours of that on spacewalks.

People have lived in space for enough time to get to Mars and back already.
Yes they do have these marathon stints but its very different. They are in very low earth orbit and they no doubt have an escape pod. Or a rocket can be launched to rescue them.
Also in real time contact with earth. So they wont feel isolated . Also it must be very interesting looking at earth from space. Mars is just a barren rock quarry.
All this adds up.
I would expect the people on earth with the least interesting lives beyond fanatical devotion to thier leaders to be first to set foot on mars.

CraigyMc

16,304 posts

235 months

Thursday 25th February 2021
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
Yes they do have these marathon stints but its very different. They are in very low earth orbit and they no doubt have an escape pod. Or a rocket can be launched to rescue them.
By definition they are going to be going there on rockets. That's your escape pod.
It's entirely possible that there will be several such escape rockets on orbit (or even on the surface) before the first one with humans on board arrives.

There's a reason why SpaceX are making the Starship on a production line basis. There aren't going to be just a few of them.

Fundoreen said:
Also in real time contact with earth.
You want to have a Facebook chat with my elderly dad. He types with one finger and writes entire paragraphs at a time.
Fundoreen said:
So they wont feel isolated . Also it must be very interesting looking at earth from space. Mars is just a barren rock quarry.
All this adds up.
On that basis, it must have been awful for the people on the ISS before Cupola went up. It's interesting though that on the one hand you say that they don't need to see Mars with their own eyes (just send robots) and on the other the people already in space look at Earth with their own eyes because "it's interesting".
Personally I find the idea of wandering around somewhere that no human has been, seeing things that no human has seen, quite interesting. On the other hand, I like travel.
The actual scenery looks a bit like the Panamint valley in California to me, although I bet the sky is pretty different.
The Martian sky has lots of stars -- the milky way is generally much more visible than it is on Earth. By the way, Earth is one of the things in that Martian sky.

As for telecoms, there will be a capability to send and receive messages (between 4 and 24 minutes each way, depending on where Earth and Mars are in relation to each other). I'm lucky if I get a reply within 48 minutes on Earth never mind from Mars!

Fundoreen said:
I would expect the people on earth with the least interesting lives beyond fanatical devotion to their leaders to be first to set foot on mars.
I'd expect the first ones to go to be astronauts, who tend to hold advanced degrees in things and generally have pretty interesting lives, at least from my perspective. Most of them wind up being really successful after being in space, at least the Western ones do.
I'm interested to know why you think people in the Mars programs would have the "least interesting lives"?


Greshamst

2,028 posts

119 months

Friday 26th February 2021
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Blackpuddin said:
Smiljan said:
Whether you think it's worth it or not or a valid use of resources is moot, there are people out there funded and working towards doing so anyway.
That's the really weird thing for me. Unless these people know something the rest of us don't, which could be possible if they're aliens in human form, it looks like the ultimate vanity project.
It’s the same reason that people climb huge deadly mountains...

Simply “...because it’s there”

Eric Mc

121,773 posts

264 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
What John F Kennedy said in 1962 regarding Apollo is still valid -

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

SBF

216 posts

44 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Fundoreen is right lads, let's just call it a day here. What's the point.

While we're at it, plain doughnuts only from now on, nobody needs the jam in the middle.

And let's stop bothering with cars that'll do more than 70mph, there's no need.



...rolleyes

CraigyMc

16,304 posts

235 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
SBF said:
Fundoreen is right lads, let's just call it a day here. What's the point.

While we're at it, plain doughnuts only from now on, nobody needs the jam in the middle.

And let's stop bothering with cars that'll do more than 70mph, there's no need.

...rolleyes
I have in fact already stopped using running water and will soon switch off the electricity and internet access, so I can get back to foraging for grubs in order to survive.

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
While I think going to Mars is going to be great I don't actually actually see that as the real end-game with this.

How many of you are familiar with the book "Schismatrix" by Bruce Sterling?

Human habitats - starting off with massive circumlunars, then heading out to the asteroid belt and then the moons of Jupiter - economies based on mining, finance, engineering and genetics. That's the future and because of what is going on now I believe that we are actually on the cusp of the start of this being technically possible. We have so much of the technology to do these things, but have lacked what is in any way an affordable way of getting decent amounts of material into orbit.

That, and inward facing defeatist types like Fundoreen. The future doesn't doesn't belong to people like him.

Leithen

10,799 posts

266 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Given that Musk has lowered launch costs so greatly and Bezos will soon join that party, I'm surprised there aren't more plans to develop orbitals, if only to act as a staging post for exploration further afield.

Do the economics and practicalities point towards the Moon being a better base for such things? I'd like to see some full scale artificial gravity experiments being put into orbit. Any Mars travel for astronauts without it seems rather pointless.

