Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not enough of an atmosphere.
How about a balloon then?
Absent an atmosphere, a balloon is just a heavier parachute.
Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
271–277 of 277 posts
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting to the moon is vastly more expensive. 40x is the multiplier that is typically used in the industry. Prior to cancellation, NASA spent $433M on the VIPER lander + rover--NOT inclusive of launch costs. $1m is crazy cheap.
$1M is not the full price of this mission . $1M is the price of the lander only . They were given a ride on a rocket whose total bill was $62.5 million (just for the launch, but spread among 4 missions). When you spend $1 million but get $10 million of stuff for free, it's not really a "$1 million project."
The $433M number I quoted was for the hardware only too. Apples to apples.
I worked NASA planetary science before. $1m is CRAZY cheap.
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ooo. Not sure if you can tell us anything. If you can’t I totally understand. But in case you can: Was a radar based altimeter considered? How do you guys deal with kicked up regolith? (I have seen first hand how hard heavy snow is on lidars, and would imagine that regolith “shower” is similar, but what do I know.)
The lasers are smaller and lighter than most radar systems. They're also pointed out at about 45 degrees from the lander and they're not supposed to be used for the last few dozen meters of descent.
Thank you!
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#274How can you have temperature without a medium? The lander would have steadily lost temperature through heat radiation, but it's not like the vacuum had a temperature in the crater.
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bringing "Hollywood-style explosions" into it is a little much. If you slam the breaks on in your car, your tires hit some debris in the road, and you spin around and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but the car wasn't meaningfully damaged (i.e. you didn't hit other cars or manmade structures), you made a dangerous uncontrolled maneuver, but you didn't crash. That seems more like how they're describing this…
If you do something with your car that ends up with it skidding on its side, that's a crash by any possible definition.
Probably, but this is a space probe, not a car. It's lighter than a car, and is operating in an environment with less gravity.
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bringing "Hollywood-style explosions" into it is a little much. If you slam the breaks on in your car, your tires hit some debris in the road, and you spin around and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but the car wasn't meaningfully damaged (i.e. you didn't hit other cars or manmade structures), you made a dangerous uncontrolled maneuver, but you didn't crash. That seems more like how they're describing this…
"The only reason?" One reason for prematurely losing most of the investment is enough. The car analogy is inadequate but let's say my car skids gently into a position from which it won't start and I can't get out and I slowly die of starvation and/or hypothermia. Am I glad that I didn't "crash?"
I didn't say the mission was a success. I was addressing someone's nitpick over the definition of the word "crash."
If the space probe had a wiring failure after landing that caused the loss of "investment," that wouldn't be a crash. It would be a separate problem.
Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bringing "Hollywood-style explosions" into it is a little much. If you slam the breaks on in your car, your tires hit some debris in the road, and you spin around and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but the car wasn't meaningfully damaged (i.e. you didn't hit other cars or manmade structures), you made a dangerous uncontrolled maneuver, but you didn't crash. That seems more like how they're describing this…
One of the legs broke off which requires significant forces not just a skid. I mean if my car lands on the side and one of it’s wheels fell off that’s a significant crash.
The leg breaking off is probably the best supporting evidence towards calling it a crash, I'll agree with that.