Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 235 posts

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#41

Post by kayfox »

wiremine wrote: post #34

Was looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_compute... That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 "Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general co…

Low yields, low volume, high development cost, high certification costs, strict QA.

Vorago makes a cheaper option these days at $800 a chip: https://www.voragotech.com/products/va10820-radiation-harden...

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#42

Post by buboard »

deusofnull wrote: post #35
anyfoo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI doesn't work nearly as well as you seem to think it does. For something as excruciatingly difficult as a space mission, humans have proven to be well up to the task. The headline of this article here is one illustrative data point. Furthermore, many methods that are currently classified as "AI" act because of very complex and often opaque emergent behavior, and we often have a hard time (or don't know at all) why…

This is one of those classic situations where the "why not both" meme is really appropriate. AIs and Robots and Humans working together.

the cost of sending humans is disproportionately larger

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#43

Post by sitharus »

wiremine wrote: post #34

Was looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_compute... That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 "Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general co…

The costs of employing a team to do the radiation hardening design work, running a non-mainstream fab (I believe these chips were silicon-on-sapphire) and small production runs. There's a lot of overheads amortised on to a very small number of chips.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#44

Post by [deleted] »

wiremine wrote: post #34

Was looking through Opportunity's Wikipedia page, and found this cool comparison of the embedded systems used in Mars rovers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_compute... That lead me to the RAD6000 page, which was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RAD6000 "Reported to have a unit cost somewhere between US$200,000 and US$300,000, RAD6000 computers were released for sale in the general co…

[deleted]

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#45

Post by hart_russell »

slg wrote: post #23

Opportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.

It's a testament to the engineering excellence happening at NASA.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#46

Post by Will_Parker »

hart_russell wrote: post #45
slg wrote: post #23

Opportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.

It's a testament to the engineering excellence happening at NASA.

Also a testament to the value of under-promising. :)

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#47

Post by anyfoo »

buboard wrote: post #36
anyfoo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI doesn't work nearly as well as you seem to think it does. For something as excruciatingly difficult as a space mission, humans have proven to be well up to the task. The headline of this article here is one illustrative data point. Furthermore, many methods that are currently classified as "AI" act because of very complex and often opaque emergent behavior, and we often have a hard time (or don't know at all) why…

you do realize the mars rover was supposed to last 90 days? and we re still receiving data from the voyagers. any robot missions to mars will still be remotely-orchestrated, however AI can be used to manage the time lag between earth and mars

I'm not sure how the supposed duration of the mission relates to AI? Also, how would AI help with the time lag?

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#49

Post by unimpressive »

escapecharacter wrote: post #14
athenot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of this entry in the wikiwiki: "Just" is a dangerous word. http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord

I recall having a chat with someone with a poor understanding of chemistry, and they asked why we couldn't "just have tiny robots take the carbon dioxide and turn it back into gasoline again"

Did you tell them we're trying that and algae can only sink so much carbon? ;)
Post reply on HN