Mars Curiosity Rover... to land 10:31 pm 8/5/2012

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by JanewayRulz!, Jul 16, 2012.

  1. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Apollo's lunar orbit rendezvous also sounded crazy when they first came up with it.

    Is there anything in space exploration that didn't sound crazy?
     
  2. Psion

    Psion Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ...

    Uh ...

    ...

    Hmmm ...

    I got noth'n.

    :D
     
  3. JanewayRulz!

    JanewayRulz! Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Agreed.

    Not now.

    Not 110 years ago.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE[/yt]

    Congrats to the men and women who pulled this off! :beer:
     
  4. Rhaven

    Rhaven Captain Captain

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    Congrats to those at NASA that have pulled this amazing feat off.
     
  5. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    "Get yo arse to Mars"

    How fitting with the new "Total Recall" movie out


    At least the biggest hurdle is over.
     
  6. Wanderlust

    Wanderlust Captain Captain

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  7. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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  8. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The parachute photograph is truly the most unique photograph in existence.

    There are only a few recognizable third-person shots of man-made objects on other planets: The photos of the Sojourner rover, the photos of the the Spirit and Opportunity landing gear, and of their heat shields. And that's it.

    And out of those, only the Sojourner rover was caught in action. This is the only photograph from a distance, from an unrelated spacecraft, of a lonely man-made object that's currently preoccupied with the most difficult task that Martian landers have undertaken.

    A photo of the parachute in action? It gives me the goosebumps...
     
  9. SilentP

    SilentP Commodore Commodore

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    I don't know about you guys, but this was me pretty much the whole day:

    http://xkcd.com/1091/

    I got up early to watch the coverage, and you know what? It was totally worth it! Watching those engineers and technicians go wild when the probe landed totally got me caught in the moment too.

    Congratulations to all the people who put this mission together! :) It was impressive enough that the landing went down smoothly, but to be getting images so quickly (in what, less than half a minute of landing, 2 images off already?), that's science and engineering right there.

    I look forward to seeing the results of this mission as they come in.
     
  10. Warp Core Breach

    Warp Core Breach Commodore Commodore

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    I stayed up late to watch as well, and it was definitely worth it! Absolutely fantastic and amazing. Let the science begin!
     
  11. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    :lol:

    Yeah, that sounds about right!

    Seriously, though, I was on pins and needles during those last few seconds. :lol:
     
  12. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    Except for the similar photo that MRO took of Phoenix as it was landing near the martian north pole in 2008.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix_Lander_seen_from_MRO_during_EDL2.jpg

    And the Mars Odyssey photo taken by the Mars Global Surveyor.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mgs_odyssey.gif


    That's true. It's cool that now our spacecraft can photograph each other in action.
     
  13. Data Holmes

    Data Holmes Admiral Admiral

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    I'm always amazed at the ever increasing quality of images we get back from these things.
     
  14. Ar-Pharazon

    Ar-Pharazon Admiral Premium Member

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    A shame MRO couldn't take video of the descent.
     
  15. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    I'm far more amazed about the current state of autonomous control of robots that made this even possible.. just a decade or so ago it would have been impossible to pull off such a landing without direct human control (or a vastly simpler approach).
     
  16. Data Holmes

    Data Holmes Admiral Admiral

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    Was it really, or was it a simple matter of no one seriously trying?
     
  17. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Where are the pics?!
     
  18. banzaiduck

    banzaiduck Lieutenant

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    There's some individuals out there asking why we don't get real time video. It's not exactly easy having a reliable, high throughput, high bandwidth stream that supports standard definition video, much less HD video over such distances. Unless they're using some miraculous compression schemes I haven't heard of...

    In any event, here's a description of the cameras on the rover:

     
  19. Psion

    Psion Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It'll be a couple more days before they deploy the stereo camera boom and send along the high-resolution color shots. Right now, we're just seeing stuff from the lo-res collision-avoidance cameras. The latest is a picture of Mt. Sharp that looks like a bright something on a darker background. There just isn't much point to sending a lot of pictures until the boom deploys.


    EDIT TO ADD:
    Ninja'd by a duck. How humiliating.
     
  20. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    This is so awesome, I could kiss that rover. :lol: