Soldato
Also much harder to get to and much, much harder to get anything of any significant mass (such as a lander capable of looking for life) to safely.
If you think Mars is boring you're fooling yourself
** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Also much harder to get to and much, much harder to get anything of any significant mass (such as a lander capable of looking for life) to safely.
If you think Mars is boring you're fooling yourself
Soldato
Soldato
Also much harder to get to and much, much harder to get anything of any significant mass (such as a lander capable of looking for life) to safely.
If you think Mars is boring you're fooling yourself
Relatively boring I mean. It has been studied in quite a lot of detail now, so the mystery is gone. Titan on the other hand... we got a tantalizing glimpse of it through Huygens and there's still so much to find out. It's a far more interesting destination, and Huygens already proved it can be done.
Soldato
Forgive me but that just sounds a lot like layman 'speculation', which has no place in real science. "I'm bored of this so we shouldn't do it any more."
There's extremely good reasons for exploring Mars, it's the prime candidate for a (previously) habitable planet. It's also the closest. Such a great pairing, and yet we've still barely scratched the surface. We're learning new things about it every day. We can never be 'done', and we're definitely not 'done' because somebody on an internet forum said they were bored of it.
If you want to design a lander that has a low enough mass to be launched from Earth to Titan, but has enough scientific instruments to make useful readings, a reliable way of transmitting information through the atmosphere and on top of all a heatshield capable of protecting such a craft and making it come to almost a complete stop from among the highest speeds ever achieved by a manmade object them be my guest. Serionly.
And don't get me wrong, of course the outer planets are beautifully tantalizing. But it's not a case of either/or. There's physically more we're capable of doing on Mars, and we need as much intel as possible on what is quite clearly the next big step in manned space flight.
After two weeks testing at Launch Pad 39B the Mobile Launcher (ML) moves back to the VAB:
Caporegime
Crikey. It must take some horse power to shift that thing.
The crawler-transporter has a 16 traction motor transmission powered by four 1341 horsepower generators which are powered by two 2750 horsepower V16 Alco diesel engines. Additional power is also provided by two 1006 horsepower generators driven by two 1,065 horsepower engines.
Yes, lots of horsepower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter
The crawler-transporter:
CT-1 and CT-2 will not be scrapped and CT-1 is being modified so that it can handle the heavier loads that the Space Launch System (SLS) will have.
CT-1 and CT-2 will not be scrapped and CT-1 is being modified so that it can handle the heavier loads that the Space Launch System (SLS) will have.
Soldato
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/evidence-water-mars/
Nice to see Opportunity has some life in her yet
I mean, of course Curiosity is a much more impressive feat of engineering, but you can't tell me that Opportunity and Spirit aren't the most beautiful rovers
Nice to see Opportunity has some life in her yet
I mean, of course Curiosity is a much more impressive feat of engineering, but you can't tell me that Opportunity and Spirit aren't the most beautiful rovers
Permabanned
Completely agree with your post.
We know jack **** about space, hell we hardly know what's at the bottom of our oceans let alone mars.I think people forget that man has only ever been on another planet/moon once before and that was decades ago.We need to start from scratch again and having a manned mission to the moon again or mars is a good start.
Caporegime
There's this one?
However, this looks totally nuts.
However, this looks totally nuts.
It was modelled on the one that launched not long ago.
Soldato
?
Caporegime
I'm still convinced those retro rockets are going to fail and throw the little saucer landing module thing off in all sorts of directions and land upside down.
Soldato
I'm still convinced those retro rockets are going to fail and throw the little saucer landing module thing off in all sorts of directions and land upside down.
You're convinced? Based on what? Facts? Understanding of the principles involved? Knowledge that somebody with incredible power within the project wanted it to fail?
Because if you're convinced then you should probably get in touch with JPL, i'm sure they'd appreciate you pointing out any holes in their "math", see if they can possible do something about it at this point
Caporegime
Silly boy! I'm a glass half empty type of person.
I'm a glass half empty type of person.
Stratolaunch
There are new guys on the block financed by Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft). Stratolaunch are to develop a giant sized aircraft which will carry a SpaceX rocket to 30,000 feet where it would be dropped and fired into space/orbit. The aircraft is expected to begin flight testing in 2015/16 with launches soon after:
More:
http://stratolaunch.com/index.html
There are new guys on the block financed by Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft). Stratolaunch are to develop a giant sized aircraft which will carry a SpaceX rocket to 30,000 feet where it would be dropped and fired into space/orbit. The aircraft is expected to begin flight testing in 2015/16 with launches soon after:
More:
http://stratolaunch.com/index.html
Picture of the Month - A trip down memory lane:
Expedition 30 Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers are getting ready for the last major launch of the year in Kazakhstan. Their launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-03M is scheduled for Wednesday, December 21st at 13:16 GMT.