MARS!

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LovelyLadyLux
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MARS!

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

The countdown to the new Mars landing is on! Am quite excited about what this new space craft "Insight" will find out. The brain power and calculations that it would take to even begin to figure out how to launch and land on Mars (8th time the USA has landing too) is beyond me.

From what I've read Insight is a stationary device unlike the Rovers and will be digging down something like 5 meters and then doing research analysis on what it finds. All with an 8 minute delay.

Going to be interesting. Amazing how space travel has evolved.


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Re: MARS!

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

From what I've read and heard here the Mars landing was successful. Going to be real interesting to find out what lies below!
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Re: MARS!

Post by Grandad »

LovelyLadyLux wrote:From what I've read and heard here the Mars landing was successful. Going to be real interesting to find out what lies below!
Rock and yet more rock I expect LLL. Nonetheless, a great achievement to get the Insight explorer to land upright, fortunately just missing some boulders so we are being told.

Great engineering feat but I can't get too excited I'm afraid. Too many problems down here on terra firma....We may not even have a long term future to go exploring heavenly bodies?
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Re: MARS!

Post by Mad Dilys »

Exactly Grandad! As I am of a very cynical nature I wonder why the great powers are spending obscene amounts of money on space exploration when there are mass migrations around the world by desperate people trying to secure a future for themselves and their families here on earth.

I suspect that, as usual the answer will be money. Those who are profiting from space exploration are living for today and themselves - anyone or anything else is not considered. Perhaps it's true as the song says, Money is the root of all evil?
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Re: MARS!

Post by Grandad »

Exactly MD. In my comment I was inferring that at some time in the future, life on earth as we know it will come to an end. Might sound gloomy but it has happened before and I have no doubt it will happen again.
And there is no way that we will move like a Noahs Ark to some distant planet to start life again.....that's just sci-fi
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Re: MARS!

Post by Mad Dilys »

Absolutely Grandad. Surely anyone with an ounce of brain can see that nothing is for ever and you can't avoid the inevitable, just enjoy the all wonderful things around us for as long as we can and leave the world in a good state for our descendants.

I like simple things - when I lived in the country I occasionally laid flat on the ground looking at the busy micro world under the meadow grass stems. It gives me a sense of proportion and lack of self importance. The tiny insects often only lived for a few days, but they worked hard for those few days and like us prepared for the next generation as well as possible. Something I found that was new to me, were tiny bees nests no bigger than a walnut cared for by solitary bees. Amazing.
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Re: MARS!

Post by Horus »

Good grief! Listening to you lot its like the old question of “What did the Romans ever do for us?”
The usual answer starts with “well they gave us straight roads, heated houses, baths, aqueducts, concrete, a calender, fast food” “Yes yes, but apart from those things, what did the Romans ever do for us?”

So lets start with The Global Positioning System (GPS) invaluable in today’s world for all types of navigation and to enable mobile phones to be used.

Ultra light materials developed for spacecraft now used in everyday engineering and construction, not to mention Teflon a material developed for astronauts spacesuits.

Miniaturisation of electrical equipment such as the components found in computers and mobile phones.
A fluid physics experiments conducted by astronauts in space, found that the device used for a NASA colloids experiment might be able to detect cataracts, possibly earlier than ever before. The device is now being used to assess the effectiveness of new, non-surgical therapies for early stages of cataract development. It is also being adapted as a pain-free way to identify other eye diseases, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimers.

NASA invented a system to monitor and test food production to try to assure that the astronauts on the way to the moon would not get food poisoning. Twenty-five years later, the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department adopted that safety system for all of us, and a year later, according to industry, the number of cases of salmonella dropped by a factor of two.

Multi-spectral imaging methods used for seeing and understanding the Martian surface have been applied to badly charred Roman manuscripts that were buried during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and examining those carbonized manuscripts under different wavelengths of light suddenly revealed writing that had been invisible to scholars for two centuries.

Satellite communications systems and advanced weather predicting that save thousands of lives annually.

Advanced robotics, many now used in medical procedures.

Waste management and recycling.

Engineering and computer software.

Red light-emitting diodes are growing plants in space and healing humans on Earth. The LED technology used in NASA space shuttle plant growth experiments has contributed to the development of medical devices to relieve pain in bone marrow transplant patients, and will be used to combat the symptoms of bone atrophy, multiple sclerosis, diabetic complications and Parkinsons disease.

Impact cushioning materials developed by NASA are being used in prosthetics to make them more comfortable and even your modern memory foam mattress is a spin off from this technology.

NASA contributed to the VAD heart pump used to keep patients alive during surgery or until a donor can be found.

