New Mars Forums

No...a shrubbery!

*in background* Nei!   

For two days I kept getting this freaky 'http 403 Error' whenever I tried to visit NewMars.  When I tried looking into the problem all it said was the site was forbidding me from entering.

Can someone explain what the hell happened please?

Not very likely considering how much distance the others have crossed and the extremely differing trajectories.

I like this concept and I earnestly hope it fans out.  Rovers and landers a good but what we need is a complete global 'picture' of Mars from the surface, namely the seismic network but obviously weather stations working in tandom help too.

NASA I fear has to handle a balancing act that favors public attention more not that it's a bad thing, but surely once in a while it can send something that isn't all TV cameras.

Says the test is in 2008 - hope we'll hear the results from this.  So Russia and Finland heading this or whom again?

Once in a while I have a thought experiment.  Lately the trend toward studying the Martian atmosphere and water/carbon content seems to be overwhelming the planet's study to a point where all other concepts are defunct before their proposals are submitted.  One such area I noted is seismology...and it is a field Mars as well as other planetary bodies of interest (Europa namely) that is underestimated.

This quote from http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Plan_ … n_999.html sumarizes what I'm saying well:

The idea I had was this: the Mars Geology Multiprobe; a catchier name I thought of was Geb, for the Egyptian Earth God which seemed appropriate for a geology mission.  The idea is a small, but robust, penetrometer/lander with three mission-specific instruments:
-Seisometer
-Thermocouple i.e. "Heat-Flow Probe"
-Penetrometer

Overall a Geb lander would ressemble a bigger Deep Space 2 but with its upper half covered completely with solar cells, save the antenna.  No cameras unless room is squeezed, but possibly mini-weather sensors (at the least thermometers which could aid the heat-flow experiments) could be strung along antenna.  No moving parts, no deploying mechanisms same the antenna, and thermal insolation for the electronics and seisometer would be the engineering focus to minimize costs.  Four of these landers in an arrangement akin to the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe would ride on a modified Pathfinder-style bus, but unlike Pioneer Venus Multiprobe all the probes are identical, also to keep costs down. 

At Mars one by one they'd seperate to either cover one region or widely-seperated sites - considering Pioneer Venus sent its salvio of probes to spots around 2/3 of Venus the later seems possible and preferable if you wish to gauge Mars' global geologic status.  Each lander enters, deploys parachute, sheds heatshield ala Pathfinder/rover style.  Nothing fancy after that though - the chute would slow Geb but only to less than 100mph.  At less than 100 meters Geb would pop off the parachuted backshell and land land-dart style, using the speed to spear its penetrometer at least a meter down.  Anteanna pops on...and that's it.  Geb sits for as long as its solar cells can soak power effectively while listening for quakes & landslides and watching the suface & subsurface temps rise and fall.  The penetrometer, while only a one-use device, would still gauge the soil strength so the seisometer readings could be better interpreted.

The landing sites are these along with their reasons:
-Elysium Planitia- Proximity to the second-largest volcanic complex on the planet; also easier to access than Tharsis or the Southern Hemisphere's ancient montes.
-Echus Chasma- Proximity to Tharsis to west and Valles Marineris to south but without extreme altitude or steep slopes to contend with.
-Hellas Planitia- Hellas ringed with volcanic features; coupled with being deepest region on surface might prove to be ideal listening post for mantle/core activity; depth likewise might show noticeable heatflow difference.
-South of Olympus Mons/Gigas Sulci- Nearest low elevation area to both Olympus Mons and Tharsis Montes; prime listening post; would solidly confirm if Olympus or Tharsis are active.

Elysium and Echus are the easiest to get to while Olympus is likely an undertaking, and Hellas slightly tricky since it is farther from equator and a spawning ground for dust storms, but I honestly believe each region would be logical to send a geologic seismic lander to.  Check out Google Mars and look up each of these sites yourselves to evaluate an opinion: http://www.google.com/mars/

A mission like Geb would be possible today I'm sure - the Russians already built penetrometers akin to this for Mars '96...the poor rocket just screwed up in launch sadly, and in case of Deep Space 2 I'd wager it was the too fast too cheap and "WHAT NO PARACHUTES ARE YOU KIDDING?!" that smattered it like cheap tin-foil.  We do need something like this sooner or later - if we want to honestly learn not just volcanic history but Mars' history we need its core read.

I hope SpaceX's demo goes well.  Anything that relieves our reliance on the Russians during the critical shuttle-to-Orion-gap I consider a good thing, although accelerating the Orion/Ares-I design & testing phase is even better.

I am also glad at least the initial testing for Ares-I will be about 1/2 complete by the time the shuttle is retired, but obviously the results of those tests will be the key factor.

So despite lacking an 'active docking system', Dragon will still need a fairly decent maneuvering system.  I imagine 20 meters is what most space agencies would qualify as 'perilously close' for comfort to the station.

I'd laugh if this mission had a counterpart named "WANDA" 

An extremely limited purpose that's not cost effective.

You identified the interstage as 'dead weight' I noted - considering the 'brains' of the rocket are housed there it isn't.  Every rocket has parts that are disposable, shuttle included and not just the ET tank.  The point of rocket pieces seperating, as I hope you know but seem to forget, is that once their function is done they're cut off to reduce weight.  The engineers designing Ares are also following that function.

There are times I ponder if your common sense was jettisoned instead of some of the spam pouring out...

Ugh...gez your website still gives me epilepsy from the colors on page.  :shock:

And to your dead-weight argument...OH PLEASE!  No offense but you obviously haven't looked at the fact composites are materials optimized to be both cheap and lightweight.

The space shuttle has more dead weight than the Ares ever will, namely THE WINGS.  For 99% of the flight, they do absolutely nothing.  It is only during the last few minutes of descent they are used at all.  The broad S-skids the shuttle does is a navigational nightmare compared to the old capsule reentries. Maybe that's one reason why ESA abandoned Heremes...so they'd have one less headache on their tight budget.

Amusing quote from your own page:

Why would you expect a different Isp?  They use the same fuel and have a related configuration - differening H2/LOX rocket also have same Isp as well by same token.

Agreed.  I don't think any mission, even in 2030, could travel more than 30 days from it origin point (Mars, Earth, or Moon) without 10% plus H2 boil-off.

I definetely agree with all that, and it all can be summed up as never underestimate ISRU!! 

That'd be a preferable alternative, first choice even.  This article/architecture though seems to argue against that and more of a series of sorties...which in the long-term doesn't do much.  :?   I think they were gearing toward keeping the public and science community 'entertained' so to speak...which if done rigorously could work but would end up requiring as much capitol as maintaining two bases I bet.