The Mars Curiosity thread

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Babies and cats often survive falls from high-rise apartments, whereas adults are often killed when they fall from a first-floor window...

With cat's the bigger danger is falling from somewhere so low that they don't get a chance to 'right themselves' in time for impact. Anywhere above a few stories in height and they'll always reach terminal velocity before they land anyway, so they're just as likely to survive falling from a aircraft as they are falling from a tenth story window.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

...Babies and cats often survive falls from high-rise apartments, whereas adults are often killed when they fall from a first-floor window...

With cat's the bigger danger is falling from somewhere so low that they don't get a chance to 'right themselves' in time for impact. Anywhere above a few stories in height and they'll always reach terminal velocity before they land anyway, so they're just as likely to survive falling from a aircraft as they are falling from a tenth story window.

It is also thought they relax and enjoy the ride from a good height. Kitty goes "Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!"

[JimC]

Kitty goes "Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!"

Pass me that litter tray...

[rainbow]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Light takes 20 minutes to get here. Give them a minute, luv.

[Coito ergo sum]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Results were immediate, and astounding.

[rachelbean]

[FBM]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Results were immediate, and astounding.

I am FBM, and I approve of this post.

[rainbow]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Results were immediate, and astounding.

I am FBM, and I approve of this post.

You think?

[FBM]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Results were immediate, and astounding.

I am FBM, and I approve of this post.

You think?

Not when I can avoid it, no.

[Coito ergo sum]

...so when are we actually going to see any results from the probe?

Results were immediate, and astounding.

I am FBM, and I approve of this post.

You think?

Well, seeing something no human being has seen before is generally "astounding" to me. Others may differ.

Every step forward on Mars is astounding. When I was a kid, in the 1970s people were still writing books about whether there was a civilization living on Mars or whether there were canals on Mars, and much of it was big mystery. We could do mass spectroscopy and we did a flyby and rudimentary lander, but people were limited to a big red circle and some fuzzy images and that was that. We just landed a car-sized vehicle on Mars and it is driving around robotically conducting experiments and the images it took are, well, astounding. And, this is only the beginning.

[Clinton Huxley]

Have they managed to get the high gain antenna up yet?

[Coito ergo sum]

Should be running tomorrow. Since it landed, they've been trying out and adjusting different mechanisms. The antenna is working fine, but they are adjusting it's facing so that it can achieve the best signal to and from Earth.

[mistermack]

Fortunately, the small size and mass of Mars (compared to the Earth) more than offsets the sparse atmosphere when it comes to making the landing possible. The surface gravity is just over 1/3 of Earth's, so things weigh 1/3 as much. On an Earth sized planet with a similarly rarified atmosphere, it would be dead metal, not to mention deeply buried, by now.

Yes, of course the lower gravity helps.

But it definitely doesn't more than offset the sparse atmosphere. It helps, but that's all.

It's much easier to land heavy loads on Earth, even with our much stronger gravity.
The Lunar missions splashed down six tons of landing craft just using parachutes, with humans inside.
That's because the parachutes are so effective in our thick atmosphere.

That could never happen on Mars, even if you added air bags.
If they couldn't land an unmanned vehicle weighing one ton safely with a parachute, six tons would be just completely impossible.

The other problem with the thin atmosphere of Mars is that most of the retardation is needed because of the speed of travel of the mission, not the pull of gravity. If the craft is initially doing more than 10,000 mph relative to Mars, all of that horizontal speed needs to be scrubbed off before the craft can begin to drop verically by parachute.

The high atmosphere of Mars is so thin that it wouldn't be able to scrub all of that speed off just with the heatshield, the parachute would have to do a lot of the work.

[Clinton Huxley]

This is ridiculous! They are brazenly waving the conspiracy in our faces!

Curiosity project scientist, John Grotzinger said:-

You would really be forgiven for thinking that Nasa was trying to pull a fast one, and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and took a picture - a little Los Angeles smog coming in there.

Referring to the first pictures from the MastCam.