A material developed for space module landing parachute cords was so strong it was used by Goodyear tyres to improve radial tyres for cars and gave a 10,000 mile improvement over a conventional radial.

Imaging technology for cameras.

Heat protecting materials developed from the re-entry heat shield technology that are now used in paint products and building fire protection.
All battery powered tools and household devices owe their origin to space exploration technology and the need for self contained equipment that would work in space.

Even Freeze Dried foods are the result of needing to provide lightweight nutritious food for astronauts.

What about Solar Panels and all the devices you use that charge themselves via sunlight from calculators to garden lights? All spin offs.

MRI scanners!

I could go on as the list is endless.

A famous scientist ( Neil deGrasse Tyson) once gave a great example:
If you gave a experts in Thermodynamics a huge amount of money and asked them to invent a better oven, then they may come up with something that allowed easier access to the food, or saved more energy etc. but …….. they would never have invented a Microwave oven … Why? Simply because that came from other unrelated fields such as communications in radar, the microwave oven is the result of war research! And so it is with space exploration, it is so easy to just dismiss it as unimportant without seeing all of the spin off benefits it has made to our way of life. And not forgetting the many tens of thousands who earn a livelihood from being employed in all of the spin off technology companies and NASA itself. Forget about improving third world countries, they will have even less if these jobs cease to exist.
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Re: MARS!

Post by Grandad »

Horus, although I accept everything you say about developments in science and technology being led by the development of the exploration of space, I don't think one of your examples is the result of landing some space vehicle on Mars, Jupitor or any other body rotating in our universe.
We have the international Space Station for experiments in space; and we have satellites for communication and defence. We didn't need to send some vehicle to Mars to get the information and development that these have brought. This has all been done without the need to go to the outer reaches of the solar system.
Oh and you forgot one other thing developed during space programs.....WD40 ;)
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Re: MARS!

Post by Horus »

I didn’t forget anything, there are just too many things resulting from space exploration to list in one post. Of course none of them are the result of landing a probe on another planet, but they are all the result of attempting to explore space. All of our recent inventions and discoveries have mainly come as a spin off from some sort of space exploration and the need to invent and overcome a problem, it is the technology behind the space program that leads off into other more useful discoveries and that is why I gave the microwave example, it would not have existed without the desire to do something else and that was to perfect a radar system. Radar was not intended for all the peaceful purposes it has today such as in aviation and shipping, but purely as a means to get early warning of a German air raid. Certainly no one saw a microwave oven as a side effect or microwave phone communications, all that was in the future.

As for the space station, how do you think it was arrived at in the first place? It is a place to conduct outside earth experiments and observations many of which have benefited mankind in some way. Many inventions and new technology was required before it could even exist and all as a result of space exploration, you seem to want to invent the steam engine, but have it sit in the station and not go anywhere.
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Re: MARS!

Post by Grandad »

Horus, your mention of radar reminded me of something that happened on a program on channel 5 last evening. I have opened a thread about a documentary on HMS Duncan on exercise in the Black Sea. They were buzzed by 17 Russian fighter and bomber jets and they flew SO close that the crew were inclined to warn them off because the power of their (the ships) radar was so strong that it could disable the aircrafts' systems.
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Re: MARS!

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I'm more than fascinated by the exploration of space and equally fascinated that Insight landed and can now start experiments. I want to know what it is finding and analyzing as hopefully it could give us some insight into how we got here or what was way back when. It is all fascinating to me.

Couple years back I went to NASA in Texas (sorry - can't remember the specific name right now) and toured the facility. The robotics and mechanics and just everything they were working on was so inspiring. I wish I could have spent a week touring the facility. It was also totally awesome to see the size of the past spaceships they now had back on the ground.

Extremely interesting post H! All fascinating and quite a bit I didn't really know. I see space exploration as a must do. I also wish we had the ability to explore deep water. I would love to see what is on the bottom of the oceans as well and it isn't so much as what is actually ON the bottom but the technology it would take to get us there.
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Re: MARS!

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

WOO HOO!! First photos are in and they're crystal clear!

I'm still shaking my head that Insight travelled 300 MILLION miles in 6 months and found the perfect parking spot :up

I do quite marvel at the human brain power it has taken to accomplish this.
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Re: MARS!

Post by Horus »

The InSight lander carries three instruments designed and built in the UK as part of the seismic package, supported by a £4million grant from the UK Space Agency. These microseismometer sensors were developed by Imperial College London and integrated with electronics built by the University of Oxford. :up
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Re: MARS!

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@H - Very interesting. Didn't realize that.

I don't know if Canada has any direct involvement with Insight but we are involved with space in the International Space Station. We built the arm.
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