Thread: Curiousity touches down on Mars! Rube Goldberg wins this round!

This thread is not OT, it's OW, Off World.

Its a true testament to what mankind could achieve if we just stop killing one another for a bit. Oh and stop arguing about religion or politics.

Personally i have been blown away by Spirit's and Opportunity's success. If this one even works for half as long as those, its will certainly aid our knowledge. I still find it hard to understand just how well made Spirit and Opportunity must have been. 8 Years of life driving 10's of miles around in that environment whilst automatically avoiding obsticals, managing there limited power reserves is incredible. Im just great full that most machinery on this planets not that good or as a maintenance engineer i would be out of a job!

Whats more if Curiosity's a success on Mars presumably it would be possible - at a lot less costly to adapt it's technologies to visit some of the other moons in this solar system? Could be a very interesting century for space exploration, even if it stays a mainly robotic exercise!

Well to bring it back to our world. