JPL vs esa Mars Mission

ERRORIST · 2005-01-16 20:45:24

I have lost all respect for esa. I won't even capitialize it anymore. JPL on the other hand is the best. I hope we don't ever use anything built by esa for our Mars missions of any kind. That would be disastrous.

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-16 23:15:57

Errorist, you are opening entirely too many threads then any one member should be allowed to. This is becomming disruptive.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-17 05:20:32

There is no real way once you have taken the amount of capitol funds that each have to work with out of the equation.

We all have our differing oppinion as to what any of these probes should do for mankind as to how often, to what quality, quantity level and all of this revolves around the instrumentation selected and whether it survives to do its job.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2005-01-17 13:22:00

I have lost all respect for esa. I won't even capitialize it anymore. JPL on the other hand is the best. I hope we don't ever use anything built by esa for our Mars missions of any kind. That would be disastrous.

you are acting foolish now, opening too many threads, the ESA has been very good with NASA doing various joint missions together. So often you have remarked on how NASA should cut back its costs, well the Europeans they share costs for some missions and have given billions of dollars to NASA also work in joint partnerships with many NASA missions like the Ulysses, Hubble, the Soho, and Hubble-future-replacement the JWST along with other American/European missions. I look forward to reading and getting pictures from their next joint missions

RobS · 2005-01-17 20:55:14

Errorist, have you ever BEEN to Europe? It's quite a modern place, I assure you. By and large, the highways, for example, are better than American ones. French hospitals are generally better than American ones also. And let's not forget that a few years ago JPL lost a Mars mission because instructions were imputted in metric instead of English units. There are screwups on both sides of the ocean.

-- RobS

Euler · 2005-01-17 21:21:19

Nearly all NASA space probes contain some European instruments, and nearly all ESA space probes contain some American parts. The reason that the Titan pictures do not look as good as the Mars pictures is because the mission was much more challenging, not because the technology was much worse.

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-17 22:50:00

Errorist, have you ever BEEN to Europe? It's quite a modern place, I assure you.

We've even stopped selling our young for beer nowadays

I have lost all respect for esa. I won't even capitialize it anymore. JPL on the other hand is the best. I hope we don't ever use anything built by esa for our Mars missions of any kind. That would be disastrous.

What justification do you have for such a statement errorist? On some forums/newsgroups dropping in new posts with such contents would be considered trolling - either be prepared to back up statements with real evidence and well thought out theories or don't post them.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2005-01-24 19:53:13

What justification do you have for such a statement errorist? On some forums/newsgroups dropping in new posts with such contents would be considered trolling - either be prepared to back up statements with real evidence and well thought out theories or don't post them.

Well, do we have all the pictures yet? Why did they lose half of the pictures? Why the POOR quality?

Grypd · 2005-01-25 16:30:54

What justification do you have for such a statement errorist? On some forums/newsgroups dropping in new posts with such contents would be considered trolling - either be prepared to back up statements with real evidence and well thought out theories or don't post them.
Well, do we have all the pictures yet? Why did they lose half of the pictures? Why the POOR quality?

Its probably due to the amount of scientific data that the probe was to collect. Pretty pictures are necessary but not really as important as the atmosphere data that the probe was designed to take. It is this data that will keep the scientists busy for many years.

You will just have to accept that the probe was never a tacky publicity stunt but a very advanced for its time attempt to find out the most that could be done in the limited time available. The camera was never the most important bit of the mission but only to give us a real glimpse on a world that could be how our earth was in its primordial state.

It is not the pictures that told us of the atmospheres content or how it had been raining liquid methane and that there where clouds of this in the sky. It was the ground probe that told us the surface of Titan was "muddy". So please get of the Anti Europe stint using Huygens as your excuse. Dont worry Huygens did its job rather effectively.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-25 19:25:44

Here is another area in which they failed. I have not heard anything about the subsurface temp. You mean the probe measured the hardness of the soil but they neglected to put a thermometer on the end of it? What gives? Again I would have donated the one I bought from Wal mart.

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-25 19:51:56

Okay Errorist, let me spell it out for you...

you
are
an
idiot

Okay, whining over grainy dark pictures is one thing... but this? now you are just coming up with crap to whine about just so you can.

For one thing, getting thermal data right at ground level can be done by infrared from space and backed up by thermal models and the known freezing points of short-chain hydrocarbons.

Second, the probe did not softly touch down like a feather landing on your pillow, it hit, and hard. The parachutes didn't reduce the impact speed anywhere near zero. A spike with a thermometer on the end that unfolded or telescoped out would have just been crushed by the 300lb probes' impact, which would have still been warm from the plunge too.

Third, we have no clue what the ground is made off, so making a light-weight drill with a temperature sensor would be impossible. Asphalt, sand/slush, and rock would all require different kinds of drills. Then there is the fact that the probe only has minutes to complete the drilling and transmit the data to Cassini, which would not leave time for the drill to cool. If there were any power to operate said drill to begin with.

And finally, the actual soil temperature isn't that important, nor is it probobly that much different from the air surrounding it, which do know its temperature.

