PhotonWrangler
Flashaholic
Yeah, transparent lens caps. Very clever idea.
NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Lands
- Thread starter StarHalo
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Yeah, transparent lens caps. Very clever idea.
blasterman
Flashlight Enthusiast
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My gripe would be the half hour wait for your credit card to clear due to light travel times :thinking:
I remember that when Cassini was designed to use RPG's / RTGs ( 'thermoelectric' seems to now be preferred over the term 'power') -vs- solar there was this vocal scientist throwing fits over the mission because of the danger JPL would miss on the first Earth slingshot and send the plutonium generator flying through the atmosphere.
Here's the cool video clip that the Spirit took of dust devils on mars.
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20050819a/dd_enhanced_525b-B558R1.gif
StarHalo
Flashaholic
The first images from the full-color panoramic camera are in, here's a snippet featuring a prominent burn mark on the surface from the lander rocket:
Self-portrait:
Self-portrait:
Colonel Sanders
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'm just glad to see my tax dollars continuing to be used wisely. Nothing more important than taking pictures of red dirt millions of miles away.
StarHalo
Flashaholic
The entire Curiosity mission, from construction to launch to operations, rings in at right about $2.5 billion dollars. That's about the same price as this single B-2 bomber (1 of 21):
Vesper
Enlightened
Yes! And damn those Apollo missions too. What a waste. :shakehead
flashflood
Enlightened
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Humans always need a frontier. Otherwise we just squabble over the stuff we already have.
If you want to fix our spending problem, how about we keep the space program and cancel all the transfer payments?
Anyway... the problem is not that we're spending money on space, but that we're doing so unambitiously. We keep sending these stripped-down probes that don't have a fraction of the scientific capability of the Viking landers of 40 years ago -- and as a result, though space buffs (including me) don't like to admit it, we haven't actually learned much new. What we need is a manned mission. A geologist with a pick axe could discover more new, totally unexpected things in 15 minutes than all of these probes combined.
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flashflood
Enlightened
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Duplicate deleted.
mattheww50
Flashlight Enthusiast
RTG powered, Radioisotope Thermal Generator, powered with about 4Kg of Plutonium 238. Pu-238 has a half life of about 88 years, and as an alpha particle emitter, essentially all of the decay energy appears as local heat. Energy released from decay is about 500 watts per Kg essentially all as local heating. Pu-238 is hot stuff quite literally (in any reasonable amount, the decay energy heats the Pu238 to red hot).
Pu-238 is attractive because of the high energy density. Pure Cobalt-60 has a higher energy density, but it is much less desireable because it emits high energy Gamma Radiation, which requires extensive shielding, and is more difficult to convert to heat than Pu-238's Alpha particles (which mostly just slam into other Pu-238 atoms and heat them up).
The conversion of heat directly to electricity is not exactly efficient, 5-6%. However absent any moving parts, RTG's are incredibly robust. The RTG's on Pioneer X ran for at least 30 years and are probably still running today, but the communications link was lost about 10 years ago. Fortunately the waste heat from the RTG is useful on Mars, it helps keep Curiosity warm, and since Curiosity does not depend upon sunlight for power, it doesn't need a large battery for night operation, and there will be no loss in output due to dust collecting on the solar panels. One result is Curiosity has a longer design 'life' than Spirit or Oppotunity, and with its RTG, is likely to operate far longer than its design life. At 88 years, the RTG on Curiosity is likely to still be delivering about half of the original output.
The US has not made Pu-238 for some time, so the Pu-238 for Curiousity's RTG (and several other mssions) was bought from the Russians. The use of Pu-238 powered RTG's is nothing new, and at least these days the RTG packaging is designed to be able to survive re-entry to the earth's atmosphere intact. Several Apollo missions left Pu-238 RTG powered experiment packages on the moon.
Pu-238 is attractive because of the high energy density. Pure Cobalt-60 has a higher energy density, but it is much less desireable because it emits high energy Gamma Radiation, which requires extensive shielding, and is more difficult to convert to heat than Pu-238's Alpha particles (which mostly just slam into other Pu-238 atoms and heat them up).
The conversion of heat directly to electricity is not exactly efficient, 5-6%. However absent any moving parts, RTG's are incredibly robust. The RTG's on Pioneer X ran for at least 30 years and are probably still running today, but the communications link was lost about 10 years ago. Fortunately the waste heat from the RTG is useful on Mars, it helps keep Curiosity warm, and since Curiosity does not depend upon sunlight for power, it doesn't need a large battery for night operation, and there will be no loss in output due to dust collecting on the solar panels. One result is Curiosity has a longer design 'life' than Spirit or Oppotunity, and with its RTG, is likely to operate far longer than its design life. At 88 years, the RTG on Curiosity is likely to still be delivering about half of the original output.
The US has not made Pu-238 for some time, so the Pu-238 for Curiousity's RTG (and several other mssions) was bought from the Russians. The use of Pu-238 powered RTG's is nothing new, and at least these days the RTG packaging is designed to be able to survive re-entry to the earth's atmosphere intact. Several Apollo missions left Pu-238 RTG powered experiment packages on the moon.
