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#1 2018-05-05 05:49:18

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

InSight Mission...

Great launch but pretty pointless and expensive mission in my view...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3niFzo5VLI

This mission, remember is costing nearly a billion dollars.

http://spacenews.com/insight-delay-adds … ions-cost/

What will it tell us? Really not much in comparison to the outlay in my view and certainly nothing that Space X won't be able to tell us in a few years' time. If NASA took that billion dollars and pumped it into the Space X Mars Mission that would make much better financial sense as they could book space for 20 such probes/experiments.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#2 2018-05-05 08:47:56

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: InSight Mission...

Louis:

You don't understand.  There's a whole sector of NASA and the industry that has spent decades sending robotic probes all over the solar system.  That's how those folks have made their living.  And don't get me wrong,  they're quite good at this.  They've had better success all these years than a whole lot of the rest of NASA,  and the favored-contractor community.

If men actually go to Mars,  that's one less destination needing a robotic probe.  That's a smaller market for robotic probes,  and less money for the sectors who make their living that way. 

Didn't you ever notice how JPL,  as good as they are at creating robotic landers,  pitched the entry-descent-landing conundrum on Mars as insuperable at 1 ton the last few years at all the meetings?  If you never,  ever consider retropropulsion,  what they said was true. 

But the deeper reason for lying-by-omission like that was to perpetuate the need to send robots to Mars.  Most folks working there probably wouldn't say that,  and may not even realize it,  but that's the real reason.

NASA as an organization (distinct from small groups within) doesn't truly want to send men to Mars,  and hasn't since Nixon killed all spaceflight outside Earth orbit by executive order in 1972.  That's what killed (1) Apollo,  (2) the Mars mission then planned for the 1987 opposition,  and (3) the NERVA-derived nuclear third stage for Saturn 5 that was going to take them there.

You can see that today in how quickly NASA and the favored-contractor community have jumped onto returning to the moon instead of Mars,  asteroids,  asteroid defense,  or any of the other reasons to have a manned space program.  Going to the moon is just easier.  Plus, it's already been done,  so no huge stretch is required to do it again.

Sopping up all the money after SLS actually flies (if it does) with a lunar space station is how they will go to the moon and nowhere else for a long time.  The words will claim a lunar station is a gateway to Mars,  but the actions (and the physics) deny that.  They'll have to spend yet more billions to upgrade SLS/Orion to where it can actually reprise Apollo-8,  with a bigger upper stage,  and a bigger service module. 

Plus,  they'll have to build a lander,  and it'll take two SLS's to send both Orion and that lander to the moon. At $1-2 billion per launch each.  Look for NO lunar base at THAT price!

There's $boodles to be made pretending how hard it will be to regain the capabilities we had half a century ago to go to the moon,  and making it more expensive now than it was then.  It's not about going anywhere,  it's about corporate welfare for the favored contractors.  The game is atrociously rigged,  and has been,  ever since Nixon's order in 1972,  if not before. 

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-05-05 08:56:30)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#3 2018-05-05 11:31:56

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: InSight Mission...

Original Insight Lander Topic

7 ways NASA's InSight mission will go where no Mars explorer has before. The new probe will be able to answer questions about whether the Red Planet is alive or dead.

That is about to change with the upcoming launch of the $800 million InSight lander, the first NASA mission focused on the parts of Mars weve never seen before. The probe is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California on May 5, though current forecasts show only a 20 percent chance of favorable weather conditions.

When InSight finally reaches Mars, on Nov. 26, a system of parachutes and retro rockets will set the probe down on a flat equatorial plain called Elysium Planitia. An 8-foot-long robotic arm will deploy its instruments. Then for 708 Martian days (about two Earth years), the lander will give Mars the astronomical equivalent of a full-body scan.

Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3) experiment will make precise measurements of Mars internal heat, left over from its formation 4.5 billion years ago and stoked by the decay of radioactive elements. To do that, the probe incorporates a self-hammering mole that will burrow up to 16 feet into the ground. This will be the deepest drilling ever done off Earth. Along the way, the probe will send out pulses of heat every 20 inches to study the nature of the underground rocks.

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#4 2018-05-05 12:11:28

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: InSight Mission...

I remember EDL debates from the past when I tried to pin down what possibly could prevent retropulsion being successful on Mars. Never did find out the answer to that! smile

"NASA as an organization (distinct from small groups within) doesn't truly want to send men to Mars..." True! And the demonstration of that is their willingness to spend nearly a billion dollars on a niche robot project to Mars.

One could envisage a kind of NASA-Moon, Space X-Mars carve up but I think Space X's desire to generate huge revenues to fund rapid Mars settlement will mean Space X will not be able to resist developing lunar tourism.

GW Johnson wrote:

Louis:

You don't understand.  There's a whole sector of NASA and the industry that has spent decades sending robotic probes all over the solar system.  That's how those folks have made their living.  And don't get me wrong,  they're quite good at this.  They've had better success all these years than a whole lot of the rest of NASA,  and the favored-contractor community.

