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NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

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Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#141

Post by yellowapple »

sytelus wrote: post #134
idiocrat wrote: post #17

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, tryin…

Most people are unable to realize distances in space. Humans are simply not designed to travel in space. For a space ship that can be self-sustaining in every way and capable of multi-year travel, it has to be almost like a city. Even when you get to planets, they are even less hospitable than Mars. I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.

> I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.

Tardigrades seem like likely candidates, too.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#142

Post by kgrimes2 »

asdff wrote: post #49
hanniabu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's difficult about it?

Multiple clicks to get to the full resolution image. 50 thumbnails able to be viewed at a time, many uninteresting to lay people (solid gray screen, dozens of repeated images of of a portion of the rover itself, etc), for the monumental task of sifting through the 6407 images the rover has transmitted so far in mere days. Wholly unusable in a few months I imagine.

The site isn't great, no. But the reason there's so many repeated images is because NASA doesn't want to be accused of hiding anything.

If they're taking photos for calibration, we get those, just like if they're taking stunning panoramas.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#143

Post by nostromo »

sytelus wrote: post #134
idiocrat wrote: post #17

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, tryin…

Most people are unable to realize distances in space. Humans are simply not designed to travel in space. For a space ship that can be self-sustaining in every way and capable of multi-year travel, it has to be almost like a city. Even when you get to planets, they are even less hospitable than Mars. I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.

Most people also don't realize how slow the speed of light is in relation to the size of the universe and the distance between stars. It's quite easy for a person to look at two galaxies in a telescope that will never be able to even observe each other's existence, let alone visit one another.

People often argue that we'll find a way to travel faster than light -- which is curious given how rarely people argue that we'll find a way to travel backwards in time.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#144

Post by snet0 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #126
khuey wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alpha sources outside the human body are of little health concern. You'd have to break it open and eat the plutonium inside for it to be a serious risk.

> You'd have to break it open and eat the plutonium inside for it to be a serious risk. Yes. Sounds like something a child would do.

Yes, just like how children regularly eat kitchen knives.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#145

Post by azernik »

hanniabu wrote: post #88
azernik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The helicopter hasn't flown yet - they put it down on the ground, and they're going to run it through a lot of remote checks before flying it. IIRC it's gonna be a month or two before first flight.

I would think with the wind and sand storms that it'd be dangerous leaving it exposed for a month before you even get to use it. Does the rover park on top of it during storms for minimal protection?

Right after landing, Perseverance put Ingenuity down on the ground and drove off to give some separation.

The winds and sand aren't mechanically very strong - the Martian atmosphere isn't dense enough to transmit much force even at high wind speeds. The only real dangers are obscuring the sun (important because Ingenuity runs on solar power) and getting dust in all kinds of places. But the landing site is pretty low latitude, and it's early in northern hemisphere spring right now, so power shouldn't be a problem.

Mars isn't quite as dead as the Moon, but still - you would be surprised how well things are preserved on dead rocks. As long as you can withstand the radiation and the cold, of course.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#146

Post by centimeter »

kgrimes2 wrote: post #138

All ya'll complaining that you can take better pictures with your iPhones than Percy can on Mars, please read this: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/ These are ENGINEERING cameras for taking incredibly precise measurements. Not for populating an Instagram page.

> SuperCam fires a laser at mineral targets that are beyond the reach of the rover’s robotic arm, and then analyzes the vaporized rock to reveal its elemental composition. Like the ChemCam on rover Curiosity, SuperCam fires laser pulses at pinpoint areas smaller than 1 millimeter from more than 20 feet (about 7 meters) away.

Holy shit, that rocks.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#147

Post by azernik »

rsj_hn wrote: post #79
azernik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The helicopter hasn't flown yet - they put it down on the ground, and they're going to run it through a lot of remote checks before flying it. IIRC it's gonna be a month or two before first flight.

Thank you for this! Do you know of a source on the net for a simple timeline of when X will happen?

The ground controllers themselves don't know precisely. I suspect they'll have more precise timelines in the last week before flight, but that's just a wild guess on my part.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#148

Post by cco »

kgrimes2 wrote: post #138

All ya'll complaining that you can take better pictures with your iPhones than Percy can on Mars, please read this: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/ These are ENGINEERING cameras for taking incredibly precise measurements. Not for populating an Instagram page.

If they didn't include at least one Instagram ready camera, the team majorly misstepped on the "secure funding by inspiring a generation" part of NASA's mission.

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#149

Post by BelenusMordred »

Clewza313 wrote: post #77
rsj_hn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that 90% of the plastic in the ocean is dumped from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa where the waste disposal system consists of driving a truck up to a river and dumping the trash in. Of the remaining 10%, it comes from Latin American nations that do the same thing. Meanwhile western people see these masses of trash and plastic in the ocean and conclude the rational response is to ban straws in the western…

A lot of those effective waste disposal systems in the West, particularly for recycling, consist of paying Asian and African companies to take away the waste, so it can then be dumped in their countries/oceans or get "recycled" in places like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie

Plastic recycling done in Asia is the result of incredibly cheap return shipping as most containers come back empty.

People who get outraged about it don't understand that due to cheaper wages and energy costs, plus the need for raw feedstock in the manufacturing countries it's actually a really decent system. It's a closed loop where plastic goods are produced in Asia and recyclable plastic returns on the same ship, it gets processed and keeps raw material prices low for continued use in manufacturing for export again. It doesn't just get shipped there and thrown in a river.

The real problem, especially in South East Asia is very much cultural, many assumed that societies would become more environmentally friendly as they got richer but that is not the case, they are polluting more than ever. It's incredibly common to see people throw rubbish on the ground despite being right next to a bin. Nearly every waterway is horrendously polluted with plastic consumer products.

It's an externality that the rest of the world must bear. The other poster here is on the money, nearly all of it comes from a few catchments.

Half the plastic in the ocean comes from 5 countries, all are in Asia.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/asia-s-plastic-proble...

Re: NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images

#150

Post by kgrimes2 »

cco wrote: post #148
kgrimes2 wrote: post #138

All ya'll complaining that you can take better pictures with your iPhones than Percy can on Mars, please read this: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/cameras/ These are ENGINEERING cameras for taking incredibly precise measurements. Not for populating an Instagram page.

If they didn't include at least one Instagram ready camera, the team majorly misstepped on the "secure funding by inspiring a generation" part of NASA's mission.

Go show a kid the EDL video, and then try to say that again with a straight face
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