HMSS Beagle

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 7:36 am

Thats "Her Majesty's Space Ship" for those who didn't know what HMSS stood for

Two days and counting.
Our own landers are not far behind. Stay tuned.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 10:56 am

The whichity what?

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 11:42 am

So it's going to be on TV for Boxing Day? Cool, boxing day evenings are usually quite boring.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 5:50 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mr. Perfect:
The whichity what?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The british Mars landing rover. Haven't you paid any attention to the news for the past week or so?

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 9:03 pm

Not really...

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 10:52 pm

It's landed and now the brits are waiting for a signal all is well.

Sarge · Post by **Sarge** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 10:54 pm

It's supposedly there now, but they're waiting for the long distance call... "MOMMY, I'M SCARED! Can I come home now?"

heh

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Last Updated: Thursday, 25 December, 2003, 02:54 GMT

Beagle spacecraft 'reaches Mars'

Beagle 2's inter-planetary journey took six months
The British-built spacecraft Beagle 2 is believed to have touched down on the surface of the planet Mars.
Scientists are awaiting ....
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3344693.stm

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 1:00 am

I'm going to say it before anyone else.

WE GET SIGNAL!
MAIN SCREEN TURN ON!

BlackFalcon · Post by **BlackFalcon** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 1:32 am

We're not gonna get any signals because the Martians keeps turning the probes off...

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 2:41 pm

I think it may have bounced one too many times.

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 3:13 pm

Apparently they are going to wait till midnight GMT time. 2 hours 46 minutes remaining.

ouch · Post by **ouch** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 7:53 am

Saw this.. I say don't stop looking but it's gone, concentrate on the orbiter mission. Try to get an image of the lander at some point.

C:\>ping Beagle 2

Pinging Beagle 2 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for Beagle 2:
Packets sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

C:\>

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 10:14 am

Suddenly some of NASA's recent failures dont look so bad, getting something all the way to mars and then getting it to land on mars and getting it to work is freaking hard to do, and NASA doesnt have the funding to do it right anymore.

Its too bad that it didnt work. I still think that NASA & all are insane wanting to do a manned mission to mars in less then 50 years. We can't even get a robot there 60% of the time!

-Krom

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:15 pm

Krom, I hate to say it but (actually, I love saying it!) you don't have a single clue what you are talking about. The only correct thing you say is that it is freaking hard to land on Mars.

The Beagle2 is a British effort. Nothing to do with NASA. The ENTIRE budget for designing, building, testing, launch and all mission costs is less than 35 Million Pounds Sterling. Around USD 65 Million. (This excludes the co-extant Mars orbiter)

That's less than the Price of a new F-14 Tomcat. For this amount of money you expect successful (soft!) landings on Mars. WTF?

NASA's budget is currently set at around 16 Billion US dollars annually. That's $16,000,000,000.00.

The budget for each NASA (Spirit and Opportunity) rover mission is around USD 600,000,000. That's six - hundred - million - dollars. For this kind of money you *DO* expect to make successful landings on Mars - especially when your last Martian Lander (The MPL) shuit down its engine when still a bit short of the actual ground.

Is it worth mentioning that typically, Martian probes will be 9 light minutes of lag away from Earth when they attempt a landing? I guess you already figured that if 300ms lag is tough, then a ping time of 540,000ms is the kiss of death for a remote controlled landing.

This means landings must be made by autonomous mechanisms, without help from human minds. Not just the landing, but the entry and deceleration phase also.

In 50 years time, we'll (Humans) be sending manned mission to the Icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn without difficulty. As to NASA doing it - well, that is up for debate.

As to sending men to Mars (The women will have to wait until we go to Venus

) inside 50 years? Dear God, if it takes that long it won't EVER happen, because we'll all be riding bicycles everywhere and burning cow dung on our fires to keep warm in the winter time.

A manned Mars mission is actually a piece of cake as far as landing is concerned. Sheeit, we got airless luna landings down pat in the 1960s - and that was using a computer with 8KB of memory running at 1MHz.

With a pilot on hand, landing on Mars is simple. It's getting OFF Mars which is the big issue for manned missions. The big issues I list below (in no order) and please note, landing is NOT one of them:

1) Exposure to radiation both in transit and while on the surface
2) Feeding the crew for 2 years
3) Maintaining the atmosphere
4) Dealing with waste
5) In-Situ Resource Utilisation - making enough fuel to get off Mars using the atmosphere as a resource
6) Providing enough drinking water for the crew. Can we use Martian water? Is it really there?
7) How to prevent humans from "contaminating" Mars.

How to prevent Mars contaminating the humans (??????)
9) Maintaining equipment, particularly space suits, and vehicles during the 9 month long stay on the surface.
10) Emergency evacuation of the surface - can it be done?

So, those are the tough nuts to crack. And let's make NO MISTAKE, they are dire problems indeed. But the solutions are "more of the same" rather than new problems. Existing engineering can handle it - the only question is cost.

