NASA Extends Rover Occupation of Mars 206
iocat writes "Reuters reporting that NASA is extending the Rover missions on Mars by another five months. However, they point out that while the rovers look poised to greatly exceed their planned life cycle, they could basically die at any time. Still, it will be cool to see a little more exploration."
Almost first post (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Almost first post (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Almost first post (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Almost first post (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, the engineers nearly had an RTG working for the Rovers. Unfortunately, the outcry about Cassini pretty much killed that. It's too bad, because with an RTG, the power source would outlast the rest of the components by some 50 years!
Re:Almost first post (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
No. According to recent briefings it is much more likely that other parts will fail before the solar panels become useless.
So why not have wipers on the panels? (Score:2)
Re:So why not have wipers on the panels? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The dust would most likely be statically charged.
2. Wipers would tend to damage the panels.
3. The extreme environment is slowly degrading the panels anyway.
Re:So why not have wipers on the panels? (Score:2)
Re:So why not have wipers on the panels? (Score:2)
4. The batteries will no longer be able to hold a charge inside of a year.
5. Wipers are added weight and complexity.
6. The same dust will jam the motors for the wipers.
Re:Almost first post (Score:4, Informative)
No, it wouldn't. Not any more than the rover itself. There's millions of tons of radioactive material impacting every planet in the solar system each year. A pound of Plutonium-238 won't make a lick of difference. Besides, it's not like the stuff leaks like radiator fluid or something. It's just a hot rock that sits in the center of its container.
Re:Almost first post (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still waiting for the first mission where they use SRGs (Stirling Radioisotope Generators). Those little stirling engines are far more efficient than the heat differential of RTGs. If the tech works out, it could even be a boon for lower powered devices on Earth. I figure that a tiny SRG with about 5-10 grams of Pu-238 or Sr-90 could power your cell phone for 50 years. A laptop (depending on the design) could be powered by 100-600 grams.
Re:Almost first post (Score:2, Insightful)
OMG!! Yes, I want a fukcing Sr-90 in cell phones!!!
Look on the fucking periodic table. Sr-90 is almost chemically the same as calcium. So yeah, put it in my cell phone. Then your kinds will have it in their bones!!! I guess leukemia is a type of flu in your world.
Sr-90 is one of the *worst* contaminants. google [google.ca] Same thing for iodine-131 [scienceblog.com]
You already have to use steel that was forged before WWII to make high sensitivity radiation detectors. But that's not a problem, lets fuck up the planet (ie. us) so we
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
While I'm not one of those "Cell phones cause tumors" people, I don't know if I'd put plutonium so close to my head, especially since i usually beat the hell outta my phones, and they eventually develop cracks and all...
Won't kill you next to the skin... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, you wouldn't exactly want it lying around and getting thrown in landfills, either, so I can't imagine it being used in consumer products any time soon. At least Pu-238 can't be used in nuclear weapons (a big enough piece of the stuff to make a bomb out of would be too hot to be stable).
Re:Won't kill you next to the skin... (Score:2)
Actually, swallowing the stuff won't kill you. (All of you who believe Ralph Nader's opinion check here [wisc.edu].) The lining of your stomach is pretty thick, and the stuff is too dense to digest. As a result, it passes through without harm. The real problem is plutonium dust that gets inhaled. It can embed itself in your soft lung tissue and increase your risk of cancer. Not to worry, pretty much the only source of such dust is machining of the material. Even when
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
Just imagine a terrorist getting a hold of 10 or 20 laptops, with about 600 grams of plutonium powering it.
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
Not all plutonium is created equally.
RTG or SRG as portable battery (Score:2)
Ma
Re:RTG or SRG as portable battery (Score:2)
I wonder how much Pu-238 costs per gram? Americanium for smoke detectors is about $1500 per gram, IIRC.
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
all plutonium (except Pu-238 of isotopic purity greater than 80%) is regarded as equally hazardous from the point of view of diversion to nuclear weaponry.
Pu-238 is great stuff. It's only mildly hazardous, it's hot enough to generate power, and it can't be used as a fissionable material.
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
Yes. Just about every response to the original poster. *sigh*
Re:Almost first post (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it looks like their lifespan will be determined by a few factors, some of which are within human control and some which are not:
1. Dust storms. Seems to me one good one would pretty well take a rover out of service from dust buildup on the panels alone.
