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Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

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Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#71

Post by CamperBob2 »

nkoren wrote: post #47
360pano wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nkoren: you are very careful ;) Thanks for the comment, but I really did not have source materials to recreate this mountain

Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you -- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your panorama, because that'll be st…

I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape!

It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the street" interested in what they're doing.

Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this, put the best $1000 digital camera currently being manufactured on it. If the camera doesn't survive because it's not rated for use on Mars or whatever, fine. If it does, then that $1000 is going to pay for itself a million times over in firing up the public's imagination and garnering subsequent political support.

You know what? I'll bet James Cameron would help you out for free.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#72

Post by jjaques »

duskwuff wrote: post #42
jjaques wrote: post #27

Any body see the little arcade-style joystick towards the back left of the rover?

That's actually the rover's color calibration target, not a joystick. http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_calibr.h...

Thank you for pointing that out. That's actually more interesting than a seemingly useless joystick. :)

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#73

Post by jonursenbach »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #71
nkoren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you -- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your panorama, because that'll be st…

I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the street" interested in what they're doing. Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this…

Problem is all the testing that is necessary to do to ensure that that $1000 camera works at all isn't possible to do before they launch.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#74

Post by biesnecker »

pyre wrote: post #34
biesnecker wrote: post #4

A high-res panorama of Mars, taken by a semi-autonomous robot that was landed via rocket sky crane, transmitted 14 light minutes across space, then transmitted on demand through a global information network to my computer. And people say the future isn't what it was made out to be.

No one said that the future isn't amazing (or maybe they did), but the "future" imagined in the 1960s is mostly still science fiction. Where is my flying car? Where is my robot personal assistant? Where is my food replicator? Where is my day trip to the moon? Where is my space colony on Mars? Just sayin'. :P

It's a good point. I've thought about this before. I think the 1960s imagined future was predicated on basically infinite energy availability. That clearly hasn't happened, but what did happen most people in the 1960s didn't predict.

Makes you wonder what 50 years hence things will be like, given that the microtrends to which we pay so much attention will likely not continue.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#75

Post by timmaxw »

DougBTX wrote: post #68
wkdown wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Uranus is at 97+ degrees, making it almost perpendicular to the other planets axis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt

Hm, guess that means I don't understand the article I linked to.

I think you were confusing orbital inclination with axial tilt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#76

Post by bmunro »

DougBTX wrote: post #68
wkdown wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Uranus is at 97+ degrees, making it almost perpendicular to the other planets axis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt

Hm, guess that means I don't understand the article I linked to.

The article you linked to describes the angle of plane of the orbit - the circle it makes around the sun. These vary by only a small amount.

The axial tilt is different. It is basically how far the axis through the poles of a planet is tilted compared to the plane of its orbit. This is what you were thinking of initially - it can very a lot.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#77

Post by CamperBob2 »

jonursenbach wrote: post #73
CamperBob2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the street" interested in what they're doing. Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this…

Problem is all the testing that is necessary to do to ensure that that $1000 camera works at all isn't possible to do before they launch.

Sorry, not buying it. That might be a good reason to fly a camera that's one year behind the commercial state of the art, but not 10 years as seems to be the usual practice.

This stuff matters, whether NASA likes it or not.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#78

Post by nkoren »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #71
nkoren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you -- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your panorama, because that'll be st…

I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the street" interested in what they're doing. Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this…

The cameras they have on Curiosity are just fine, considering the bandwidth that they've got available to them. The problem, in this case, is simply that they didn't point them at the most interesting thing in the area!

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#79

Post by sjm »

magrimes wrote: post #67

Maybe I'm just dull, but how is it possible to see the entire robot? Where is the camera mounted?

You can see where the camera is mounted by looking directly down — you can also see in the rover's shadow where the camera you're looking through is.

Re: Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

#80

Post by ungerik »

biesnecker wrote: post #4

A high-res panorama of Mars, taken by a semi-autonomous robot that was landed via rocket sky crane, transmitted 14 light minutes across space, then transmitted on demand through a global information network to my computer. And people say the future isn't what it was made out to be.

"We wanted flying cars, instead we've got 140 characters" -Peter Thiel
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