Mars Rover Opportunity Update: June 21-24, 2013

In article ,
says...

thus far mercury, gemini, apollo, and shuttles were designed with little or no in flight repair ability by astronauts....

B.S. Just about every shuttle mission had astronauts helping to
troubleshoot and fix problems. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were not
much different when you consider that they were designed to have a man
in the loop.

the one exception is ISS which requires constant repairs....

So what? It's still flying isn't it? Despite your cries, it's still
doing what it was designed to do, isn't it?

now with a mult year mars mission some repairs will lkely occur, but with home so far away triple redundancy will likely be the first design spec, followed by easy to replace parts.....

More bobbert illogic. Why would triple redundancy be required with
people and spare parts available to fix failed systems? Were the
copiers you repaired triple redundant? Where do you get these stupid
ideas?

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article , says...

Le 07/07/13 01:32, Fred J. McCall a écrit :
Send men. It's cheaper

Men are nothing without their WOmen.

Isolated humans are quite more fragile than the ones living in couple.

What a strange coincidence isn't it?

:-)

But humans are complicated. Married are better off than singles, but
living in a bad marriage is even worst than living as a single...

Happily, robots have no such problems... until now, that is.

Since you brought it up, man + woman = babies. In the long term, a
colony is self sustaining for this very reason. Can a robot do that?
Certainly not with today's technology. Maybe not ever.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

Le 08/07/13 15:33, Jeff Findley a écrit :
Since you brought it up, man + woman = babies. In the long term, a
colony is self sustaining for this very reason. Can a robot do that?
Certainly not with today's technology. Maybe not ever.

Certainly not with today's technology.

Repairing robots is a nuisance. We will surely develop robots able to
make repairs to other robots. If robots are made of standardized parts,
simple repairs can be done by just replacing.

Then, when THAT problem is solved we will obviously find out that MAKING
those robots is a nuisance. Much better would be that they
read their construction plans and build themselves accordingly.

Then, we will have made living things.

jacob

"jacob navia" wrote in message ...

Le 01/07/13 19:06, Jeff Findley a écrit :
A drive was planned on Sol 3350 (June 26, 2013), and stopped almost
immediately
due to an even larger anomalous reading of that same potentiometer. The
plan ahead is to conduct a set of diagnostics on the joint
potentiometer.

I bet a good squirt of DeoxIT would fix that potentiometer issue...


Arthritis.

Opportunity is old, and its parts begin to fail.

Like us, she has knee problems in old age.

Considering how badly designed that knee is, without any
backup, it is astounding that this happens after TEN years.

And how easy is, to imagine two robots, and each one of them
gives a fix of DeoxIT to the other.

Two robots in a couple can fix themselves, or help themselves out of
a sand trap.

The sand trap that killed Spirit would have been fixable if Oppy
would have been nearby: It is highly unlikely that that sand trap
would happen to both of them if they travel in formation around 30
meters from each other.



And get 1/2 the science done for the same amount of money.

Not a good deal in my mind.


The next country that sends machines over there, could send them
in couples.


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

sent in groups of two to each landing location may not double the cost

one could be a rover only, while the second vehicle could have some roaming abilties, but be primarily a sample return vehicle.

they might be able to use just one launch vehicle, since they would be both landng in the same area. of course they would be built on a production line to minmize costs..

or there could be some flying repair rovers sent that could travel around to help rovers with troubles

no the majic pixie dust has corrupted your thnking......

in any case there are possible solutions if you dont have a closed mind.

like putting some rovers in mars orbit to be for helping as needed. land them when one gets stuck....

a nuclear power pack for minimal heat and power in winter might be helpful even on a solar powered vehicle

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

sent in groups of two to each landing location may not double the cost

You're right. It might actually more than double the cost.


one could be a rover only, while the second vehicle could have some roaming
abilties, but be primarily a sample return vehicle.


So now you're completely designing the rovers. So that increases costs.
Remember, Jacob's idea was to have either rover be able to help the other.
So you have to have at least that much functionality built in.


they might be able to use just one launch vehicle, since they would be both
landng in the same area. of course they would be built on a production line
to minmize costs..


Right, because it's trivial to double the payload of the launcher without
anything else changing.

And of course landing both close by w/o running into both physical
interference and radio interference issues.

or there could be some flying repair rovers sent that could travel around
to help rovers with troubles


Right, because we have a huge amount of experience of flying on Mars.




--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

no the majic pixie dust has corrupted your thnking......

in any case there are possible solutions if you dont have a closed mind.


It's not having a closed mind that's an issue. It's having a mind so wide
open you could sail the Titanic through it that's the problem.

There's thinking outside the box, and not recognizing where the box even is.

like putting some rovers in mars orbit to be for helping as needed. land
them when one gets stuck....

a nuclear power pack for minimal heat and power in winter might be helpful
even on a solar powered vehicle

You mean like they already do (for heating at least).




--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

a solar powered rover that included a RTG, for minimal heat and power during winter should dramatically extend the lifetimes of the rovers.....

a old style rover gets stuck in a sand trap, and is unable to position its solar panels properly, and dies from cold and lack of power....


a new style rover gets stuck but has sufficent power to carry on as a fixed science station till a solution to its problem is found.

which could include sending another lander to the same area to help free the stuck one, or replace it altogether.

finding a way to fly on mars possibly with a balloon ca be very useful for future manned operations

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

a solar powered rover that included a RTG, for minimal heat and power
during winter should dramatically extend the lifetimes of the rovers.....


Yes, because these have failed so early compared to their expected
lifetimes? Oh wait.

And of course now you've driven up launch costs again.

a old style rover gets stuck in a sand trap, and is unable to position its
solar panels properly, and dies from cold and lack of power....


While possible, hasn't happened yet. I don't know, might have something to
do with the engineers thinking through these issues.



a new style rover gets stuck but has sufficent power to carry on as a fixed
science station till a solution to its problem is found.

which could include sending another lander to the same area to help free
the stuck one, or replace it altogether.


But why?

If the rovers are so cheap as you want them to be... throw them away.

You can't have it both ways Bob. If you want them cheap enough to fly 100s,
you don't complicate them with the options you're describing.


finding a way to fly on mars possibly with a balloon ca be very useful for
future manned operations



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net