2. Equipment failure, particularly the "always on and draining power" type. One has already made Opportunity a little bit gimpy, but I doubt a single such failure would be fatal. Cumulatively, several would just be too much to bear.
3. Shorter and/or darker Martian days as the seasons and distance from the sun change. This won't take out a rover outright of course, but they could compound the prior two problems. At least these events are predictable.
4. The Martian Defense System finally tracks the rovers down and explodes them. Turns out the reason they didn't shoot the first time is they thought it was just another shipment of punching balloons for their nitrous oxide-fueled nightlife. Once they realize we sent ROVERS and not RAVERS, they're going to be mighty pissed off.
Mal-2
Re:Almost first post (Score:2)
It's NOT "occupation". (Score:5, Funny)
It's "liberation" instead, people.
Re:It's NOT "occupation". (Score:4, Funny)
Especially funny when you consider that the Martian Defences were reallllllly good at taking out bogies until NASA pulled an unprecedented 3 for 3, 100% success on their landers.
Continue the liberation of Mars! Soon it will look just like Earth, scattered bits and pieces of long-range weapo^Wmetal everywhere.
All we need is some smog and we can call it home!
Re:It's NOT "occupation". (Score:3, Insightful)
Viking lander 2: success
Pathfinder: success
Polar Lander: fail
Spirit: success
Opportunity: success
What am I missing here?
Re:It's NOT "occupation". (Score:2)
Re:It's NOT "occupation". (Score:2)
I believe the original poster said "landers." Let me double-check
Yes but... (Score:2)
Re:It's NOT "occupation". (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Or as Ted Kennedy would say... (Score:2)
Now every time I see that tiny red dot in the sky, I'm going to imagine W bending over and showing us what he thinks of the world.... *shivers*.
Occupation? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Occupation? (Score:2)
No they are not occupation forces they are "Illegal Aliens" and shortly will be damanding status and citizenship. Besides they are just there to do work the Martians don't want to do. I hear they just joined Aztlan?? [azteca.net]
Re:Occupation? (Score:2)
So it's a crusade to colonize? The martains will never recognize our rovers as legitamite. Maybe the two rovers could drive to the same place and set up a governing council? No, we better bring in the UN, except the French and Russians will veto.
Bet it turns out the French and Russians are in cahoots with the Martains as well...
Eric Cartman: French people piss me off!
Hope they didn't skimp on construction. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should have gotten that rust-proof coating after all.
You must mean "dust-proof coating" (Score:2)
You must mean "dust-proof coating". Given that there is no water on Mars and almost no oxygen, rust would not be much of a problem.
Re:You must mean "dust-proof coating" (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Mars is red precisely because of rust - iron oxide. Quite a bit of the dust, particularly the hematite-bearing stuff at the Opportunity site, is composed of iron oxides - the dust is rust!
Incidentally, it's suspected that the reason there's not significant molecular oxygen in the Martian atmosphere is precisely because it's been locked up in the iron-rich surface.
Re:You must mean "dust-proof coating" (Score:2)
unmanned missions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:unmanned missions (Score:5, Interesting)
Robots can run basically forever, until something breaks or they run out of juice.
Somehow running out of this consumable is better than a human running out of their consumables (food and air)? If you want to be accurate, there are mechanisms for both to regenerate these consumables -- solar cells and plants.
One unique thing about people (besides their intelligence) is their self-healing characteristics
But, I agree.. unmanned missions are great, just for totally different reasons: low cost and hence, the ability to many missions to many different areas, each with new instruments designed to test theorys proposed by the results of previous missions. A human mission would blow the whole budget with just one trip.
Re:unmanned missions (Score:2)
Re:unmanned missions (Score:2)
Re:unmanned missions (Score:5, Informative)
If these things prove 1/50 as durable as Galileo did
If I may extract something I read from a post on Usenet a few years ago by a real astronomer (Frank Crary) about Galileo:
That's from here [google.com].
Two notes.
First being that Galileo didn't provide more science than we hoped for. In many ways, it provided a lot less than we hoped for. I'm not calling it a failure, BTW.
Secondly, be careful whatcha say online...it might come back to haunt ya years down the line. ;)
Re:unmanned missions (Score:2)
manned missions (Score:4, Insightful)
So Are manned ones in the right context like Mars.
Humans can run out of food and air, and get tired and homesick.
