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NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 7th 19, 01:59 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
RichA[_6_]
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Posts: 1,076
Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty stupid.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47469071

  #2  
Old March 7th 19, 08:27 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
StarDust
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 4:59:22 PM UTC-8, RichA wrote:
Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty stupid.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47469071


Maybe hit an alien skull, hard as diamond?
  #3  
Old March 7th 19, 03:22 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 16:59:19 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty stupid.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47469071


First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.

If you knew anything about engineering, you'd know about design
tradeoffs and cost/benefit analyses.
  #4  
Old March 7th 19, 11:49 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Davoud[_1_]
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

RichA:
Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty
stupid.


Chris L Peterson:
First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


Has it occurred to you that what the probe hit was not a rock at all,
but RichA's "brain," frozen and fossilized these billions of years?

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm
  #5  
Old March 8th 19, 02:57 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
palsing[_2_]
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 4:59:22 PM UTC-8, RichA wrote:

Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty stupid.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47469071


From your own link, which you apparently did not read with full comprehension...

"... But the presence of hidden rocks was always a possibility, and even expected."

\Paul A

  #6  
Old March 9th 19, 02:22 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
RichA[_6_]
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Thursday, 7 March 2019 17:49:50 UTC-5, Davoud wrote:
RichA:
Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty
stupid.


Chris L Peterson:
First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


Has it occurred to you that what the probe hit was not a rock at all,
but RichA's "brain," frozen and fossilized these billions of years?


I'm not one the with a $$$$$$ probe that's stuck. Whatsamatter? Would adding some COST to the thing to make it work more flexibly have taken away money from the ISS??

  #7  
Old March 9th 19, 08:52 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:22:04 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


If you knew anything about engineering, you'd know about design
tradeoffs and cost/benefit analyses.


A naive person such as myself - and such as any number of Congressmen - would
have thought that given that it costs billions of dollars to send a probe to
Mars, and if drilling beneath the Martian surface was an important part of that
probe's science mission, then any extra cost to make "the probe retractable and
repositionable" would have been not merely well worth it, but imperative.

Now, if that probe instead was simply a *minor* part of the probe, tacked on at
the last minute, then that it wouldn't have the volume or weight budget to do
anything but drill once wherever it's stuck *would* be reasonable. I don't know
which is the case, so I'm not prepared to castigate NASA at this point - but I'm
not prepared to exonerate them either.

John Savard
  #8  
Old March 9th 19, 08:59 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Posts: 7,018
Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 12:53:01 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:22:04 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


If you knew anything about engineering, you'd know about design
tradeoffs and cost/benefit analyses.


A naive person such as myself - and such as any number of Congressmen - would
have thought that given that it costs billions of dollars to send a probe to
Mars, and if drilling beneath the Martian surface was an important part of that
probe's science mission, then any extra cost to make "the probe retractable and
repositionable" would have been not merely well worth it, but imperative.

Now, if that probe instead was simply a *minor* part of the probe, tacked on at
the last minute, then that it wouldn't have the volume or weight budget to do
anything but drill once wherever it's stuck *would* be reasonable. I don't know
which is the case, so I'm not prepared to castigate NASA at this point - but I'm
not prepared to exonerate them either.


Having read the article, I see the situation is not as bad as all that.

1) Apparently the probe's design is such that it has a good chance of pushing
this second rock it has encountered out of the way given plenty of hammering
time, and so this may be attempted later.

2) The probe is only meant to measure the subsurface temperature of Mars; it
isn't intended to pick up a core sample for a sample return mission or something
else of similarly critical importance.

3) It has already penetrated to a sufficient depth that it can perform the
temperature measurements needed for at least the earlier parts of the experiment
for which it was designed.

Thus I am now quite prepared to accept that the limitations of the probe are
reasonable as a cost-benefit tradeoff.

John Savard
  #9  
Old March 10th 19, 11:08 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Posts: 10,007
Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Fri, 8 Mar 2019 23:52:58 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7:22:04 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


If you knew anything about engineering, you'd know about design
tradeoffs and cost/benefit analyses.


A naive person such as myself - and such as any number of Congressmen - would
have thought that given that it costs billions of dollars to send a probe to
Mars, and if drilling beneath the Martian surface was an important part of that
probe's science mission, then any extra cost to make "the probe retractable and
repositionable" would have been not merely well worth it, but imperative.


It is precisely the sort of thing that could make the entire mission
impossible, by adding significant cost and complexity to the design,
making it unfeasible to include other instruments, or making
everything less reliable. A change like that would impact almost every
system on the lander.

(InSight is part of the Discovery program, which funds relatively
inexpensive missions. The InSight budget is $830 million. A heavier,
more power hungry, retractable probe- which would need to operate on a
completely different principle than the simple impact probe now in
use- could easily have killed the entire program. It might never have
been funded at all given a higher budget or greater opportunity for
mechanical failure.)
  #10  
Old March 10th 19, 11:09 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Posts: 10,007
Default NASA never expected to have to re-position its drilling probe?

On Fri, 8 Mar 2019 17:22:23 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

On Thursday, 7 March 2019 17:49:50 UTC-5, Davoud wrote:
RichA:
Ever dig in soil and hit a rock? Seems NASA didn't expect it. Pretty
stupid.


Chris L Peterson:
First of all, NASA didn't design this probe. Second, it was entirely
expected that the probe could hit something that would slow it down or
that it couldn't get through. Making the probe retractable and
repositionable was not a practical option.


Has it occurred to you that what the probe hit was not a rock at all,
but RichA's "brain," frozen and fossilized these billions of years?


I'm not one the with a $$$$$$ probe that's stuck. Whatsamatter? Would adding some COST to the thing to make it work more flexibly have taken away money from the ISS??


Adding another 100 million or so would price the entire mission out of
the Discover Program. It wouldn't even have happened.
 




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