** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Couldn't resist posting this one. The combination of ultra HiRes cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars' thin and dry atmosphere make for some surreal images.

It's hard for your eyes to believe that this image of a dust devil on Mars was taken from orbit. For something that's about 70 meters wide at its base, the clarity is amazing. It's a stunning image...
http://www.spaceflight101.com/msl-mars-image-1.html

Cheers
 
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This gives a good perspective about size of the MSL (including compared to the previous rovers):
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA15280

If you're not really geeky about this topic, then look away now. These are some of the better wall papers:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14156
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14839
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14832
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14760
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14175
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA15791
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14834
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14836
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/wallpaper.php?id=PIA14833

The full list of images in the "Spacecraft & Technology" category:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/searchwp.php?category=spacecraft and telescope&currentpage=1
 
They will be streaming, but i'm not sure what they'll be streaming exactly. It will be taking shots at around 4fps after the heatshield comes off and they're trying to capture the descent with a satellite but i have doubts as to what they'll actually be able to put out live. It might just be shots of people in the control room.

I might stay up anyway, need to pull an all-nighter to improve my sleeping pattern. I mean, 6:30 isn't that much after i've gone to bed for the past few days :p
 
Even if they don't have live video/image feed from it (if they do that's a plus), I think even just seeing the anticipation in the control room is worth it. It's a huge release of emotion when they get the wheels-on-the-ground signal. Then after that they wait for the first pictures from the landing site, which is also a big celebratory moment. Seeing all that unfold live with nothing edited out is great to see imo.

I remember with the twin rovers, it was an interesting moment as they tried to interpret the odd signals from the one that landed in (actually rolled-into) the crater (the "galactic hole in one").

All great stuff to see live if you can manage the timing.
 
I just find it amazing that ALL of my friends (and I mean ALL) are sooooooo BORED when I excitedly tell them about this amazing mission. They just glaze over and say Ive been watching "too much Star Trek" or that I have made them hungry cuz they thought of a "Mars bar".

The amazing technical aspect of this mission (hovering skycrane lowering rover on another WORLD..wait...WHAT???) escapes them...and they blow me off and go back to talking about Olympics. Ok Im not dissin their love of sport but part of me wonders..these missions are SO routine these days (how many sent to Mars?) that no one (outside the small circle of people who are fascinated by it) really cares.

We have humans in LEO buzzing around our planet in a fantastic Space Station...but try and impress Joe Schmo on the street with that. Good luck.
 
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Yup, the general public have a strange relationship with space flight, and science in general. These missions are far from routine, however. We had one fail just nine months ago.

Remember in (film) Apollo 13, when mission control didn't have the heart to tell the crew that no networks were broadcasting them? Well that actually happened. Just two successful manned moon landings and suddenly it's 'routine', and nobody wants to hear about it.
 
PermaBanned said:
Yup, the general public have a strange relationship with space flight, and science in general. These missions are far from routine, however. We had one fail just nine months ago.

Remember in (film) Apollo 13, when mission control didn't have the heart to tell the crew that no networks were broadcasting them? Well that actually happened. Just two successful manned moon landings and suddenly it's 'routine', and nobody wants to hear about it.
Click to expand...

This is true - I should have clarified. By "routine" I meant a 30-second clip on the evening news showing a launch (of a satellite, Soyuz, spaceprobe etc) with the usual controller techno-banter. The public sees this every other month or so..and so its "routine" to them.

This apathy applies to everyday things like GPS for example...without the generosity of the US Air Force to the world our "TomToms" would be paperweights. Yet hardly anyone appreciates this or these fantastic satellites that can save your ass if youre lost in the Peruvian jungle on a trek.

Of course WE in this thread know its far from routine. Heck each time we get on an airplane we stop to think about the awesome physics at work that will take us from London to Singapore in 14hrs or so.
 
PermaBanned said:
Yup, the general public have a strange relationship with space flight, and science in general. These missions are far from routine, however. We had one fail just nine months ago.

Remember in (film) Apollo 13, when mission control didn't have the heart to tell the crew that no networks were broadcasting them? Well that actually happened. Just two successful manned moon landings and suddenly it's 'routine', and nobody wants to hear about it.
Click to expand...

I have never understood this. I look into the night sky and it fills me with wonder. I don't know why; I don't know why everyone isn't like that. I try to imagine what I would be able to see if I were stood on Mars or Europa or Titan or Ganymede or Triton. It must be spectacular. If there's one thing I regret in my life it's that I was born too early to see these things for myself; that I have to rely on images transmitted back to us by autonomous spacecraft.

I want to swim in the methane lakes of Titan. I want to see gamma rays flashing across the universe from long before the Earth had even formed. I want to drill into the icy lakes of Europa and Enceladus to see if there really is anything living there. I want to skim across the rings of Saturn, jumping from iceberg to iceberg. I want to orbit Jupiter and feel the hard radiation in its radiation belts blowing across my cheeks like a breeze of wind without worrying that it might kill me.

It seems so unfair, almost cruel, that I'm trapped in this short-lived stunted body that can never experience these things. I'm diabetic, slightly overweight, and short-sighted. I'll never be given the opportunity to travel off-world, no matter how much space technology advances in my lifetime. I want to scream in rage about how unfair that is.
 
SlyReaper said:
It seems so unfair, almost cruel, that I'm trapped in this short-lived stunted body that can never experience these things. I'm diabetic, slightly overweight, and short-sighted.
Click to expand...

Instead of fascinating about space travel and dreaming about things that are impossible in your lifetime, why don't you fascinate about how amazing you can make the most important thing you'll ever posses in your lifetime your body and get into great shape which is 100% possible?
 
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