Australian Politics Forum - Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.

Bobby.

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Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Nov 27^th, 2011 at 12:44am

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/21/giant-mars-rover-set-for-launch-satur...
Quote:

NASA’s biggest and most advanced Mars rover is scheduled for launch Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Curiosity is packed with 10 science experiments to determine whether Mars has ever been suitable for life and to find clues about past life forms that may have been preserved in rocks. NASA says Curiosity won’t answer the age-old questions about life on Mars, but it will provide important information that will guide future missions.

The launch was originally scheduled for Friday, but the mission team will take an extra day to remove and replace a flight termination system battery, NASA said.

Curiosity is expected to spend about two years roaming Mars, hunting things researchers say are essential for life to grow: liquid water, key chemicals used by living organisms and an energy source.

The rover will blast off Saturday atop an Atlas V rocket and is scheduled to land in August 2012 in the Gale Crater. The first opportunity for launch is 10:02 a.m. EST; the window lasts an hour and 43 minutes.

If the launch is postponed, NASA has until December 18 to get the spacecraft off the ground.

Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as the older Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Its science instruments weigh 15 times as much as its predecessors' science payloads

And a pic of the vehicle:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?Category=Top10&IM_ID=12023

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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #1 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 9:35am Yes, a momentous occasion. Here's the launch: - and the planned landing is a bit ambitious too:
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Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 111593 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #2 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 10:01am Thanks Muso, great videos. This will be an exciting mission if it lands without incident. There is one thing that is not on it - a microscope to detect microbes or bacteria. I wonder why, as that would be an obvious choice of equipment?
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muso

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Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Reply #3 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 10:20am

Bobby. wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 10:01am:

Thanks Muso,
great videos.
This will be an exciting mission if it lands without incident.

There is one thing that is not on it - a microscope to detect microbes or bacteria.
I wonder why, as that would be an obvious choice of equipment?

If it came with a drilling rig, I'd possibly agree, but on the surface of Mars? nah - too hostile an environment.

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Bobby.

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Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Reply #4 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 11:40am

muso wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 10:20am:

Bobby. wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 10:01am:

Thanks Muso,
great videos.
This will be an exciting mission if it lands without incident.

There is one thing that is not on it - a microscope to detect microbes or bacteria.
I wonder why, as that would be an obvious choice of equipment?

If it came with a drilling rig, I'd possibly agree, but on the surface of Mars? nah - too hostile an environment.

Yes - you could be right.
I bet scientists would love to have a giant drilling rig on Mars
& bring up samples from deep beneath it's soil to fully test?
I reada theory once that says it may be a fact that there were oceans on Mars
which froze over & then became covered in dust.
We see them now as large flat areas.
If that's the case there may be bacteria down deep in the ground
in the same way we find bacteria living without sunlight deep in the Earth here.

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BatteriesNotIncluded

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Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Reply #5 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 2:08pm

Metal on the Plains of Mars
Image Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA
Explanation: What has the Opportunity rover found on Mars? While traversing a vast empty plain in 2005 in Meridiani Planum, one of Earth's rolling robots on Mars found a surprise when visiting the location of its own metallic heat shield discarded last year during descent. The surprise is the rock visible on the lower left, found to be made mostly of dense metals iron and nickel. The large cone-shaped object behind it -- and the flank piece on the right -- are parts of Opportunity's jettisoned heat shield. Smaller shield debris is also visible. Scientists do not think that the basketball-sized metal "Heat Shield Rock" originated on Mars, but rather is likely an ancient metallic meteorite. In hindsight, finding a meteorite in a vast empty dust plain on Mars might be considered similar to Earth meteorites found on the vast empty ice plains of Antarctica. The finding raises speculations about the general abundance of rocks on Mars that have fallen there from outer space.

Cheesy

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Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 111593 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #6 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 7:19pm Glad you explained that - Light would have said it was a "galactic federation of light" crashed spacecraft.
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Bob Miller New Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 25 Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #7 - Nov 27^th, 2011 at 8:26pm We all just have to wait 'till August 2012.
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gizmo_2655 Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 16010 South West NSW Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #8 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 6:32am Bobby. wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 7:19pm: Glad you explained that - Light would have said it was a "galactic federation of light" crashed spacecraft. LOL Bobby...The 'galactic federation of light' ships don't crash.....
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BatteriesNotIncluded Gold Member Offline MediocrityNET: because people died for this! Posts: 26966	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #9 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 9:20pm I wanna see some pictures of the insides of Jupiter and that... Have they got them??
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Sappho Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 1406 Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #10 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 10:34pm Another curious fact of the rover's is that they are built with the camera at eye level... so that we get a human view of the planet.
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gizmo_2655 Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 16010 South West NSW Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #11 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 10:56pm BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Nov 28^th, 2011 at 9:20pm: I wanna see some pictures of the insides of Jupiter and that... Have they got them?? INSIDE of Jupiter??? I don't think they've ever tried that...The pressure (and or temperature) might be too high for a probe to last long enough...
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Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 111593 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time. Reply #12 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 11:14pm Another good thing is that it won't have dust problems blocking solar panels from getting light: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer-20090212.html It has a nuclear battery.
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gizmo_2655

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Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Reply #13 - Nov 28^th, 2011 at 11:16pm

Bobby. wrote on Nov 28^th, 2011 at 11:14pm:

Another good thing is that it won't have dust problems blocking
solar panels from getting light:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer-20090212.html

It has a nuclear battery.

Yeah, makes you wonder why that technology isn't used in heavy transport on Earth, doesn't it???

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"I just get sick of people who place a label on someone else with their own definition.

It's similar to a strawman fallacy"
Bobbythebat

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Bobby.

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Re: Mars mission on it's way in 2 hours time.
Reply #14 - Nov 29^th, 2011 at 6:45am

gizmo_2655 wrote on Nov 28^th, 2011 at 11:16pm:

Bobby. wrote on Nov 28^th, 2011 at 11:14pm:

Another good thing is that it won't have dust problems blocking
solar panels from getting light:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer-20090212.html

It has a nuclear battery.

Yeah, makes you wonder why that technology isn't used in heavy transport on Earth, doesn't it???

A plutonium battery is too dangerous to be used by Tom Dick & Harry.

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