Colonel Sanders
Flashlight Enthusiast
"Anyway... the problem is not that we're spending money on space, but that we're doing so unambitiously. We keep sending these stripped-down probes that don't have a fraction of the scientific capability of the Viking landers of 40 years ago -- and as a result,
***though space buffs (including me) don't like to admit it, we haven't actually learned much new.***
What we need is a manned mission. A geologist with a pick axe could discover more new, totally unexpected things in 15 minutes than all of these probes combined."
Exactly! Thank you flashflood! I see by some of the responses here that you would like to infer that I insinuated that the entire space program is, and always has been, a waste. No, man's trek towards the stars (yes, Trekkie here) has been quite a profitable one at times. However, you gotta use just a little common sense when tossing about billions and billions of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY (i.e. "The Tax Payers"). If you're going to blow a few $1,000,000,000...might as well make it counts.
Some missions are worth it (like the Apollo missions) and many others are mainly designed to transfer massive sums of $$$ from hard working tax payers into other people's pockets. It doesn't take a Hubble to spot that from here. I pay alot of taxes, like many of you, and no one has asked me yet how I deem it fit to spend. No one even wants to open a conversation on spending less of it but everyone has their greedy hands extended whenever the next asshole comes along offering it....but I digress.
Anyway, the money is spent so I might as well enjoy the show!
***though space buffs (including me) don't like to admit it, we haven't actually learned much new.***
What we need is a manned mission. A geologist with a pick axe could discover more new, totally unexpected things in 15 minutes than all of these probes combined."
Exactly! Thank you flashflood! I see by some of the responses here that you would like to infer that I insinuated that the entire space program is, and always has been, a waste. No, man's trek towards the stars (yes, Trekkie here) has been quite a profitable one at times. However, you gotta use just a little common sense when tossing about billions and billions of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY (i.e. "The Tax Payers"). If you're going to blow a few $1,000,000,000...might as well make it counts.
Some missions are worth it (like the Apollo missions) and many others are mainly designed to transfer massive sums of $$$ from hard working tax payers into other people's pockets. It doesn't take a Hubble to spot that from here. I pay alot of taxes, like many of you, and no one has asked me yet how I deem it fit to spend. No one even wants to open a conversation on spending less of it but everyone has their greedy hands extended whenever the next asshole comes along offering it....but I digress.
Anyway, the money is spent so I might as well enjoy the show!
bluebonnet
Newly Enlightened
I am really enjoying seeeing the first photos coming our way. Read this morning in a JPL note that the clarity of the photos we are seeing is only 1/8 of what is possible with Curiosity's camera. Wonder if we will ever do that one-way ticket thing with humans to the Mars surface?
+
Sadly, there still are people who would be surprised/alarmed if life, on any level, was proven on Mars.
We have zero adaptations to Mars environment,, we don't need to 'try' and be there.
**We need to focus our most brilliant minds on preserving Earth**
Sadly, there still are people who would be surprised/alarmed if life, on any level, was proven on Mars.
We have zero adaptations to Mars environment,, we don't need to 'try' and be there.
**We need to focus our most brilliant minds on preserving Earth**
blasterman
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2008
- Messages
- 1,802
As much as I've always been a space buff I've never been much of a fan of manned space flight when it comes to competing for finite economic resources (Apollo era excluded). Unmanned missions have a vastly higher ratio of scientific returns compared to unmanned missions which only return a trickle of spin-off technology. The resources should be spent on finding a better propulsion system rather than finding a better space toilet, IMHO.
A manned round trip to mars is still a bit outside the envelope of technological possibility and way outside economic possibility. A one way trip is certainly more plausible, but a bit of a downer if you know what I mean.
A manned round trip to mars is still a bit outside the envelope of technological possibility and way outside economic possibility. A one way trip is certainly more plausible, but a bit of a downer if you know what I mean.
PhotonWrangler
Flashaholic
I would like to see them someday bring back a shovel full of martian topsoil as well as a couple of core drills worth. Not only for it's value in terms of understanding the planet's history and resources, but to be able to see a dollop of martian dirt in a museum. I think it would make it that much more tangible for current and future generations - something to whet the appetite of young scientists.
Steve K
Flashlight Enthusiast
I think I've heard talk of this. The idea was similar to what the Russians did with their lunar probe. The probe dug up some soil, packed it into a mortar shell, and shot it back to earth (presumably with some sort of parachute or locator device). Not incredibly complicated, but probably easier to do from the moon than from Mars. It would be an interesting compliment to the current method of having a mobile soil lab exploring a variety of different soils, but with limited analysis capabilities.
Steve K.
EZO
Flashlight Enthusiast
I especially enjoyed learning about "Coolest thing #3"......... the wheels of the Curiosity Rover are designed to leave a pattern in the soil that spells out JPL in Morse Code.