On Mars humans can make their own air water and food provided a power source like a portable nuclear reactor and the air and ground around them. It's called living in-situ. As long as you don't send flakes, the homesickness isn't an issue. They're allowed to sleep and would have more waking time than the rovers so I wouldn't worry about them getting "tired".
Robots can run basically forever, until something breaks or they run out of juice.
You just contradicted yourself there.
If these things prove 1/50 as durable as Galileo did, they'll provide science more than we ever could have hoped for.
Perhaps but humans on the surface would have been able to work faster and smarter these probes. Galileo was well suited to its mission and a human would not have been. In the case of Mars, humans are much better suited.
Re:unmanned missions (Score:2)
Not to mention that we don't have to bother bringing them back at the end of the mission.
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Excellent! (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at Mars, now a distant orange glow in the sky, it amazes me that we have intelligence there.
Good job NASA.
Re:Excellent! (Score:2)
Uh-hu.
Too bad we don't have any down here.
Re:Excellent! (Score:2)
It's a bloody rock far away. The money spent on this NASA PR stunt would have been better spent elsewhere.
NASA Press release 4/8 (Score:5, Informative)
Occupation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Occupation? (Score:2)
Sorry , which occupation were we talking about?
The Iraqi Information Minister.
Why? (Score:2)
Whatever happens, I think they've found a lot of useful data that will take months to analyze. Hopefully they'll have continued success for as long as they keep the mission going. I look forward to seeing the final analyses from these observations.
Re:Why? Because it is inexpensive. (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect at least part of the reason is because it is inexpensive. According to the Reuters report [reuters.com], "NASA said it would spend $15 million more to keep the rivers exploring the planet's surface through September." Can you think of a more cost-effective way for NASA to spend that money?
how to spend $15M (Score:2)
Hire a better administrator.
Re:Why? Because it is inexpensive. (Score:2)
They could publish another report that says "saftey is great. Let's be safe."
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Are you kidding? [nasa.gov]
Duplicate? (Score:3, Informative)
For more comments, see this article [slashdot.org] from the 11th.
Free MARS! (Score:2, Funny)
Rivers? (Score:2, Funny)
NASA said it would spend $15 million more to keep the rivers exploring the planet's surface through September.
A bit optimistic about the discovery of water on Mars, aren't we?
Oh? (Score:2, Funny)
wouldnt it make sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wouldnt it make sense (Score:2)
No, because then the budget would have been too high and the project never would have been funded in the first place. The MER team needed to propose a budget to NASA that was reasonable, so they chose a mission length that was long enough to reach their science goals - 3 months - and then did their best to engineer rovers that could last 2-3 times as long if they're lucky.
Re:wouldnt it make sense (Score:2)
Ideally, yes. However, NASA has limited resources within which to work. In order to get funding approved, NASA missions need to have a dollar figure attached to them such as an N month mission for X billion dollars. Also, every mission which is ongoing requires overhead in the form of personnel, office space, communications channels, etc. Every engineer dedicated to a Mars missio
Re:wouldnt it make sense (Score:2)
If you get bonus days, cool... then the lower prio stuff gets done. But you'd hate to have the "detect life" function scheduled for day 300 and have the batteries run out on 298...
Re:wouldnt it make sense (Score:2)
This has to do with funding issues and political issues. Both are exteremely complex, and you'll just have to take my word for it.
That being said, it was unlikely taht'd we'd be denied funding at the levels we've requested. We took great pains to reduce the cost in many many ways.
Also it was hihgly uncertain whether or not the rovers would even survive impact, much less 90 sol
occupation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:occupation (Score:2)
Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe NASA can cut a deal with the DOJ to go easy on Martha Stewart in return for her help on this. If anyone could find a simple, yet attractive solution it's her. Recycle the impact ballons into attractive doilies for the panels or something.
Or even better, get the Anal Retentive Carpenter from SNL to make a nice "Solar Panel Cozy" for it.
Re:Let's hear it again for JPL (Score:2)
Software Issues (Score:5, Informative)
Also one of the problems we are experiencing is that a lot of the mission software was originally designed to only run at JPL on our computing environment, and is very difficult to take back to home institutions because it is so specialized.
I'm currently working on making the Science Activity Planner (the tool used by all scientists to do high level planning before they start sequencing) work collaboratively over the web. It's exciting because we're dramatically increasing the amount of people who can participate in high level planning. You can grab the public version, called Maestro, here [telascience.org].
