Wrecking ball could break the ice on Mars

[SimonShuttle]

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8637

[SignalToNoise]

Deep Impact part II.

[simonbp]

A quarter-ton copper sphere named Thor smashing into Mars at several km/s? What's not to like!

In fact, they could call it the Beagle III!

Simon

[realtime]

Very crude way to do exploration, and you only get one shot at it.  If the impactor hits 20m away from something interesting you'd never know it.  Also, examining the jumbled mess from orbit can only give a gross idea about what's happening subsurface.

Why not send a rover with a sampling drill instead?  Look at the core, then move on to the next promising site.  It would be more expensive to be sure, but at least you'd get some useful tech out of it, and you'd be much more likely to find something interesting.

[simonbp]

realtime - 26/1/2006  12:01 PM

Very crude way to do exploration, and you only get one shot at it.  If the impactor hits 20m away from something interesting you'd never know it.  Also, examining the jumbled mess from orbit can only give a gross idea about what's happening subsurface.

Why not send a rover with a sampling drill instead?  Look at the core, then move on to the next promising site.  It would be more expensive to be sure, but at least you'd get some useful tech out of it, and you'd be much more likely to find something interesting.

1. Because you can dig a lot deeper with an orbital bomb than you can with a drill...

2. The Mars Surface Laboratory (successor to the MERs) is RTG powered and designed to be a prototype for future high-latitude rovers...

Simon

[AndyMc]

Earth Attacks!

[realtime]

simonbp - 26/1/2006  5:45 PM

realtime - 26/1/2006  12:01 PM

Very crude way to do exploration, and you only get one shot at it.  If the impactor hits 20m away from something interesting you'd never know it.  Also, examining the jumbled mess from orbit can only give a gross idea about what's happening subsurface.

Why not send a rover with a sampling drill instead?  Look at the core, then move on to the next promising site.  It would be more expensive to be sure, but at least you'd get some useful tech out of it, and you'd be much more likely to find something interesting.

1. Because you can dig a lot deeper with an orbital bomb than you can with a drill...

2. The Mars Surface Laboratory (successor to the MERs) is RTG powered and designed to be a prototype for future high-latitude rovers...

Simon

Orbital bombs are messy and imprecise.  Too many variables to control.   And it only goes down 10 meters.  Any self-respecting drilling rig can do better than that.

Glad to hear about the MSL.  It has a bit better instrumentation than MER, but nothing that stands out to me as radically different.  Except maybe the price tag: $1.5B

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mars_science_lab_050105.html

I'm sorry to rain on this parade.  I like blowing stuff up just as much as the next guy, but this is pretty bad science, IMO.

Now, maybe if you ask Per-Olov Fransson for a lightweight Mars-rated methane-powered version of The Commando that'll go down 30m or more...  Better ask nice, tho'

[Avron]

Hell, why not just nuke the place, that will get Joe public fully behind manned space flight, as he will be totaly against unmanned..

I think we should just respect Mars, the time will come for drilling and some explosive work, but that will be done in a very controlled way. Just watch JPL, pull off some more first's, MER 2 years and delivering the product... They know what they are doing and have proved that, time and time again.

[SimonShuttle]

Any reason it's copper?

[Tap-Sa]

Perhaps same reason as in DI impactor:

The impactor is made primarily of copper (49%) as opposed to aluminum (24%) because it minimizes corruption of spectral emission lines that are used to analyze the nucleus.

[realtime]

The relatively low-cost mission—budgeted at 450 million U.S. dollars—is designed to capture a first glimpse of subterranean Mars and possibly pave the way for more detailed study.

Or possibly not.   Half a billion for a copper ball and a few Polaroids for later.  No continuing mission.  No changing mission goals based on data acquired mid-mission.  Just one-shot orbital data that could be bickered over for years.

Some comparisons (in millions of dollars US):

850 --  MER mission.  Two rovers.  Still collecting data.
450 --  THOR mission.  One wrecking ball.  One orbital instrument platform.  Proposed.
400 --  Mars Surface Laboratory.  Expanded MER.  Proposed.
242 --  Mars Express
220 --  Mars Global Surveyor

[Avron]

realtime - 30/1/2006  10:28 PM

The relatively low-cost mission—budgeted at 450 million U.S. dollars—is designed to capture a first glimpse of subterranean Mars and possibly pave the way for more detailed study.

Or possibly not.   Half a billion for a copper ball and a few Polaroids for later.  No continuing mission.  No changing mission goals based on data acquired mid-mission.  Just one-shot orbital data that could be bickered over for years.

Some comparisons (in millions of dollars US):

850 --  MER mission.  Two rovers.  Still collecting data.
450 --  THOR mission.  One wrecking ball.  One orbital instrument platform.  Proposed.
400 --  Mars Surface Laboratory.  Expanded MER.  Proposed.
242 --  Mars Express
220 --  Mars Global Surveyor

For the low cost, maybe they can put some wheels on that polar LANDER... and maybe some C4 with a long timer..

[realtime]

Avron - 31/1/2006  12:27 AM
...
For the low cost, maybe they can put some wheels on that polar LANDER... and maybe some C4 with a long timer..

Just gotta blow somethin' up dontcha.  I know, I know.  When the itch hits, ye just gotta scratchit...