Aug. 5, 7 minutes of terror, Mars landing! video:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Is he saying 'bag' or 'vag'??

fingers crossed!

Originally posted by wolfgang59
fingers crossed!

Man, so many functions have to work perfectly! What a risk. The problem is, the Martian atmosphere is 100 times thinner than ours, which we use all the time for re-entry to waste 99% of the kinetic energy of a probe coming from space, 18,000 mph (28,000 km/hr) to escape velocity. Mars atmosphere is not so useful and different means must be used. The rover is way too heavy to use the bouncing ball bit already used on earlier probes.

Well, the landing was a success. Hurray for that!

NASA seriously lacks imagination when it comes to naming its probes and exploratory vehicles, however. "Curiosity"? Oh brother...

Originally posted by Soothfast
Well, the landing was a success. Hurray for that!

NASA seriously lacks imagination when it comes to naming its probes and exploratory vehicles, however. "Curiosity"? Oh brother...

YEA! This is a great success for NASA and American science. It was a huge gamble using untried technology and as for the name, I wouldn't care if they called it an umbrella, it does the job! You remember the old saying, Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back!

The fact that the landing technique worked means even larger craft can land now.

The atmosphere of Mars is way to thin to slow down a craft like the shuttle in Earth's atmosphere 100 times denser so something new is needed. Now they can think about crafts ten tons or so, of course the launch vehicles have to be way bigger to get that much mass to mars but NASA is actually working on a Saturn era mega launcher, upgraded by 40 or 50 years of newer technology.

The thing that made the Curiosity work is software and computers a thousand times more capable than the Apollo era boxes, the propulsion systems haven't advanced very much since the best you can do chemically is hydrogen and oxygen so the next big step in propulsion to beat that will be nuclear of some type, eventually fusion reactors in space but for now, big asss chemical rockets!

Originally posted by sonhouse
YEA! This is a great success for NASA and American science. It was a huge gamble using untried technology and as for the name, I wouldn't care if they called it an umbrella, it does the job! You remember the old saying, Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back!

The fact that the landing technique worked means even larger craft can land n ...[text shortened]... ear of some type, eventually fusion reactors in space but for now, big asss chemical rockets!

Here is the first of many photo's, sent in high res from Curiosity:

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-mars-rover-higher-resolution-image.html

They couldn't have picked a smoother place to land!

Originally posted by sonhouse
Here is the first of many photo's, sent in high res from Curiosity:

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-mars-rover-higher-resolution-image.html

They couldn't have picked a smoother place to land!

I just noticed that, on the same website you gave there, there is an interesting link about an optical laser imaging system that can get an image of what is around the corner of a wall using the time profile of the incoming photons:

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-walls-laser-reconstructs-hidden-sight.html

I am surprised that this can be done.

Originally posted by humy
I just noticed that, on the same website you gave there, there is an interesting link about an optical laser imaging system that can get an image of what is around the corner of a wall using the time profile of the incoming photons:

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-walls-laser-reconstructs-hidden-sight.html

I am surprised that this can be done.

There is a Ted talk on that:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html

Remember that a standard mirror can achieve the same thing. The difference here is that the reflection is not perfect so the timing of the light is used - the same way radar or sonar works.

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is a Ted talk on that:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html

Remember that a standard mirror can achieve the same thing. The difference here is that the reflection is not perfect so the timing of the light is used - the same way radar or sonar works.

I found this little tidbit, the HiRISE orbiter managed to get an image of the parachute and probe on the way down!:

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-image-mars-curiosity-rover-caught.html

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is a Ted talk on that:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html

Remember that a standard mirror can achieve the same thing. The difference here is that the reflection is not perfect so the timing of the light is used - the same way radar or sonar works.

This is astounding technology. I heard murmur of it's inklings some 15 years ago
when working on a device to monitor Ischemia.

Imagine....Instead of sending out a single mil' of light, we can soon send out binary code which could include the position, velocity, direction and time of the indicated photons.

Light scatteration photometry was and is a great idea but with this bit of kit, it's the future, no doubt!