Do us a favor and shut up Errorist.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-25 20:06:30

GCN,
Sorry you respectfully disagree with me. But, making such a probe would have been easy to do. I disagree with you. The three hundred pound probe would have been just the right weight to drive such a probe into the ground. And if the temperature is warm under that thin layer of ice then it could prove geothermal energy is there. Sorry GCN.

Okay, whining over grainy dark pictures is one thing... but this? now you are just coming up with crap to whine about just so you can.

Not at all. I just think esa is not worthy of being in the same class as JPL right now. Plain and simple. We do it better.....
:band:

Rxke · 2005-01-26 05:44:39

Dear vistors, please do not feed the trolls.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-26 06:36:57

Errorist, Usually air temperature and surface temperatures are not that far apart under a no wind condition until you go below the surface penetrating to a depth, where under laying sources of pressure caused heat would be present.

Most first time probes even to venus and to mars were atmospheric and every thing else was secondary. Adding addition features means adding more weight, making it a greater volume of size, power consumtion would also increase and the complexity of adding additional controls causes more growth of the probe and more chances for failure as well.

Also did I forget adding more features to the probe also ends up making it to cost more as well. Granted a more wealthy space agency (nasa) can afford to do this but that is not true for these others..

ERRORIST · 2005-01-26 19:10:32

Or they just forgot to do it. A simple lollypop themometer would have worked. They could have taken a picture of the reading with the camera.Very simple and very cheap. I would have donated the $30.00 to do so.

Grypd · 2005-01-26 21:06:44

Errorist

Huygens was never planned to be the Probe that learns everything it hardly could be, could it.

What it was designed to do and has done very well was to test the atmosphere find its composition and see wether it is actually of interest to go back again. It has ensured that we now know what Titan really is like and its only 3 hours of recordings are pure Data and as has been said again and again will keep the scientists busy and happy for years.

Just remember that due to the only mission architecture that was available to the probes designers was going to give this probe 3 hours before it could never send anything home again. After that Cassini was going to be over the horizon and that was it.

Next time they may send a Rover and you will get your pretty pictures but it will only be Because Huygens will have told us how we can land on Titan and how bad a landing can be. Better yet it will allow us to use frequencies to control the rover that will work better as we know which will get out of Titans atmosphere better.

And if you really must know it was never sure that Huygens would ever reach the surface it was never for sure that there would be a surface, it may have hit OCEAN. If it did hit land it was a bonus if it didnt so what its an Atmosphere probe and it is from this that we will find a lot about Titan.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-26 21:19:37

Either way a thermometer would be a basic instrument for any probe to test the liquid surface or land. I can't believe they did not send a thermometer. It would tell them if any geothermal energy is there from tidal forces. Also, what about the Mars Rovers is there any data about subsurface temperatures. Did they get any data on this?

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-26 21:47:06

Errorist, there is an overriding concept here that I think you are missing:

The scientists who built the probe put on the sensors they thought, with their deep knowledge and skills about planetary bodies, would be the most important.

You are not a planetary scientist, so your opinion of the sensors they should have sent is uninformed.

Again, the list of factual technical reasons:
1: We already know the surface temperature by IR, and the temperature in the few centimeters under the probe that you could reach with a surface thermometer or small drill will not be substantially different. Your assertions to the contrary are simply wrong.

Underground heating would produce an obvious and detectable surface variation, since the thin layer of surface rock would not be a sufficent insulator. Tidal forces from Saturn's gravity will also be small because of Titan's solid outter layers.

2: The amount of data the probe could send to Earth was limited by the communications window. Temperature data that we already know would not be important.

3: The probe would still be warm for some time following its plunge, so no electronic thermometer would give accurate readings until a long cooling period. Since the probe only has about 1hr of life on the ground, this is not enough time.

4: Drilling is out of the question, the heat produced by the drill would throw off any temperature reading. This is providing the drill could pierce the unknown surface too. And providing there would be sufficent power available.

5: Putting it on a spike and just ramming it into the ground would require a very strong spike, and one that would probobly be long enough that the probe would not fit in the decent capsule with it.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-26 22:39:01

There is mud there according to the information from the probe that did break through the thin layer of ice. A thermometer should have been incorporated with that probe. It would have been simple to build even if it was not needed but just incase there was a muddy subsurface like they found. It would have been worth the extra money in this case.There are enough tidal forces to keep things liquid under the surface. Titan is many times larger than Io and Europa and is not that much farther out in orbit than Europa is around Jupiter. So,the tidal forces should be suffecient to keep water liquid under the surface just as it does on Europa.The tidal forces alone should have rung a bell in the scientists minds and caused them to think. What if? :rant:

Shaun Barrett · 2005-01-27 01:42:53

Ah, I think I see your problem, ERRORIST.
You wanted Titan to have liquid water at, or close to, the surface. The word 'mud' got your hopes up, too, and the romance of an Earth-like world became too much for you. Is that it?

