Curiosity Mars Rover

[quote=Anastasios]So, the Curiosity Rover succesfully landed on Mars earlier today. Since it is the heaviest rover to land on Mars, weighting almost 900 kilos, they had to come up with an entirely new system to assure a safe landing and not a crash, utilising a "sky crane", hovering about 8 meters above the surface and lowering the rover through a cable, then flying away and crashlanding about 150 meters further. Its main mission is to study whether Mars could ever support life, as well as the general climate and geology on Mars, and gather information to prepare a manned expedition. So, overall a huge success for a pioneer mission, congratulations to NASA, JPL, ULA, and generally everyone who took part in the mission. What are your thoughts?[/quote]

[quote=The LZ]Thoughts: Funny seeing a room full of people (control room) jump up and celebrate hugely, when nothing has been found yet. Even though of course it's not easy landing a rover on a different planet probably. What I'm getting at is, that it's funny to imagine that way out in the future, such landings are "meh" while now they're more like "OMFGYESYEYSY=(#03893hid YESSCORE!!!!!0000!!!!!" haha.[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]Prepare for a manned expedition? It's about time.[/quote]

[quote=Anastasios]A manned expedition isn't going to take place for at least 15-20 years, most likely even more imo. With the current state of economy, NASA's budget is getting butchered. Plus, they had to come up with a whole new way of landing an 1-ton rover, imagine a capsule with 2-3 humans, supplies, equipment, engines & fuel to get back into orbit for return... There is just no way they can do it in this state, they have neither the money nor the technology.[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]We do have the technology. And who the hell is talking about NASA? Don't count on America to be on the front of scientific discovery, their time as already passed.[/quote]

[quote=The LZ][quote=Canoas] We do have the technology. And who the hell is talking about NASA? Don't count on America to be on the front of scientific discovery, their time as already passed. [/quote] Epic +1. Wouldn't want them on the forefront tbh. At least not as the only ones.[/quote]

[quote=Anastasios]No agency ever does something alone concerning deep space exploration. In this rover's construction participated: -JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) -Ames Research Center -Los Alamos National Laboratory -US Department of Energy -Spanish Ministry of Education and Science -CNES, France's Space Agency -University of Guelph -University of New Brunswick -University of Western Ontario -University of California -San Diego and Cornell University -Canadian Space Agency -Finnish Meteorological Institute -MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) (Canadiean aerospace company) -Southwest Research Institute -Christian-Albrechts-Universität -Russian Federal Space Agency -Boeing -ULA (United Launch Alliance, Lockheed Martin + Boeing for spacecrafts) -ESA (European Space Agency) Also, no, we don't have the technology. To send people to Mars, you need to think that they will be alone for well over a year, under the effect of cosmic radiation, low/zero gravity, low light conditions. You need to have a reliable and safe way to land a very heavy load, conserving enough fuel to go back into orbit and attach to a spacecraft sent beforehand/along that can then travel back to Earth. Unless if you consider a suicide mission?[/quote]

[quote=Arkharan][quote=Anastasios] -MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) (Canadiean aerospace company) [/quote] YOU JUST WROTE CANAD[color=#ff0000]I[/color]A WRONG :<[/quote]

[quote=Anastasios][quote=Arkharan] YOU JUST WROTE CANAD[color=#ff0000]I[/color]A WRONG :< [/quote] Just a typo -_-[/quote]

[quote=Canoas][quote=Anastasios]No agency ever does something alone concerning deep space exploration.[/quote] No, but there's always one agency leading the cause which then asks who wants to help. Even regarding the asteroid that might hit earth on 2031 and destroy the entire American west cost it was still Russia that, even if completely unaffected by such catastrophe, volunteered to stop it, not the USA. I guess that says something right? [quote=Anastasios]To send people to Mars, you need to think that they will be alone for well over a year, under the effect of cosmic radiation, low/zero gravity, low light conditions. You need to have a reliable and safe way to land a very heavy load, conserving enough fuel to go back into orbit and attach to a spacecraft sent beforehand/along that can then travel back to Earth. Unless if you consider a suicide mission?[/quote] They won't die from the cosmic radiation, low gravity or lack of light. The fuel problem isn't really a problem either as there is a clear solution: send more fuel. The weigh isn't a problem as you can send the spacecraft half empty and only fill it with fuel in space. The landing is a problem but we do not need new technology for it, we just need to figure things out. There's not going to be a sudden discovery of anti-gravity mechanisms to land the spacecraft, whatever technology is used for it we already have it.[/quote]