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The NASA MSL Rover Discussion Thread
- Thread starter eagandale4114
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I'm at the restaurant, and there's a guy just behind me complaining about the quality of the pictures, and how cheap it was for NASA to put such a bad camera on the rover, considering how inexpensive DSLR are these days!!
Yup.... NASA spent $2.5 billion on Curiosity, and went with cheapo cameras. Makes sense
I'm at the restaurant, and there's a guy just behind me complaining about the quality of the pictures, and how cheap it was for NASA to put such a bad camera on the rover, considering how inexpensive DSLR are these days!!
Sure their network can handle images of that size. Screw the 14 minutes or so it takes for the 64x64 black and white images to get here.
Yup.... NASA spent $2.5 billion on Curiosity, and went with cheapo cameras. Makes sense
They put their money where they had to, making as sure as possible they could get the darn thing safely where it was supposed to end up in order to do its piece of the work. Their entire budget is tiny compared to what we slopped into Iraq to get back what we got on that investment, which was... let's see... well I wouldn't want this thread to end up in PRSI.
They have other more sophisticated cameras aboard anyway. They didn't need fancy ones to phone home about a safe landing.
It's probably not a joke, unfortunately. Not half of all "failed" mars missions actually failed in the slightest.
I'm sure they had more pressing things to worry about - more responding to the idea that if only NASA had loaded Curiosity with $800 DSLRs that would have satisfied the person in the quote.
You'll get no argument from me about the budget.... it's worth watching Neil deGrasse Tyson's testimony on the matter. Out of every dollar in the federal budget, half a penny goes to NASA. We're doing this now, what could we do if we simply doubled that and gave NASA one whole penny out of every dollar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKlA_UnX8c
You'll get no argument from me about the budget.... it's worth watching Neil deGrasse Tyson's testimony on the matter. Out of every dollar in the federal budget, half a penny goes to NASA. We're doing this now, what could we do if we simply doubled that and gave NASA one whole penny out of every dollar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKlA_UnX8c
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Yes, I was tempted to go to his table and tell him about transfer times, wavelenghts, and more generally how the point wasn't to go there to take pretty postcard pictures. but I didn't bother. It got me thinking, however, into how important it is to have a component of "public domain" and how adding some eye candy and PR can make that public opinion, represented by individuals like this one don't feel cheated by scientific endeavors and discoveries, and that one of the points of the mission is actually to take pretty postcard pictures
Glad to see the landing was successful.
I am a big follower and supporter of space exploration programs.
It is just too bad the budget keeps getting cut and progress is not as fast as I would like it to be.
And I'd prefer they didn't just focus on finding life.
If they did find microscopic organisms on Mars, or something more significant, it actually might hinder further development on that planet. Then we'd have to worry about contaminating a virgin environment, or vice versa: one day bringing contaminants back to Earth. On the other hand, if life is not found on Mars, we'd be free to pave over what we want, mine minerals, etc. -- no tree-huggers acting on behalf of Martian life.
I am a big follower and supporter of space exploration programs.
It is just too bad the budget keeps getting cut and progress is not as fast as I would like it to be.
And I'd prefer they didn't just focus on finding life.
If they did find microscopic organisms on Mars, or something more significant, it actually might hinder further development on that planet. Then we'd have to worry about contaminating a virgin environment, or vice versa: one day bringing contaminants back to Earth. On the other hand, if life is not found on Mars, we'd be free to pave over what we want, mine minerals, etc. -- no tree-huggers acting on behalf of Martian life.
This really is an awesome thing. That rover should be able to unearth (unmars?) loads of very important and interesting findings.
The longevity of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers still astounds me.
What's got me excited more than anything, though, is the Cassini-Huygens probe that's been orbiting Saturn. It's fly-bys of Titan and Enceladus are revealing things that are truly amazing, but most of the world is yawning, I fear. Even this Mars rover won't impress the masses. Unless Snooki shows up or something.
The longevity of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers still astounds me.
What's got me excited more than anything, though, is the Cassini-Huygens probe that's been orbiting Saturn. It's fly-bys of Titan and Enceladus are revealing things that are truly amazing, but most of the world is yawning, I fear. Even this Mars rover won't impress the masses. Unless Snooki shows up or something.
Even this Mars rover won't impress the masses. Unless Snooki shows up or something.
McKayla is not impressed.
Can't get enough of that tumblr. Hopefully by Sochi...
Ready for Curiosity to get moving. Imagine the threads if it took this long every time you upgraded OSs.
Yup.... NASA spent $2.5 billion on Curiosity, and went with cheapo cameras. Makes sense
Annoying isn't it?
But if they changed 1 specification then it would involve months of testing.
^^
That is impressive...I just hope Curiosity is fully mobile and can conduct all the exploration planned. So far, things seem to be going really well.
That is impressive...I just hope Curiosity is fully mobile and can conduct all the exploration planned. So far, things seem to be going really well.