General > General Technical Chat
One Day Until "Seven Minutes of Terror"
MikeK:
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--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on February 21, 2021, 02:44:33 am ---The instrumentation tells they way more than video. And microphones are pretty pointless on a planet with almost no atmosphere (about 1% Earth's). I'd bet on it being more of a PR thing, to get public interest.
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I suppose helicopters are pointless too. Oh, they have one.
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Straw man arguments are pointless.
CatalinaWOW:
Well let me rephrase it. An atmosphere thick enough to carry a helicopter is thick enough to carry sound. While it would be reasonable to question the value of an audio instrument, discrediting it on a physics basis is clearly incorrect.
It is possible that there is nothing to learn from a microphone. But the cost is low, in weight, in bandwidth and elsewhere, so why not. One use that seems possible is characterizing the surface based on the sounds the tires make. I know that works for snow under certain conditions here on earth. There are other known possibilities and best of all would be if we learned something new and unexpected.
Larryc001:
A few years ago, my wife and I visited LA on an adult vacation. Yes we went to Disneyland but also to Santa Anita Racetrack, Cal Tech and yes, JPL. So we toured those very areas where you watched on tv during the Mars landing. At that time, they were still working on getting data from the first rovers. We were most impressed by the engineers, scientists and workers who could develop a project which took years, and then shot it off into space. After a few months, the whole world watched you succeed, or not. No second chances and no place to hide. Personally, as a guy who can get lost in his own house, I have nothing but admiration for these people. Here in Canada we don’t make many mistakes. That’s because we really don’t do a whole hell of a lot. The Americans make a lot of mistakes, some of them huge. Maybe that’s because they do a lot. Also, I think Mars is looking more like Texas all the time.
DrG:
I love seeing this stuff. It is inspirational because humans need to achieve. That hunk of material is actually up there futzin around, heh. For a species that can't decide whether to create or destroy, I say, celebrate the wins.
iMo:
--- Quote from: imo on February 18, 2021, 09:21:03 pm ---I wonder why we do not have a video from the landing - ie. video made off the skycrane sent to MRO..
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:-+
NASA live on the video:
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