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Astonishing stuff again.

 

See what happens when people stop constantly fighting each other.

 

Imagine how far along we would be if we weren't war monkeys.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Lovecraft said:

Astonishing stuff again.

 

See what happens when people stop constantly fighting each other.

 

Imagine how far along we would be if we weren't war monkeys.

 

 

👍

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1 minute ago, JFK-1 said:

Okay, boring. Show me the alien life you're there to look for R2D2

😀  That would be almost as likely as Hearts winning the Premiership next season, followed by the Champions League the year after !!

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BBC news coverage was awful. The red bar at the bottom was covering up all the data and the two newsreaders kept talking over themselves and the NASA team. 

 

But great job to get it down. Hopefully it will be able to move about OK. 

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The Real Maroonblood
10 minutes ago, Lone Striker said:

Astonishing !!   Trump will be claiming the credit, no doubt.  :facepalm:

Pity he wasn’t on it.

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8 minutes ago, Lone Striker said:

😀  That would be almost as likely as Hearts winning the Premiership next season, followed by the Champions League the year after !!

 

Well what they're actually looking for is evidence of ancient microbial life. I don't think that's quite so unlikely as the Hearts scenario. And if it were found it would be world changing.

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Just now, Cade said:

Can't wait to see if the drone works.

A diddy wee helicopter flying about on another planet

 

:wow:


Brilliant idea isn't it. Send the drone out scouting for interesting sites before spending days to go there.

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The Real Maroonblood
1 minute ago, Cade said:

Can't wait to see if the drone works.

A diddy wee helicopter flying about on another planet

 

:wow:

Maybe it was a remake of

Capricorn One.

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2 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Well what they're actually looking for is evidence of ancient microbial life. I don't think that's quite so unlikely as the Hearts scenario. And if it were found it would be world changing.

Indeed (I was just joking !).     Pretty much any discovery of anything recognisable to human science will be valuable.  Any discovery of anything UNrecognisable to human science will be of even more value.    👍

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1 minute ago, JFK-1 said:

Don't like that guy they have trying to copy David Bowie. The occasion demands the real thing.
 

 

The video montage alongside it  was brilliant - glimpses of how this adventure has captured the imagination of the next generation - some of whom may be colonising the planet in decades to come.     I thought it was a pretty good version of the song - sorry 😜

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3 minutes ago, Lovecraft said:

Just released the unedited picture

 

Eui-ZF6v-XAAY-o-NE.jpg

Damn - you mean the zombie guy beat Bernie to it ?

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The first rover NASA landed on Mars was called pathfinder which was put on the surface in 1997. It was toy sized weighing around 23lbs.

Now around 24 years later perseverance takes it to a whole new level. The heaviest load ever landed, car sized, weighing around one ton. That weight will assist it in digging somewhat below the surface in the search for ancient microfossils.
 

Quote

The Perseverance rover has four science objectives that support the Mars Exploration Program's science goals.

Looking for habitability: identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life.

Seeking biosignatures: seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs over time.

Caching samples: collect core rock and "soil" samples and store them on the Martian surface.

Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.

 

  

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3793_PIA15279_3rovers-stand_D2011_1215_D

 

Wee yin at the bottom is Sojourner, landed on Mars in 1997.
One on the left is Spirit/Opportunity, twin rovers which landed on Mars in 2004.
Big boy is Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012.

Perseverance is the same size as Curiosity, but with better tech and a drone.

The science of interplanetary exploration is coming on leaps and bounds.

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Space Mackerel

NASA’s mission to Mars cost the same as England’s track and trace program. Let that sink in.

 

Divided by 10. 

Edited by Space Mackerel
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I hope the drone works as that could be a huge time saver. I haven't heard them speak of this aspect of it yet but I recall them talking during a previous rover mission about how slow everything was.

Consider this. During previous rover missions they could only move forward say for example maybe 10 yards at a time then have to stop.

Due to the distance from Earth and the time lag before you get a real view of what's right in front of it. Is there a rock there it might get stuck on? A hole it might fall into and become stuck? That kind of thing.

So moving was tediously slow. Move 10 yards. Stop. Wait 15 minutes to see exactly where you are and what's 10 yards in front of you.

Clear to go. Then it's another 15 minutes before the vehicle receives the signal that it can go forward another 10 yards and another 15 minutes after that again till you get a look at what's right in front of it. Takes over an hour to travel just 20 yards like that.

If this drone works it can buzz all around the area for miles in every direction looking for potential hazards and mapping out safe paths for the vehicle to move good distances without stopping. That has to be a massive improvement.

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1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

I hope the drone works as that could be a huge time saver. I haven't heard them speak of this aspect of it yet but I recall them talking during a previous rover mission about how slow everything was.

Consider this. During previous rover missions they could only move forward say for example maybe 10 yards at a time then have to stop.

Due to the distance from Earth and the time lag before you get a real view of what's right in front of it. Is there a rock there it might get stuck on? A hole it might fall into and become stuck? That kind of thing.

So moving was tediously slow. Move 10 yards. Stop. Wait 15 minutes to see exactly where you are and what's 10 yards in front of you.

Clear to go. Then it's another 15 minutes before the vehicle receives the signal that it can go forward another 10 yards and another 15 minutes after that again till you get a look at what's right in front of it. Takes over an hour to travel just 20 yards like that.

If this drone works it can buzz all around the area for miles in every direction looking for potential hazards and mapping out safe paths for the vehicle to move good distances without stopping. That has to be a massive improvement.

Yes .... and the rover has advanced versions of "driverless car" technology on board too, so it' has autonomous decision-making capability for movement.  I'm not sure if it can be over-ridden by NASA controllers if required.    The explanation of the sampling and analysis capability of gas, sand, rock etc was amazing - a high-tech automated science lab on board.   Amazing stuff.

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I have been wondering how they tested the drone to fly in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere. Vacuum chamber maybe. And we still don't yet know if it will indeed fly.
 

Quote

Relative to Earth, the air on Mars is extremely thin. Standard sea-level air pressure on Earth is 1,013 millibars. On Mars the surface pressure varies through the year, but it averages 6 to 7 millibars.

That's less than one percent of sea level pressure here. To experience that pressure on Earth, you would need to go to an altitude of about 45 kilometers (28 miles).

 

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5 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

I have been wondering how they tested the drone to fly in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere. Vacuum chamber maybe. And we still don't yet know if it will indeed fly.
 

 

Yes they used a chamber to simulate the thickness of the air on Mars and used lines attached to the drone to simulate the weaker gravity.

 

LOTS of pictures expected to be released at some point today, including the video of the sky crane descent

 

:wow:

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Hagar the Horrible
On 22/02/2021 at 03:29, JFK-1 said:

I have been wondering how they tested the drone to fly in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere. Vacuum chamber maybe. And we still don't yet know if it will indeed fly.
 

 

To be fair the parachute worked to slow down, and I have had a drone up Ben Glass and Ben Lawyers, Parachute was made in Scotland

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