Your quote:-

There are enough tidal forces to keep things liquid under the surface. Titan is many times larger than Io and Europa and is not that much farther out in orbit than Europa is around Jupiter. So,the tidal forces should be suffecient to keep water liquid under the surface just as it does on Europa.The tidal forces alone should have rung a bell in the scientists minds and caused them to think. What if? :rant:

Europa is about half as far from Jupiter as Titan is from Saturn and Jupiter's 'surface' gravitational acceleration is 2.5 times stronger than Saturn's.
This means Saturn's gravitational influence on Titan is less than 10% of Jupiter's influence on Europa, which means tidal heating of Titan is less than 10% that of Europa.

Now let's consider Europa in a little more detail.
Even with all that much-vaunted tidal heating, and the purported liquid water ocean, the ice on Europa's surface is at least 19 kilometres thick!!
The daytime temperature of that surface ice is -148 deg.C and the night time temperature is -188 deg.C.
And this is on a body only half as far from the Sun as Titan, which means it gets 4 times as much solar heat.

Now, with Titan getting less than 10% of the tidal warming Europa gets, and about 25% of the insolation, why should it have liquid water anywhere near its surface?
In fact, why should the subsurface temperature on Titan, at the depth of your Wal-Mart thermometer (say, 1 metre, to be generous), be appreciably higher than the surface temperature, which we know to be -180 deg.C? ???

If you think Titan's immediate subsurface might be water-based mud, it's because you don't appreciate how cold Titan actually is.
If you're badly disappointed that Titan is in fact seriously, cryogenically cold, and not some kind of second Earth, it's not permissible to start a ranting trolling thread so you can take it out on ESA.
I think the Huygens probe has been a spectacular success and ESA is to be congratulated.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-27 05:27:52

Does Titan have any dirt or rock, dust would even count IMO? But there is not water to make this MUD. So we need a new term for MUD to describe the form of it on Titan to end the confusion.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-27 06:19:26

I ain't buying it. There is surface ice so the ice had to come from somewhere. I think it comes from below the surface where liquid water exists all the way up to near the surface. Tidal forces along with geothermal energy can keep it in a liquid state. Thus we have mud very near the surface or could it be slush?

Palomar · 2005-01-27 07:34:55

*ERRORIST: You seem to always have your mind made up ahead of time. It seems if you've decided something "is"...it is and also if something "isn't"...it isn't; Case Closed/End of Report. ??? It seems you come to very quick decisions, and once you've decided something -- "That's It." You're depriving yourself, IMO.

Huygens' camera was working in conditions comparable to trying to take photos in an asphalt parking lot at dusk. I doubt any camera you own or could purchase could return better-quality photos (though you seem to insist you could).

There are the peculiar atmospheric properties of Titan, etc. But others have tried to point this out to you already.

But consider this:
1. Scientists first learned of Titan's thick, smoggy atmosphere only 25 years ago (Voyager flyby).
2. No one promised that returned images would be comparable to Hollywood cinemascope glossy movie quality.
3. We're the first humans ever to have the *privilege* of seeing beneath Titan's thick shroud, and seeing surface features below. Perhaps there was a scientist -- or a couple of them -- during the Voyager days who have since died; died wishing to have seen what is beneath that thick, lush atmosphere. There are still plenty of people on the globe who don't have access to the information and images we enjoy daily from a variety of news sources.

That's reason enough to be grateful, IMO.

--Cindy

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-27 09:13:47

I ain't buying it. There is surface ice so the ice had to come from somewhere. I think it comes from below the surface where liquid water exists all the way up to near the surface. Tidal forces along with geothermal energy can keep it in a liquid state. Thus we have mud very near the surface or could it be slush?

Errorist, you are an idiot. A fool. A moron.

And since we KNOW that a few centimeters of surface material would not insulate to any great depth, then we don't need a thermometer to estimate its temperature... which is why one was not included I imagine.

Its not water!

Its liquid methane "mud," that is the only thing is could possibly liquid be at that temperture. We KNOW the surface temperature, and we KNOW that a few centimeters of anything could not possibly insulate water... Since it IS liquid methane "mud," then we KNOW that the surface temperature down to a signifigant depth is extremely cold. And if it is that cold, there must not be any massive underground heating.

I mean come on. DUH. Even you aren't that stupid, are you?

Deprived? No, try depraved... continuing to "believe" in somthing like this when there is clear, rational evidence to the contrary... in this case, we know the surface temperature from IR and we know it cannot be much different below ground because a few centimeters of soil cannot insulate very well... is a clear indication that Errorist is:

A: A troll
B: An idiot
C: Mentally ill

or maybe all three

ERRORIST · 2005-01-27 10:45:56

Deprived? No, try depraved... continuing to "believe" in somthing like this when there is clear, rational evidence to the contrary... in this case, we know the surface temperature from IR and we know it cannot be much different below ground because a few centimeters of soil cannot insulate very well... is a clear indication that Errorist is:

Sorry you respectfully disagree with me GCN they say those are blocks of water ice with methane gas mixed in. So you say the soil is not that great of an insulator. I say how do you know that it is not? What if the soil is mica,asbestos or kyanite these are great insulators and would allow water to stay liquid near the surface with just the smallet amount of geothermal energy or tidal forces? BTW your insults do not phase me. I still like you.

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Re: JPL vs esa Mars Mission

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