Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
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Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#2Watched the launch with the kiddies on NASA TV.
Then went outside and saw it come over South Africa. Got a picture of it as well.
To see the little white dots we saw check... http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/igotapicofit.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/picofitand2nd.jpg/
Now I can justify to the wife that I NEED a 15" telescope
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Sorry, it is more like, see if you can spot the white dots with these pictures. 52mm lens is not that great.
The dots are about 5mm to the left of the arrows
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Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#3Watched the launch with the kiddies on NASA TV. Then went outside and saw it come over South Africa. Got a picture of it as well. To see the little white dots we saw check... http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/igotapicofit.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/picofitand2nd.jpg/ Now I can justify to the wife that I NEED a 15" telescope -edit- Sorry, it is more like, see if you can spot the white dots with…
I see the dots. You definitely need that 15" telescope -- tell her I said so. ;-)
Reminds me a bit of being in the Palm Beach area and seeing a shuttle launch. That's some distance away, but it was still very visible. IIRC, we had binoculars, which made the details much more evident.
Then, a few days later, I looked out the kitchen window to see some rather distinct exhaust plumes. No official announcement. Turns out it was a secret launch/payload, later confirmed in that non-confirming way the government sometimes has.
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#4Congratulations on a successful launch! I just hope it lands without problems - the landing sequence looks quite complicated and this is the biggest probe yet - it would be a real drawback if it failed (like Russia's Phobos-Grunt).
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#5Here is a video of the launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irBg4DvHI6c
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#6Simply put: this is the most ambitious space mission since the Apollo program. I hope it succeeds.
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#7Watched the launch with the kiddies on NASA TV. Then went outside and saw it come over South Africa. Got a picture of it as well. To see the little white dots we saw check... http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/igotapicofit.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/picofitand2nd.jpg/ Now I can justify to the wife that I NEED a 15" telescope -edit- Sorry, it is more like, see if you can spot the white dots with…
Are the dots larger than average chunks of ice from the fuselage?
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#8I heard Nick Begich say today in an Alex Jones interview that rocket launches punch big holes in the ozone layer, and have done far more damage than CFCs have ever done.
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#9I heard Nick Begich say today in an Alex Jones interview that rocket launches punch big holes in the ozone layer, and have done far more damage than CFCs have ever done.
Solid rockets are bad for the ozone layer, and some launch vehicles use solid rockets, though not all do. The damage is generally only temporary and far less significant than CFCs. Solid rocket exhaust destroys ozone in a one off process, and the ozone will quickly be regenerated via UV dissociation. CFCs catalytically destroy ozone and can reduce ozone levels for extended periods.
Re: Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet
#10"NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.
Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011."
I can't imagine how agonizing that decision to delay the launch must have been. "Do we work our asses off to try and meet the launch, and risk 1.5 billion usd, or wait two extra years?" Managers nightmare!