Post by CoolP on Aug 19th, 2012 at 2:03pm
They (the bunch of NASA folks) gave an interview at reddit. You know, one of those 'Ask us Anything' sessions. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers_and_scientists_on_the_mars/
It's pretty interesting reading about the details and the time the mission itself and the preparations are running. The folks are on it for some 10 years and more.
In between, here's our planet viewed from Mars. :o
The interview features a lot of humour and 'useless' facts, I guess that's what makes it cool.
whats one cool trivia fact about curiosity that everybody should know?
Its got a friggin' laser on its head, that can VAPORIZE rocks! :D
Does Curiosity have any increased capacity for operating during the Martian night due to it's lack of reliance on solar power? Did you put lights on it?
There are no lights on the Rover. It utilizes the night time to recharge the batteries to drive and explore during the day to take advantage of the day time.
but what if the life-form only comes out at night...
Well fu.k ;D
Then there's one guy going a bit off topic by reminding one of the NASA folks about that math book he's borrowed some 8 years ago. ;D
Another detail would be the question on the hardware for the rover's computer. Don't expect much CPU power, some smartphones may kill that thing. But there is a link on the actual cost of just the CPU which made my head explode. :o And the stuff is some 8 years old.
And some story on a rover's life. Very sad. :( http://xkcd.com/695/
Are there any protocols if you find alien life / bacteria / fossils?
Every science hypothesis is vetted among the team, and we would want to make sure we were absolutely certain it was life/fossils/etc. before releasing it to the public. But we absolutely would release this information, once we had sufficient evidence and it was agreed upon among the science teams! We follow this procedure for all of our interesting finds.
Question on the link speeds.
Through the high gain antenna, which we can point directly at Earth, we can achieve ~10 kbps from Mars to Earth. :o
A nice (user) quote.
My favorite part about this is that all sounds incredibly difficult to me, almost prohibitively so, and you come out with, "none of it seems to be insurmountable."
THAT is the fu.king spirit.
Yeah, perhaps read into that reddit page. It really is a fun read and also offers some of that spirit. :)
And to add. Some nice story.
WHY NO MICROPHONE???
We took a microphone on the Phoenix Mars Lander, and we turned it on but essentially heard nothing (white noise) so it was never released. We don't really need it for any experiments.
Here's a little more info on the Phoenix microphone. It was essentially a hitch-hiker. It was built into another instrument taken off the shelf for the the lander, but it was never intended for the mission. There was no science team or budget connected to it. Since it was not intended for use it was never tested before launch and never entered into the power budget for the lander. Only after Phoenix successfully completed it's mission, 5 months after landing in the polar region, was the mission somewhat willing to test it. They couldn't do it earlier because they couldn't risk the prime goals of the mission if anything went wrong. The project manager was fairly certain it wouldn't work and was against trying it because he didn't want to raise expectations. His mind changed when we got a tweet to the @MarsPhoenix account from a man who said he was blind and how much he wished he could hear Mars because he couldn't see the pictures. A couple days later, they sent the signal to Phoenix to turn it on but we got.. well.. nothing. Empty files. If we had received anything, it would have been released. The team figured the mic was frozen solid and decided to give it a second try by leaving it on longer to warm up. Unfortunately, the Phoenix mission lost its last bit of power (as expected) before it got the second instruction. -vm
It's pretty interesting reading about the details and the time the mission itself and the preparations are running. The folks are on it for some 10 years and more.
In between, here's our planet viewed from Mars. :o
The interview features a lot of humour and 'useless' facts, I guess that's what makes it cool.
whats one cool trivia fact about curiosity that everybody should know?
Its got a friggin' laser on its head, that can VAPORIZE rocks! :D
Does Curiosity have any increased capacity for operating during the Martian night due to it's lack of reliance on solar power? Did you put lights on it?
There are no lights on the Rover. It utilizes the night time to recharge the batteries to drive and explore during the day to take advantage of the day time.
but what if the life-form only comes out at night...
Well fu.k ;D
Then there's one guy going a bit off topic by reminding one of the NASA folks about that math book he's borrowed some 8 years ago. ;D
Another detail would be the question on the hardware for the rover's computer. Don't expect much CPU power, some smartphones may kill that thing. But there is a link on the actual cost of just the CPU which made my head explode. :o And the stuff is some 8 years old.
And some story on a rover's life. Very sad. :( http://xkcd.com/695/
Are there any protocols if you find alien life / bacteria / fossils?
Every science hypothesis is vetted among the team, and we would want to make sure we were absolutely certain it was life/fossils/etc. before releasing it to the public. But we absolutely would release this information, once we had sufficient evidence and it was agreed upon among the science teams! We follow this procedure for all of our interesting finds.
Question on the link speeds.
Through the high gain antenna, which we can point directly at Earth, we can achieve ~10 kbps from Mars to Earth. :o
A nice (user) quote.
My favorite part about this is that all sounds incredibly difficult to me, almost prohibitively so, and you come out with, "none of it seems to be insurmountable."
THAT is the fu.king spirit.
Yeah, perhaps read into that reddit page. It really is a fun read and also offers some of that spirit. :)
And to add. Some nice story.
WHY NO MICROPHONE???
We took a microphone on the Phoenix Mars Lander, and we turned it on but essentially heard nothing (white noise) so it was never released. We don't really need it for any experiments.
Here's a little more info on the Phoenix microphone. It was essentially a hitch-hiker. It was built into another instrument taken off the shelf for the the lander, but it was never intended for the mission. There was no science team or budget connected to it. Since it was not intended for use it was never tested before launch and never entered into the power budget for the lander. Only after Phoenix successfully completed it's mission, 5 months after landing in the polar region, was the mission somewhat willing to test it. They couldn't do it earlier because they couldn't risk the prime goals of the mission if anything went wrong. The project manager was fairly certain it wouldn't work and was against trying it because he didn't want to raise expectations. His mind changed when we got a tweet to the @MarsPhoenix account from a man who said he was blind and how much he wished he could hear Mars because he couldn't see the pictures. A couple days later, they sent the signal to Phoenix to turn it on but we got.. well.. nothing. Empty files. If we had received anything, it would have been released. The team figured the mic was frozen solid and decided to give it a second try by leaving it on longer to warm up. Unfortunately, the Phoenix mission lost its last bit of power (as expected) before it got the second instruction. -vm