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Challenges of Getting to Mars

NASA's probe Curiosity is scheduled to land in the Gale Crater on Mars at about 05:31 UTC on August 6, 2012

Posted 12 years ago by boyt in category: space

Comments (14)

hockey - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

I must say this is pretty impressive. I have added the date to my calendar, looking forward to following it live on nasa.com

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scottie - 12 years ago

I also set a reminder

Fred (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

When its beginning its decent on the 21 foot of cable wont it get damaged by the heat of the jets? i mean if dust is an issue?

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Jojoe (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

No, heat is no problem as the jets are firing not straight down, but to some degree out. If you are interested there is a very good presentation on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q38AncYm2U&feature=player_embedded interesting engineering stuff

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Fred (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

Ah i see, thanks for the link.

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Good try (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

The chances of all of this working is about 10%. As to why not use a simple parachute system with a pad - is beyond me. I think NASA has way too much money on their hands.

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Toon (guest) - 12 years ago

From where do you get that 10%? Is that opinion or fact? And were you not listening? The atmosfeer is too thin for a parachute to slow it down completely.

Good try (guest) - 12 years ago

I got it from NASA. Only about 10% of all Mars missions even make it to the planet, much less land on it. As for the parachute - I said a system, which means a fast speed chute (drag) slows down the craft to 200mph, and then releases a second bigger parachute (or several).

Timaaayyyy (guest) - 12 years ago

You cant have too many parachutes because the weight of the parachute would be too heavy and cost too much money to send into space. Each pound that gets sent to space costs thousands of dollars, the parachute they are using was "100 lbs" if i heard right so right there that is a big chunk of money to use that method, so more parachutes would not work because that would mark up the price of the project significantly (sorry i thought i hit the reply button before)

Good try (guest) - 12 years ago

Sure the parachutes weigh a lot, BUT not as much as a friggin rocket powered crane with multiple propulsion systems, propelant (fuel), navigation and radar altimeter equipment, a winch for lowering the darn rover and gyroscopes for keeping the whole circus balanced and on course. Not to mention that after the crane deposits the rover, it will crash and burn somewhere in the Martian desert. This is a typical NASA argument - do you spend a ton of cash to develop a space pen, or use a pencil like the Russians?

Timaaayyyy (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

You cant have too many parachutes because the weight of the parachute would be too heavy and cost too much money to send into space. Each pound that gets sent to space costs thousands of dollars, the parachute they are using was "100 lbs" if i heard right so right there that is a big chunk of money to use that method, so more parachutes would not work because that would mark up the price of the project significantly

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Better try (guest) - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

You develop the space pen because its cooler and more advanced, just like AMERICA

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Good try (guest) - 12 years ago

America IS cool and advanced, but cant manage money very well. Now NASA has to hitch rides on the Russian rockets (which were designed in the 50s) for the astronauts to get to the ISS. And I thought the Americans would be building a base on Mars by now...

kingbriscoe23 - 12 years ago [ Reply ]

all i can say is WOW 0_0

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