One of the other challenges is the bandwidth and latency associated with transfering autogenerated data products (imagery etc) to all of our satalite institutions. I'm currently working on ways to reduce the necessary bandwidth but without lossy compression there's only so much one can do.
Anyways, this part of the mission will test out a paradigm known as "Distributed Mission Operations". You can download a paper written by my supervisor about how this was used on Pathfinder here [nasa.gov].
Future mars missions will last far too long to bring scientists away from their home institutions and pay for temporary housing etc (which is a significant cost). Scientists want to be with their collegues and families during the long periods of exploration.
Hopefully this will prove that it is both feasible and desireable. There are several studies going on about this, but I'm not aware of any relevant links.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Developer
Mars Exploration Rovers
Re:Software Issues (Score:5, Funny)
How about letting Slashdotters name one? C'mon -- nobody will notice. It's just us geeks here.
From a future JPL release:
The rover Opportunity started sol 365 this morning with a quick brush-off of the rock known as "Linux Rules." Later today, Opportunity will turn its attention to another feature, a dull-looking boulder called "SCO Drools."
Re:Software Issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, my friend Merideth considers herself to be the feature-naming goddess for Spirit, so if
No promises though
Cheers,
Justin
Mozilla! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No Fair, Mozilla! (Score:2)
OK, let's only count moderations, without the initial points.
Please put your name or nick somewhere. The fact that the name was suggested by e.g. goat_lover at slashdot.org would be more interesting to the general public than the fact that an anonymous reader at slashdot.org suggested it. A little bit of personality would liven up the story.
Re:Software Issues (Score:2)
Solaris (for a flat reflective rock)
HAL2000 (for that rock that looks like an IBM mainframe... wait a moment, that is an IBM mainframe)
Name a rock, 'Tux' (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi Justin,
How about we get the ball rolling by naming a rock 'Tux', after the Linux mascot penguin?
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Re:Software Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
- Beowulf
- Soviet Russia
- Natalie
- Dupe (if you find two adjacent rocks that are extremely similar)
- Profit
- Overlord
I think that covers the bulk of common
Re:Software Issues (Score:2)
Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Old Mother Nature's recipes
That brings the bare necessities of life
Wherever I wander, wherever I roam
I couldn't be fonder of my big home
The bees are buzzin' in the tree
To make some honey just for me
When you look under the rocks and plants
And take a glance at the fancy ants
Then m
Rock Names! (Score:3, Interesting)
1. First Post
2. Troll
3. Hot Grits
4. The Insensitive Clod
5. Anonymous Coward
Re:Software Issues (Score:2)
Since MEX does not need to service Beagle II communication requirements, have there been talks with ESA about getting MEX to help getting MER data to Earth? It has already been shown that it can be done, why don't we hear more about MEX being used?
Re:Software Issues (Score:2)
When they do fail ... (Score:2, Funny)
my top picks in no particular order:
1.) Auction them off on Ebay (like that channel drill) and make the buyer pick em up. that may help finace the manned mars mission goal
2.) Call AAA for a tow, membership has its rewards.
3.) File insurance clames on the loss. Perhaps NASA could cite water damage.
4.) But probably the best use, 3 words, "interstellar p0rn server". Lets "spread"
excessive lifetimes (Score:4, Funny)
Kinda like Dick Clark?
Is anyone else as amazed by these things as I am? (Score:4, Insightful)
Drones (Score:2, Funny)
Good - maybe they will run out of songs then (Score:5, Funny)
It's like reading a wedding announcement or something. "And the chief scientist wore a stunning black outfit, and his research maids wore matching green shirts with long sleeves rolled up. Custom pencils were used by all. The guests were delighted to see palm pilots made available for everyone, each customized with a charming orange Mars theme!"
Dupe.... (Score:2)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/
In related news... (Score:2)
MARS - Martian insurgents have taken Europe's Beagle 2 lander hostage, MartianTV reported, in retaliation for the United States' refusal to leave the region unoccupied...
...yea, it's time for bed...
But we promise... (Score:2)
The director of NASA, however, assures us that Mars will revert to it's own sovereignty by September 30th. An unnamed United Worlds representative noted that "it's going to be very hard to hold Martian elections by that date, and NASA seems unprepared to set up an interim government which the average Martian can put his faith in."
Russian scientists recently announced a humanitarian aid mission could be active on Mars in 10 years, but Russian officials wer
Bush thought Mars desert was Iraq (Score:2)
is nuclear power the answer? (Score:2)