What cost is the planet prepared to pay to put men on Mars? Current estimates range from 100 Billion for a "flags and footprints" type mission, all the way up to 200 Billion for a prolonged and continuous occupation of Mars - using Buzz Aldrin's "Castle" idea which provides non-stop service to Mars every 18 months - forever.

Personally, I feel that NASA *IS* incapable of sending men to Mars within 15 years, and I hope a mission is mounted by 2020. Why? Because there is not enough off-the-shelf technology to permit a manned Mars mission yet.

NASA needs to develop an extremely robust set of technologies and vehicles/expertise in order to qualify as an institution which should be allowed to make an attempt as a Mars mission.

The way for them to do this is to get back to the Moon and stay there. What is needed is:

1) Heavy Lift Launch technology - providing at least 50 metric tons of payload to Low Earth Orbit. It needs to be largely re-usable, or cheap enough to throw away each time.

2) Safe transfer craft: A permanently orbiting set of craft which cycle between the Moon and Earth on a permanent basis, perfecting the long-service mission which Mars requires.

3) A robust atmospheric re-entry and landing craft. This craft must land vertically, and will be derived from a similar vehicle designed to travel only from the lunar surface to Luna orbit and back again - repeatedly, with low maintenance, which can be serviced by people on the Luna surface.

4) Nuclear Prpulsion - to get our astronauts to and from Mars more quickly, reducing the payload of fuel and food.

5) Reliable methods of recycling waste completely, and growing a percentage of food in zero and low gravity environments.

6) Develop a system which is guaranteed to protect Mars from earth bacteria, and vice versa. This may in actual fact, be by far the hardest thing to achieve, and may prove impossible.

(My personal feeling is that we *will* discover life on Mars, but when we find it, it will be disappointingly similar to Earth-based life. I also think if earth bacteria *CAN* survive on Mars, then this is a GOOD thing, and will allow us to eventually terra-form the planet. Eventually means 1000+ years)

So Krom, stop being such a downer dude - we'll get there. And sooner than you think.

llClutchll · Post by **llClutchll** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:26 pm

Ok, Who pissed in Mobi's wheaties?

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:30 pm

Rumor has it that it didn't work because the antenna got bent, so they're gonna keep trying to make contact with it for a few more days.

Tyranny · Post by **Tyranny** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 3:33 pm

Mobi, sometimes you need to read before you put your foot in your mouth. He said this made recent NASA failures not look so bad, which meant that he knew that this wasn't an endevour of NASA.

Don't be so quick to jump on someone until you read AND understand what they've posted.

STRESSTEST · Post by **STRESSTEST** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 3:44 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by llClutchll:
Ok, Who pissed in Mobi's wheaties? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They don't have wheaties in the land of sheep sex, they have that f'ed up coffee cerial.. FYI

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 3:56 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Tyranny:
 Mobi, sometimes you need to read before you put your foot in your mouth. He said this made recent NASA failures not look so bad, which meant that he knew that this wasn't an endevour of NASA.

Don't be so quick to jump on someone until you read AND understand what they've posted.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since when has Mobi not put his foot in his mouth?

Like Gav, he likes to hear himself talk and look intelligent to everyone....and then gets smacked down back to his proper place.

llClutchll · Post by **llClutchll** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:15 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by STRESSTEST:
They don't have wheaties in the land of sheep sex, they have that f'ed up coffee cerial.. FYI<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh... That explains everything!

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:23 pm

I hope my piss tastes nice with coffee cereal then.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 6:31 pm

I think Mobi got it mostly right. The human factor will probably make all the difference in a successful landing attempt. To take Mobi's plan a step further, I think pre-caching supplies and equipment will be a requirement. The Red/Blue/Green Mars book series laid this out fairly well at the start.
With the pre-caching of equipment, we could then plan on a larger human contingent staying a longer period of time. We have demonstrated the ability to get craft to Mars, so now I think it is just a planning and organisational problem. Besides...we have to get there before the chi-coms do.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Mon Dec 29, 2003 4:37 pm

Nice one, Ouch!

STRESSTEST · Post by **STRESSTEST** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 1:19 pm

wait.. re up this thread... I wanna know what Mobi thinks about the landing from the US mission? Oh yeah, and the working equiptment? And the images? And the.... (get my point?) Probably not... One of your arguements was the cost... Well, I'd say throwing more money at it worked in this case, and add to that the US inginuity.. mwahahahaha Think of something clever to say, please.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 1:39 pm

On the orignal subject, has there been any word from beagle?

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:13 pm

None.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 6:41 pm

Looking grim for the puppy:

"Speaking from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, the ESA Science Director, Professor David Southwood, said," I have, I'm afraid, to make a sad announcement, that today, when we were in conditions we thought were very good for getting direct communication between Mars Express - the 'mother ship' - and Beagle 2 - the 'baby' - we did not get any content of a signal, nor indeed a signal from the surface of Mars."