CraigyMc

16,304 posts

235 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Leithen said:
Do the economics and practicalities point towards the Moon being a better base for such things?
Not really, being on the Moon's gravity well just means you need to leave it to get out to Mars.

You're better off in orbit around Earth before heading to Mars. SpaceX's plan is to refuel in Earth Orbit* and then go out to Mars once refuelled.

*I'm not sure if something on this scale has every been tried before

Eric Mc

121,773 posts

264 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
CraigyMc said:
Not really, being on the Moon's gravity well just means you need to leave it to get out to Mars.

You're better off in orbit around Earth before heading to Mars. SpaceX's plan is to refuel in Earth Orbit* and then go out to Mars once refuelled.

*I'm not sure if something on this scale has every been tried before
The Russians refueled their Salyut and Mir space stations from Progress supply craft in the 80s and 90s.

CraigyMc

16,304 posts

235 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
CraigyMc said:
Not really, being on the Moon's gravity well just means you need to leave it to get out to Mars.

You're better off in orbit around Earth before heading to Mars. SpaceX's plan is to refuel in Earth Orbit* and then go out to Mars once refuelled.

*I'm not sure if something on this scale has every been tried before
The Russians refueled their Salyut and Mir space stations from Progress supply craft in the 80s and 90s.
Yep, and ESA refuels the ISS with ~800kg of fuel at a time.

My point was about scale - I don't think anyone has ever tried moving tens of tons of fuel/oxidizer on orbit before, in multiple refuellings to fill up something that sits on orbit for a while.

How does the boil-off work for example?

Fundoreen

4,180 posts

82 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Our current fastest space probe would take 60000 years to get to the nearest star. many times longer than man has any history.
It wont be the stoneage rockets we still use that get us anywhere.
Maybe we will develop something in 100 years time and it will get to those stars before anything we launch now.
Some geezer in a thick spacesuit he cant take off is no better than a space probe to mars and robot lander.
Unless the photo op is important.
Instead of all the stupid tv shows that show someone running a lot to prepare for their space mission they should see if people
can live on the moon for a year first. The least disturbed can then go on the mars mission. I would expect all of them to drop out
to run home to mummy.
They tried some sealed self sufficent bubble on earth and they all kept nipping outside for a fag or had resources added from outside.
The bog stock reality of the mission is impressive enough to realistic people but they have to keep bullstting as all the people holding the purse strings are thick.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
Our current fastest space probe would take 60000 years to get to the nearest star. many times longer than man has any history.
It wont be the stoneage rockets we still use that get us anywhere.
Maybe we will develop something in 100 years time and it will get to those stars before anything we launch now.
Some geezer in a thick spacesuit he cant take off is no better than a space probe to mars and robot lander.
Unless the photo op is important.
Instead of all the stupid tv shows that show someone running a lot to prepare for their space mission they should see if people
can live on the moon for a year first. The least disturbed can then go on the mars mission. I would expect all of them to drop out
to run home to mummy.
They tried some sealed self sufficent bubble on earth and they all kept nipping outside for a fag or had resources added from outside.
The bog stock reality of the mission is impressive enough to realistic people but they have to keep bullstting as all the people holding the purse strings are thick.
There’s that positivity we’ve come to love smile

Eric Mc

121,773 posts

264 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Christopher Columbus nearly gave up on his trans-Atlantic venture when Queen Isabella said to him "Are you sure about this? Why don't we wait 500 years and we'll all be able to cross the Atlantic by Boeing 747".

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
Our current fastest space probe would take 60000 years to get to the nearest star. many times longer than man has any history.
Could you tell us where on this thread anyone has been postulating interstellar travel? What are you wibbling about?

AW111

9,455 posts

132 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
Instead of all the stupid tv shows that show someone running a lot to prepare for their space mission they should see if people
can live on the moon for a year first. The least disturbed can then go on the mars mission. I would expect all of them to drop out
to run home to mummy.
They tried some sealed self sufficent bubble on earth and they all kept nipping outside for a fag or had resources added from outside.
The bog stock reality of the mission is impressive enough to realistic people but they have to keep bullstting as all the people holding the purse strings are thick.
This is a science thread.
Try and use facts, if you know any.

Different opinions is fine, but please stop telling lies. This isn't NP&E.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 26th February 2021
quotequote all
AW111 said:
Fundoreen said:
Instead of all the stupid tv shows that show someone running a lot to prepare for their space mission they should see if people
can live on the moon for a year first. The least disturbed can then go on the mars mission. I would expect all of them to drop out
to run home to mummy.
They tried some sealed self sufficent bubble on earth and they all kept nipping outside for a fag or had resources added from outside.
The bog stock reality of the mission is impressive enough to realistic people but they have to keep bullstting as all the people holding the purse strings are thick.
This is a science thread.
Try and use facts, if you know any.

Different opinions is fine, but please stop telling lies. This isn't NP&E.
Leave her be, she's fun don't you know!