Congratulations NASA

InSight has landed.
About 3 hours ago.

450 million K, is quite a jump
But she's OK, despite the bump
Hearty congratulations to InSight,
And NASA for getting it right.
But the credit's all for Trump!

@wolfgang59 said
InSight has landed.
About 3 hours ago.

450 million K, is quite a jump
But she's OK, despite the bump
Hearty congratulations to InSight,
And NASA for getting it right.
But the credit's all for Trump!

What 'bump'? It was only about 150 million Km when it got to Mars, not 450.

@sonhouse said
What 'bump'? It was only about 150 million Km when it got to Mars, not 450.

I make a positive post celebrating an american
achievement and you want to nit-pick and start an argument?

OK. Let's go.

1. Any landing is a bump. Hitting a rock at 10 km/h (I'm guessing) is a bump.

2. 150 million km? Throw a baseball 50m and its trajectory
could be considerably more. (Go check your slide rule)

3. Your reply doesn't rhyme or scan.

@wolfgang59

Amazing stuff!

My slide rule is bigger than your slide rule😉

Seriously, I think real manned Mars mission needs to wait till VASIMR gets developed, because if humans go to Mars at present speed, taking 7 odd months, the chances of a high rad incident is pretty high. It won't do much good if the humans arrive at Mars dead.

VASIMR fixes that problem by getting folks to Mars in ONE month not 7 so there is that much less chance of getting fried by a solar storm.

How that works is you have a rocket that gives a gentle thrust 24/7 instead of a giant push lasting an hour. They talk about VASIMR only giving about 1/20th of a g but 24/7 instead of 3 g for an hour.
The result has two huge consequences. First, you acell halfway, then decel the rest of the way and that does 2 things, One, at 1/20th of a g you end up average velocity 7 times that of our present tech. Two, you end up at the end of the journey with zero velocity compared to the planet, which means you can then use Mars gravity to pull you in but you come in a HELL of a lot slower than present tech slamming into the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph and like the Insight, hit about 8 g's by atmospheric drag. Instead you max out at around 3000 mph and so a lot less heat load to get rid of by the heat shields.
But a lot of technology has to be worked out to make it work with a couple hundred tons of payload. Like nukes capable of putting out a couple hundred megawatts also 24/7 for the whole month.

@sonhouse said
My slide rule is bigger than your slide rule😉

Seriously, I think real manned Mars mission needs to wait till VASIMR gets developed, because if humans go to Mars at present speed, taking 7 odd months, the chances of a high rad incident is pretty high. It won't do much good if the humans arrive at Mars dead.

VASIMR fixes that problem by getting folks to Mars in ONE mon ...[text shortened]... payload. Like nukes capable of putting out a couple hundred megawatts also 24/7 for the whole month.

Instead of posting all this ‘stuff’ why didn’t you just acknowledge that Wolfgang59 was correct?

Another triumphant engineering milestone for all mankind.

Aw shucks, ‘rwarn’t nuthin a bunch of bright schoolkids couldn’t do, given enough encouragement and free time, ma’am.

Looking forward to the photos it will be sending back.
The last one sent back photos of a squirrel identical to the ones found in the Canadian wilderness.
Strange that.

Scientists develop a clock so accurate it could detect dark matter

https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-develop-a-clock-so-accurate-it-could-detect-dark-matter/

how would one measure a timepiece's accuracy, if one only has but one timepiece???

side note,
this would make such an interesting christmas gift for that "one" weird family member...

@The-Gravedigger
Please dont tell us about the fake moon landings!

@wolfgang59

It is indeed an amazing achievement. You don't get three strikes on a Mars landing--you have to get it spot on the first try.

Here is a link to the mission web site:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

@wolfgang59 said

Please dont tell us about the fake moon landings!

Whaaaat?? The moon is fake!?!?

Ah, that would have been "fake-moon landings."

If the Americans didn't really land on the real moon, then they were "faked moon landings."

Courtesy of the Grammar Stasi. 😉


PS

And, here's the Next Big Thing (the sort of big-budget project the Americans are good at):

https://www.jwst.nasa.gov

@moonbus said
And, here's the Next Big Thing (the sort of big-budget project the Americans are good at):

Hope you are correct and it is not a big budget-project!