Humans Visiting Viking Lander(s) on Mars

Hobbs aka McDaniel ) wrote:
: A manned mission to visit one of the Viking landers could
: provide us info on how various materials on the landers
: have held up to the Martian atmosphere and which of these
: materials are best to use on that planet. How would you
: go about planning such a mission? Or is it not worth the
: likely trouble involved?

Makes perfect sense. As I recall Apollo 12 visited an unmanned probe
Ranger...oops (nice history of Ranger missions by Henry Spencer he
http://yarchive.net/space/apollo/ranger.html from right here nearly 7
years ago to the day!).

Anyway, Apollo 12 visted Surveyor 3. See he
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031005.html

I think that rather than study Surveyor, it was cannibal...err, salvaged
for parts. No atmosphere on the moon and all. But your suggestion of when
a manned mission to Mars actually occurs, seeing Viking or even the
current Mars rovers would definitely make sense. Given that they will have
to be on Mars for several months it stands to reason that they will have
time to do the searches rather than the short two week window we had with
Apollo.

Eric

: -McDaniel

: A manned mission to visit one of the Viking landers could
: provide us info on how various materials on the landers

Actually a rover mission to visit at least one of them might be really good.
Get to look over the next hill. See if the terrain changed since last
tramnsmission, do a visual for materials degradatiobn solar panel condition and
perhaps kick it tires.

Si\\ure would be nice to bring one home for a nmuseum display

In article ,
wrote:

Eric Chomko wrote:

Hobbs aka McDaniel ) wrote:
: A manned mission to visit one of the Viking landers could
: provide us info on how various materials on the landers
: have held up to the Martian atmosphere and which of these
: materials are best to use on that planet. How would you
: go about planning such a mission? Or is it not worth the
: likely trouble involved?

Anyway, Apollo 12 visted Surveyor 3. See he
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031005.html

I think that rather than study Surveyor, it was cannibal...err, salvaged
for parts. No atmosphere on the moon and all. But your suggestion of when
a manned mission to Mars actually occurs, seeing Viking or even the
current Mars rovers would definitely make sense. Given that they will have
to be on Mars for several months it stands to reason that they will have
time to do the searches rather than the short two week window we had with
Apollo.

Eric

: -McDaniel

Finding the unsuccessful ones would be just as interesting...I'd
*love* to see the places where a Ranger, a failed Surveyor or an S-IVB
stage impacted the moon (and see if there's anything recognizable left).

And when someone finally locates Mars Polar Lander or Beagle, I
predict a head-smacking "THAT'S what happened!" moment...

....or, more precisely, a helmet-smacking moment. (;^

Y'know, I've often wondered if one of the main desires motivating the
people developing finer-resolution cameras for Mars orbiting probes is the
hopes of finding MPL or Beagle (or the wreckage thereof). The MGS camera
was able to spot the MER-A lander, but I understand they had to do a
little technical fiddling, combined with the luck of having a
highly-reflective, geometrically-precise object lying against all that
rough dark red.

--
"All over, people changing their votes,
along with their overcoats;
if Adolf Hitler flew in today,
they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash.
__________________________________________________ _________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike Flugennock's Mikey'zine, dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:


It would be interesting to know if Surveyor 4 actually made it (0.4
deg N, 1.33 deg W, for the mission planners !) Losing contact 2 1/2
minutes before landing must have been painful.
But I doubt you'd find much from Ranger. The little craters have
actually been seen, complete with central peak in one case.


I want to get those steel commie pennants from Luna 2's impact.

Pat

Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

As I recall, Ranger probes were designed to crash into the moon
and take pictures as they approached. Not a failure then.


Numbers 1-2 were test spacecraft designed to try out the Ranger/Mariner
systems- they never made it out of Earth orbit; 3-5 were to hard land a
capsule on the moon; they were all flops, Ranger 6 (which also didn't
work), and the ones following it were the ones that did the photography.
The final score was three successes out of nine attempts.

Pat

Ranger 6 (which also didn't
work), and the ones following it were the ones that did the photography.
The final score was three successes out of nine attempts.

Pat


I remember how exciting those closest pictures were right before impact. Gee I
was a little kid then

Hallerb wrote:
solar panel condition and
perhaps kick it tires.

Vikings were powered by radioisotope thermal generators and did not have
tires.
http://calspace.ucsd.edu/Mars99/docs...chnology1.html

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message ...
Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

As I recall, Ranger probes were designed to crash into the moon
and take pictures as they approached. Not a failure then.

Numbers 1-2 were test spacecraft designed to try out the Ranger/Mariner
systems- they never made it out of Earth orbit; 3-5 were to hard land a
capsule on the moon; they were all flops, Ranger 6 (which also didn't
work), and the ones following it were the ones that did the photography.
The final score was three successes out of nine attempts.

The Soviets' Luna missions didn't fare too well, either, though, with
just as many probes lost in Earth orbit and missing the Moon by a wide
margin. But the Russians were the first ones to take a picture of the
backside of the Moon (which is the reason why there's a "Sea of Mos-
cow" there today and a crater named "Tsiolkovsky") and the first ones
to land a probe intact and take a surface panorama picture. Funnily
enough, though, the Americans received and decoded that probe's radio
signal before the Russians did, who were a little taken aback about
seeing the picture in Western newspapers before their own scientists
presented it.


--
__ "A good leader knows when it's best to ignore the __
('__` screams for help and focus on the bigger picture." '__`)
//6(6; ©OOL mmiv :^)^\\
`\_-/ http://home.t-online.de/home/ulrich....lmann/redbaron \-_/'

In article ,
Mike Flugennock wrote:
...The MGS camera
was able to spot the MER-A lander, but I understand they had to do a
little technical fiddling, combined with the luck of having a
highly-reflective, geometrically-precise object lying against all that
rough dark red.

They've got a new scanning technique that not only gives higher
resolution, but also improves the signal/noise ratio. But yes, Spirit was
an easy case because it's so contrasty -- they spotted the parachute and
the backshell as well. They've now used the same technique on the
Pathfinder landing site (and I think on Viking 1 as well, although I
haven't seen the images), and it's much less impressive: there's a tiny
feature, which you would otherwise mistake for just another rock, which is
almost certainly the lander because it's in exactly the right place.
There just isn't enough contrast once things get covered with dust.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

In article ,
Mike Flugennock wrote:
...combined with the luck of having a
highly-reflective, geometrically-precise object lying against all that
rough dark red.

Mars actually isn't red, it's much more brown. The surface color at the
Pathfinder site -- it's probably much the same elsewhere, given all the
wind-blown dust -- is approximately butterscotch.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |