APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

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Expand view Topic review: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Flase » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:39 am

JohnD wrote:Sorry, hip shooting at costs. NASA estimate $1.5 TRILLION per Shuttle launch over the life of the programme, but $500 MILLION at the end when all the non-recurring costs are paid.
Sounds like a rip off. Somebody's skimming some money along the way. If it were worth sending something up to the Phobos Grunt probe, there will be another window for embarking to Mars.

Anyway, the makers of Avatar spent $500 million making CGI aliens that look exactly like actors painted blue, aliens with human mammary glands and everything, when they could have saved themselves half a billion bucks and just painted the actors blue. It worked for them. Even the alien animals looked like rhinoceroses with a hammer-head prosthesis stuck on their horns.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by BMAONE23 » Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:13 pm

Case wrote:
BMAONE23 wrote:Or M100 before and after
before | after
It's worth noting that these M100 images show just the central bright part of the galaxy, not the whole galaxy with arms and everything.
from WIKI
This image shows much of the spiral structure beyond the central region and is also an upgraded Hubble image mosaic
The WIKI link has several more

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by user885 » Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:23 pm

workgazer wrote:Why no speed up the decent of Phobos , let it slam in to the surface, the resulting dust, possible melt, could kick start the terraforming effort?
without a magnetic field, terraforming would't stand a chance.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by JohnD » Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:02 am

Chris is capable of making his own points, but I didn't mean, and I don't think he did, that Hubble and its kind were not worth their cost. I took him to mean that it would cost less to have put up another Hubble rather than spend as much as it did to repair the first.

John

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:32 am

neufer wrote:It only blows the human space flight argument away if you agree with Chris that science is the primary criteria. Robots should be in space in a big way, now and forever more, doing things that (only at first) don't make economic sense. Suggesting otherwise is short term thinking and long term folly. Suggesting otherwise is like suggesting several decades years ago that we shouldn't bother with Voyager spacecraft that don't really accomplish anything important such as having men plant flags on other planets.
I definitely think science should be the primary criteria. I don't think it should be the only one. And I don't think every mission has to be "economic" in some simplistic sense. There is such a thing as an investment in technology- very little that is of value was immediately so. But I do think that if we're going to put people in space, it needs to be for a good reason- either clearly scientific, clearly commercial, or clearly something with the potential to become valuable. I don't class "the next frontier" or anything like that in such a category.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Case » Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:20 am

BMAONE23 wrote:Or M100 before and after
before | after
It's worth noting that these M100 images show just the central bright part of the galaxy, not the whole galaxy with arms and everything.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:41 am

BMAONE23 wrote: Definitely worth the effort and expense to repair some satellites
I'd say it's worth the expense to have some satellites. What made fixing Hubble kind of stupid is that the repairs cost more than a brand new Hubble. For what we spent on repair missions we could have had several telescopes up there.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by BMAONE23 » Sun Dec 04, 2011 3:21 am

As these before and after Hubble images show....The trip was worth the expense to repair the Hubble
M15 before first repair mission // and after
1991 2000
Or M100 before and after
before after
Hubble at a glance

Definitely worth the effort and expense to repair some satellites

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:37 am

JohnD wrote:Interesting PoV, Chris, rather blows the human space flight argument away.
Bit depressing, really.
Whatever happened to the "High Frontier"?
I don't think it has anything to say about human space flight at all, except that turning astronauts into satellite repairmen isn't a very good use of resources.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by neufer » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:36 am

rstevenson wrote:
It only blows the human space flight argument away if you agree with Chris that dollars are the only criteria. Human beings should be in space in a big way, now and forever more, doing things that (only at first) don't make economic sense. Suggesting otherwise is short term thinking and long term folly. Suggesting otherwise is like suggesting several hundred years ago that we shouldn't bother with all those small boats that don't really accomplish anything, we should just wait until we can build the Queen Mary before we go to see what those new lands to the west look like.
It only blows the human space flight argument away if you agree with Chris that science is the primary criteria. Robots should be in space in a big way, now and forever more, doing things that (only at first) don't make economic sense. Suggesting otherwise is short term thinking and long term folly. Suggesting otherwise is like suggesting several decades years ago that we shouldn't bother with Voyager spacecraft that don't really accomplish anything important such as having men plant flags on other planets.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by neufer » Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:23 am

JohnD wrote:
Interesting PoV, Chris, rather blows the human space flight argument away.
Bit depressing, really.
Whatever happened to the "High Frontier"?
  • ________ Scientific American JUNE 1960

    "Putting a man in space is a stunt: the man can do no more
    than an instrument, in fact can do less.    "     So said Vannevar Bush,
    chairman of the Board of Governors of the Massachusetts Institute
    of Technology, in a statement to the House Committee on Science
    and Astronautics. "There are far more serious things to do than to
    indulge in stunts. As yet the American people do not understand the
    distinctions, and we in this country are prone to rush, for a time, at
    any new thing. I do not discard completely the value of demonstrating
    to the world our skills. Nor do I undervalue the effect on morale of
    the spectacular. But the present hullabaloo on the propaganda
    aspects of the program leaves me entirely cool.    "
Of course, humans have become much more sophisticated in the last 50 years
so it doesn't make as much sense to do things totally robotically as it used to.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by rstevenson » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:30 pm

It only blows the human space flight argument away if you agree with Chris that dollars are the only criteria. Human beings should be in space in a big way, now and forever more, doing things that (only at first) don't make economic sense. Suggesting otherwise is short term thinking and long term folly. Suggesting otherwise is like suggesting several hundred years ago that we shouldn't bother with all those small boats that don't really accomplish anything, we should just wait until we can build the Queen Mary before we go to see what those new lands to the west look like.

But this is an old argument that can't be won because, like most such arguments, we all come to it with our opinions fully formed.

Rob

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by JohnD » Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:42 pm

Interesting PoV, Chris, rather blows the human space flight argument away.
Bit depressing, really.
Whatever happened to the "High Frontier"?
John

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Sat Dec 03, 2011 5:59 pm

JohnD wrote:Sorry, hip shooting at costs. NASA estimate $1.5 TRILLION per Shuttle launch over the life of the programme, but $500 MILLION at the end when all the non-recurring costs are paid.
Only $500 million!
Exactly. Simple shuttle missions cost about $500 million. Complex missions like those that serviced the HST cost about $1 billion.

The entire Phobos-Grunt mission funding- development and multiple year operational costs- is (or was) about $160 million. Using a shuttle mission to recover the spacecraft, or repurpose it for something like an asteroid mission, would be economic nonsense. And that's assuming it would even be feasible to do so with a spacecraft not designed to be serviced.

The reality is that when a spacecraft fails, it is almost always cheaper and smarter to just start over. BTW, this applies to the HST as well, which never should have been serviced, just replaced occasionally.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by JohnD » Sat Dec 03, 2011 5:48 pm

Sorry, hip shooting at costs. NASA estimate $1.5 TRILLION per Shuttle launch over the life of the programme, but $500 MILLION at the end when all the non-recurring costs are paid.

Only $500 million!
The UK has just spent about $1.5 Bilion to mothball the aircraft carriers we have on the stocks.
John

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:05 pm

JohnD wrote:But, as I said in another thread, I bet that NASA are pointing out to the US Government that, for want of a few million dollars, they could have ridden the Shuttle to the rescue of Phobos-Grunt, and even brought the probe back. The political return would have been immeasurable.John
Sorry, but what technology do we have (or have we had) that could rescue Phobos-Grunt for "a few million dollars"? I'm certainly not familiar with it.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by JohnD » Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:51 am

But, as I said in another thread, I bet that NASA are pointing out to the US Government that, for want of a few million dollars, they could have ridden the Shuttle to the rescue of Phobos-Grunt, and even brought the probe back. The political return would have been immeasurable.

It does sound like an alternative screenplay to "Space Cowboys", but the film worked for me!
John

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:51 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:You send up a fresh motor set with sufficient fuel source to attach to the probe so that it can still reach Mars with fuel enough to slow it back down and thereby prevent its current fuel from harming the environment
The window to get into a trajectory that will go to Mars is already passed. Remember those Hubble servicing missions? Those were accomplished with months of practice on the ground, a rich set of specialized, custom tools, and a spacecraft that was designed from the beginning to be serviced. For all practical purposes, any servicing of Phobos-Grunt that requires replacing parts is impossible. The only practical scenario would be fitting it with some kind of backpack booster to get it into a higher orbit, so there is no immediate risk of decay. And that isn't economically feasible.

In reality, the probe is extremely unlikely to cause any problems. It doesn't contain enough fuel to pose any environmental risk, outside of the tiny area where something might come down. I'm pretty sure that any rational cost/risk assessment would conclude that doing nothing at all is the best strategy.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by BMAONE23 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:22 pm

You send up a fresh motor set with sufficient fuel source to attach to the probe so that it can still reach Mars with fuel enough to slow it back down and thereby prevent its current fuel from harming the environment

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by Chris Peterson » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:46 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:Perhaps Russia would foot the bill to send another Shuttle up to do a snag and repair mission to the Little Grunt and send it on its way
A single shuttle launch costs about five times the entire mission cost of Phobos-Grunt. I don't see that happening. And how do you plan a repair mission when you don't even know what's wrong? And if you could repair it, where do you send it? Mars is no longer an option.

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by BMAONE23 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:27 pm

Perhaps Russia would foot the bill to send another Shuttle up to do a snag and repair mission to the Little Grunt and send it on its way

Time to throw in the owl.

by neufer » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:14 pm

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by bystander » Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:00 am



Phobos-Grunt update; lots of new images and video!
Planetary Society Blog | Emily Lakdawalla | 2011 Oct 14

Phobos-Grunt unpacked! With Yinghuo-1 and LIFE!
Planetary Society Blog | Emily Lakdawalla | 2011 Oct 18

Phobos-Grunt: The Mission Poster
Universe Today | Ken Kremer | 2011 Oct 15

Phobos-Grunt and Yinghou-1 Arrive at Baikonur Launch Site to tight Mars Deadline
Universe Today | Ken Kremer | 2011 Oct 19

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by BMAONE23 » Tue Oct 18, 2011 5:01 pm

If make them you will, then picture them you must :mrgreen:

Re: APOD: Phobos South Pole from Mars Express (2011 Jan 24)

by owlice » Mon Oct 17, 2011 5:14 pm

Well, maybe not pictures of all of them, and don't hold your breath waiting for them, as I have to finish the scarf in progress first, and then make a few more (also to give away/donate) before I move on to other things!! But make these little owls, I will!

so many projects.... so little time.....

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