1/5/2004: Welcome to Mars

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by SteveDallas
Anyway. All this Mars business is interesting, but I just hope we're finally able to succeed in landing people on the moon. Now THAT would be a cool accomplishment!!

Don't be silly, they'd sink into the cheese.

[tjennings]

With the apparent Mars mission curse that has plagued us earthlings for the last several missions, I wonder if NASA has considered the possiblity that the second lander would fall on and obliterate their first lander. Calculating the odds of that would be a good task to keep an intern busy for a week or so.

That would be a press conference to behold.

[Elspode]

It *would* be quite the colossal fuckup, since the second lander is supposed to land clean on the other side of the planet. Of course, that distance is a relatively small fraction of the total distance the lander has travelled, so it would still be a very near miss by outer space standards...

[tw]

Originally posted by Kitsune
If I remember correctly, and dammit I can't find the source, it takes 3.5 minutes to get a command to Mars via radio and 3.5 minutes to get an acknowledgement back from the rover due to distance. So seven minutes after they've sent "move forward", they actually know that it has.

At about 103 million miles distant, that would be about 9.25 minutes to get a signal out or 18.5 minutes for a full duplex response.

[Mojo The Monkey]

Originally posted by tw
At about 103 million miles distant, that would be about 9.25 minutes to get a signal out or 18.5 minutes for a full duplex response.

The distance to Mars is variable, so the communication lag is variable, too. I think the longest lag (if Earth is on one side of the sun, and Mars is on the other) would be something like 44 minutes.

[tw]

Originally posted by Mojo The Monkey
The distance to Mars is variable, so the communication lag is variable, too. I think the longest lag (if Earth is on one side of the sun, and Mars is on the other) would be something like 44 minutes.

One reason why this mission has a 'window' is that Mars is currently so close to earth. At its closest, Mars would be 35 million miles or 6.25 minutes full duplex communication. Current distance last reported was 103 million miles. Max distance (when sun did not obstruct communication) would take something like 44 minutes full duplex.

[glatt]

NASA has a pretty neat picture up of the rover Opportunity driving around the rim of a deep crater. The 1MB high resolution version clearly shows the tire tracks going off into the distance around the crater.

The rover has already exceeded all expectations for longevity. Scientists are thinking now that it might last for years.

[jaguar]

The distance to Mars is variable, so the communication lag is variable, too. I think the longest lag (if Earth is on one side of the sun, and Mars is on the other) would be something like 44 minutes.

I guess the first base is going to have a bitch of a time joining a quake game with that kind of ping.