If men actually go to Mars,  that's one less destination needing a robotic probe.  That's a smaller market for robotic probes,  and less money for the sectors who make their living that way. 

Didn't you ever notice how JPL,  as good as they are at creating robotic landers,  pitched the entry-descent-landing conundrum on Mars as insuperable at 1 ton the last few years at all the meetings?  If you never,  ever consider retropropulsion,  what they said was true. 

But the deeper reason for lying-by-omission like that was to perpetuate the need to send robots to Mars.  Most folks working there probably wouldn't say that,  and may not even realize it,  but that's the real reason.

NASA as an organization (distinct from small groups within) doesn't truly want to send men to Mars,  and hasn't since Nixon killed all spaceflight outside Earth orbit by executive order in 1972.  That's what killed (1) Apollo,  (2) the Mars mission then planned for the 1987 opposition,  and (3) the NERVA-derived nuclear third stage for Saturn 5 that was going to take them there.

You can see that today in how quickly NASA and the favored-contractor community have jumped onto returning to the moon instead of Mars,  asteroids,  asteroid defense,  or any of the other reasons to have a manned space program.  Going to the moon is just easier.  Plus, it's already been done,  so no huge stretch is required to do it again.

Sopping up all the money after SLS actually flies (if it does) with a lunar space station is how they will go to the moon and nowhere else for a long time.  The words will claim a lunar station is a gateway to Mars,  but the actions (and the physics) deny that.  They'll have to spend yet more billions to upgrade SLS/Orion to where it can actually reprise Apollo-8,  with a bigger upper stage,  and a bigger service module. 

Plus,  they'll have to build a lander,  and it'll take two SLS's to send both Orion and that lander to the moon. At $1-2 billion per launch each.  Look for NO lunar base at THAT price!

There's $boodles to be made pretending how hard it will be to regain the capabilities we had half a century ago to go to the moon,  and making it more expensive now than it was then.  It's not about going anywhere,  it's about corporate welfare for the favored contractors.  The game is atrociously rigged,  and has been,  ever since Nixon's order in 1972,  if not before. 

GW


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#5 2018-05-05 12:31:23

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: InSight Mission...

Don't get me wrong,  there's nothing wrong or unworthy about the Insight mission to Mars.  That's some science investigations that really need to be done. 

Can they be done with this robot?  Yes.

Could they be done by men on Mars?  Yes.

Do they have to be done right now for any compelling reason other than scientific curiosity?  No.

Is doing this robotically a prerequisite to put men on Mars?  No. 

Scientific logic would say do this with men on Mars,  and concentrate your resources on getting them there.  But the economic self-interest logic of the robotic probe sector argues otherwise,  and their successful track record is quite convincing to the actual decision-makers,  who generally speaking are quite ignorant about such issues. 

And THAT is how these mission priorities get set.  That and pure pork-barrel politics in both houses of Congress. 

As for the retropropulsion debates,  have you noticed how quiet that has become,  now that Spacex and Blue Origin are landing so many stages so successfully? 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#6 2018-10-28 10:13:41

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Re: InSight Mission...

NASA JPL Podcast about InSight: click here (preview 01:34)

Official website

29 days to landing

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-10-28 10:15:21)

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#7 2018-10-28 16:20:37

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: InSight Mission...

Oh well, in the absence of anything more exciting! smile  Mars landings are always good!!

RobertDyck wrote:

NASA JPL Podcast about InSight: click here (preview 01:34)

Official website

29 days to landing


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#8 2023-08-08 16:46:17

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: InSight Mission...

'Mars is Spinning Faster and Faster'

https://www.universetoday.com/162710/ma … nd-faster/

searching for a place to put the news I finally found this thread, I used to post stuff in the 'Monster Quake' thread, small than large scale events in California, Italy, China, Turkey,  China, Syria, India, Haiti, Iran and Japan but the Mars quake still ranks as a large event. The quake  event emanating from Valles Marineris, a quake with a magnitude of 4.2, was detected by InSight on 25 August 2021, proving it to be an active fault. There were attempts before, the seismometer on the Viking 1 lander failed, the Viking 2 seismometer collected data for 2100 hours (89 days)

Viking PDF quote
https://web.archive.org/web/20230406023 … f/1178.pdf

Only one event (on Sol 80) was considered to be a possible seismic event. However,
no contemporary wind data were acquired, so a gust (ordust devil) cannot be excluded as the cause

I know there was criticism of this mission but I think it was worth the price, Seismogram of 'Big Martian Quake' without Insight an Earthquake could be an unforeseen event that could destroy a human mission.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s- … es-on-mars

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-08-08 16:56:19)

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#9 2023-08-08 20:31:49

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: InSight Mission...

Which is also happening with the earth as well and shows how little we know.

Insight has sure given up a lot of science even after its slow death.

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