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Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#21

Post by emillon »

icambron wrote: post #20
m_for_monkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing compared to medical software, for example. All you can lose here is some money, but no human life in danger. Some more perspective.

I disagree. 2.5 billion dollars is worth a lot of lives. Consider how many people you could save from, say, malnutrition with that money. I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot. And we as a society have decided that space exploration is actually more important than saving those people. Now, you can agree or disagree with society on that point, but either way, a lot is riding on this, even measured in…

> I disagree. 2.5 billion dollars is worth a lot of lives. Consider how many people you could save from, say, malnutrition with that money.

With that argument you could argue that any loss of money is unimportant, because it could have been used better. This amount has been invested for Mars exploration, so a mission failure would be a net loss.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#22

Post by zrgiu_ »

pattern wrote: post #19
sliverstorm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I had heard the issue was Curiosity was to be heavier than past probes, and they weren't confident the old airbag method could handle the weight gently enough.

Additionally, the "violently tumble while marginally protected by airbags" plan isn't a viable method for eventually landing humans on Mars! One more reason to come up with a "gentler" descent :)

actually, with a human on board you have other, less complicated options. We've been using them for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_Jump_Jet

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#23

Post by epo »

icambron wrote: post #20
m_for_monkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing compared to medical software, for example. All you can lose here is some money, but no human life in danger. Some more perspective.

I disagree. 2.5 billion dollars is worth a lot of lives. Consider how many people you could save from, say, malnutrition with that money. I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot. And we as a society have decided that space exploration is actually more important than saving those people. Now, you can agree or disagree with society on that point, but either way, a lot is riding on this, even measured in…

I really hope you are joking. You really want to maintain this money was diverted from being spent on tackling malnutrition? The US spending on Iraq must really tick you off.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#24

Post by yread »

icambron wrote: post #20
m_for_monkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing compared to medical software, for example. All you can lose here is some money, but no human life in danger. Some more perspective.

I disagree. 2.5 billion dollars is worth a lot of lives. Consider how many people you could save from, say, malnutrition with that money. I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot. And we as a society have decided that space exploration is actually more important than saving those people. Now, you can agree or disagree with society on that point, but either way, a lot is riding on this, even measured in…

related: http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/26/how-much-is-an-astrona...

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#25

Post by rimantas »

sliverstorm wrote: post #12
hartror wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dust & gravel situation was only one reason the sky-crane was used. The other options of traditional lander or air bags have worse issues beyond dust and gravel and in the case of a lander the dust and gravel issues are worse.

Really? I had heard the issue was Curiosity was to be heavier than past probes, and they weren't confident the old airbag method could handle the weight gently enough.

IIRC, one of the engineers said that material to make airbags strong enough to handle rover of this weight does not exist.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#26

Post by smackfu »

rimantas wrote: post #25
sliverstorm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I had heard the issue was Curiosity was to be heavier than past probes, and they weren't confident the old airbag method could handle the weight gently enough.

IIRC, one of the engineers said that material to make airbags strong enough to handle rover of this weight does not exist.

Also, they don't really want a solution that works up to the size of this rover. They want one that works for 5x or 10x the weight of this one, that could be used for manned missions. Curiosity is meant to be a test for that as part of the mission. Similar to how Mars Pathfinder was a science mission but also a test for the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#27

Post by icambron »

epo wrote: post #23
icambron wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. 2.5 billion dollars is worth a lot of lives. Consider how many people you could save from, say, malnutrition with that money. I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot. And we as a society have decided that space exploration is actually more important than saving those people. Now, you can agree or disagree with society on that point, but either way, a lot is riding on this, even measured in…

I really hope you are joking. You really want to maintain this money was diverted from being spent on tackling malnutrition? The US spending on Iraq must really tick you off.

Not joking. If you have 2.5 billion dollars, you can spend it on what you want. Congress shifts money around all the time. They just want to spend it on rovers.

Now, to be clear, I think there are plenty of good arguments that spending a marginal 2.5 billion dollars to put a robot on Mars is actually the right call, in terms of its long term benefits for humanity. Wasn't taking a position on that either way. My point is just that you can measure the cost (and, by assumption, benefits if we're successful) in units of human lives, and that it's a big number. That's wiped out if the rover crashes, so a lot is riding on that code.

You might argue that the risk of failure is priced into the tradeoff society made. You might also argue that not all of the value of sending the rover is destroyed if the landing fails. Those both seem uncompelling, but I haven't thought too hard about it.

US spending on Iraq does, in fact, really tick me off. It's an enormously inefficient use of resources.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#28

Post by thomasf1 »

mbell wrote: post #5
thomasf1 wrote: post #3

The final drop is quite messy, there´s a lot of dust. I wonder how happy NASA is with the sky-crane solution - would they do it again as the new standard for mars rovers or is it in the "nice try" category?

From the press conferences I've watched there seems to be more debris on the rover than expected so its possible it wasn't as successful as they wanted. It could also just be that they landed in an area particularly prone to debris, I'll let the experts sort that out.

It´s a interesting problem though... I still find it mind boggling that they pulled of that landing sequence... It´s so much more complex than the airbag idea of the last landing.

Re: Watch Out Mars: 1080 HD Video of Curiosity Descent

#29

Post by gcr »

icambron wrote: post #27
epo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope you are joking. You really want to maintain this money was diverted from being spent on tackling malnutrition? The US spending on Iraq must really tick you off.

Not joking. If you have 2.5 billion dollars, you can spend it on what you want. Congress shifts money around all the time. They just want to spend it on rovers. Now, to be clear, I think there are plenty of good arguments that spending a marginal 2.5 billion dollars to put a robot on Mars is actually the right call, in terms of its long term benefits for humanity. Wasn't taking a position on that either way. My point…

Apple's recent settlement of $1B puts this thought in another related perspective.

Consider that we've lost over a third of an interplanetary mission in pointless legal battles.

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