City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Seven Minutes of Terror: Landing a Rover on Mars

Arcanaville

By Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2012-06-24 22:02 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

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@Demobot

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Posted

So this is the new rover? For the old ones I thought we just put them in big balloon and dropped them, then deflated the balloon and rolled away. I wonder why we couldn't do it that way again.

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Posted

Curiosity is too big (about the size of a compact car) for the balloon method to work.

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Any signs of gigantic robots so far?


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by JetFlash View Post
Curiosity is too big (about the size of a compact car) for the balloon method to work.
That explains it... I did not realize that thing was so HUGE!

I hope they land this one... it would suck to lose such a big rover.

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"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."

 

Posted

This is going to rock so hard. Can't wait til this mission starts.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

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Originally Posted by Zybron1 View Post
Silly NASA. Retiring methods that have been proven to work for untested concepts.

I'm sure there were cost considerations or something, but really this design seems like it would be less cost effective than the proven balloon method.
In addition to the size thing, every tried-and-true method had to at some point get a first run as an untested concept.

Also wow, this looks crazy awesome. Emphasis on "crazy". And "awesome".

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark One View Post
Any signs of gigantic robots so far?
I see what you did there....

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Whenever I see the phrase "zero margin for error" I think "what moron designed zero margin for error into this?"

(Of course, in this case as in most cases, that's an exaggeration).

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Posted

Well for me being a child of the 60's and a son of a Dad that worked as an Aerospace engineer on many NASA space projects, I always get excited about this kind of high intellect required kind of stuff.

It certainly is not for everyone.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

Yep, big *** atomic powered (okay RTG) rover. No more dusty solar panels shortening missions. Of course the whole skyhook landing method thing is bizarre. I understand trying not to contaminate the landing site but it's a rover, drive for a bit before sampling. As for the dust, how did Viking land again and avoid this problem? Couldn't they have enclosed the rover in the landing device and jettison the shell (or simply open a door/ramp) after a few hours? Again, no solar panels.

As for killing off potential life, nobody cared about crushing them with a ballistic bouncing balloon method.

Well marking Aug 6th on my calendar.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mental_Giant View Post
So this is the new rover? For the old ones I thought we just put them in big balloon and dropped them, then deflated the balloon and rolled away. I wonder why we couldn't do it that way again.
The balloon method doesn't scale up very well. It's good for small landers; Spirit and Opportunity were on the jagged edge of the upper weight limit for that technique.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by JetFlash View Post
Curiosity is too big (about the size of a compact car) for the balloon method to work.
Oh wow, that's large. It's gonna be a major punch in the guts if this thing fails.

@Demobot

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demobot View Post
Oh wow, that's large. It's gonna be a major punch in the guts if this thing fails.
That just means we'd have more reason to do a manned mission to Mars...to fix it.

And by "fix it", I mean joy-ride the hell out of that thing over the dunes on Mars.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark One View Post
That just means we'd have more reason to do a manned mission to Mars...to fix it.

And by "fix it", I mean joy-ride the hell out of that thing over the dunes on Mars.
An interesting idea. But one serious flaw in your idea - the thing goes maybe a single mile an hour.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samothrake View Post
An interesting idea. But one serious flaw in your idea - the thing goes maybe a single mile an hour.
What? You thought they'd take an unmodded rover out joy-riding? Heck no. Put some spinners on that thing, some big ol' fat tires, nitrous system, and a turbo onnit (amongst other modifications). That'd be part of the "repair" mission to Mars.


 

Posted

Well if it does go splot I think it'll be the first time the US "nuked" another planet. The rover's RTG uses about 5 Kg of Plutonium-238.

Maybe it'll give us an excuse to invade.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
Well if it does go splot I think it'll be the first time the US "nuked" another planet. The rover's RTG uses about 5 Kg of Plutonium-238.
Not the first time; the Viking landers were nuke-powered. Even the MER-class rovers (aka Spirit and Opportunity) had radioisotope heaters.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
Well the Vikings didn't go splot now did they?
No, but they were designed in the day when money was virtually no object. I seem to recall that ONE of the Viking landers would be one billion in inflation adjusted dollars.

The entire cost of Pathfinder/Sojourner was $266 million.

I'm sure the Curiosity is cost effective, but it's nice to see NASA doing something semi-big, even if it is non-manned exploration.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
As for the dust, how did Viking land again and avoid this problem?
Two words:

Engineering, b*****s!

From the Viking 1 Wiki page:

Quote:
The landing rockets used an 18 nozzle design to spread the hydrogen and nitrogen exhaust over a large area. NASA calculated that this approach would mean that the surface would not be heated by more than one degree Celsius, and that it would move no more than 1mm of surface material. Since most of Viking's experiments focused on the surface material a more straightforward design would not have served.

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"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."