191–200 of 359 posts
https://spacenews.com/china-russia-open-moon-base-project-to...
"Hey NASA, can I copy your homework"? "uhhh..." "It's okay, I'll just change it up a little bit so it doesn't look like a 1:1 copy of Spirit and Opportunity" https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-tianwen-1-enters-mars-orbit/a-5... More seriously, there's probably only so many valid 6-wheeled rocker bogey suspension type rover designs that are possible, but the resemblance is uncanny. NASA also likely spent a lot of time study…
Please don't lead with flamebait. You couldn't do anything more destructive to a thread like this. You're far from the only one doing it, but it's dismaying to see from such an established account. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It makes me concerned thinking about what kind of biological contamination this rover might have brought to Mars that may seriously hamper the search for signs of past native life. JPL is very forthcoming about their cleanliness procedures, China not so much. And they don’t exactly have a great track record in this respect.
For me what has always been amazingly fascinating about all of these missions (even more so for the Voyager missions) is to be able to work with so much latency! In today's world, where we are used to working with millisecond latencies across thousands of kilometers, just to be able to do something with latency of minutes to tens of hours, boggles my mind! Amazing accomplishment of humankind!
When the Voyager missions were launched most of the world didn't have international calling. So making a call from lets say Somalia to the US, involved finding a post office with the only international line in town and "booking" a call. Which meant you had to walk over and write down your name (and if you were lucky enough to have a local landline your 4 digit phone number) in a ledger and then walk back home to sit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All things considered, 90 days is pretty good for how harsh of an environment Mars can be. Also, there are dozens of ways to make the mission last longer but no ways of accomplishing that without adding more weight.
This makes me think about the way we define “harsh”. What’s actually so harsh about Mars? Let’s imagine some alien civilization tries to send a probe to Earth, they’d be saying things like: “Dude, that atmosphere is gonna burn our shit up before it even touches ground, if we’re not careful.” “Holy shit, what are these huge animals with long noses and big ears? They’re gonna destroy our probe if they walk over it.” “L…
To the (flagged) comments about China stealing research: I’ll abstract from lack of evidence. Just stealing isn’t enough. Russia, I believe, ended up admitting stealing research on the Space Shuttle, and despite that their own project never really materialised. Even. You steal, that lets you catch up, not overtake. So even if China is helping themselves (again, I don’t know), they still have to innovate and improve.…
For me what has always been amazingly fascinating about all of these missions (even more so for the Voyager missions) is to be able to work with so much latency! In today's world, where we are used to working with millisecond latencies across thousands of kilometers, just to be able to do something with latency of minutes to tens of hours, boggles my mind! Amazing accomplishment of humankind!
When the Voyager missions were launched most of the world didn't have international calling. So making a call from lets say Somalia to the US, involved finding a post office with the only international line in town and "booking" a call. Which meant you had to walk over and write down your name (and if you were lucky enough to have a local landline your 4 digit phone number) in a ledger and then walk back home to sit…
I'm curious, their landing vehicle seems to have less moving parts than the respective US rovers that use a complex sky-crane. Is there a particular benefit to using the sky-crane?
To the (flagged) comments about China stealing research: I’ll abstract from lack of evidence. Just stealing isn’t enough. Russia, I believe, ended up admitting stealing research on the Space Shuttle, and despite that their own project never really materialised. Even. You steal, that lets you catch up, not overtake. So even if China is helping themselves (again, I don’t know), they still have to innovate and improve.…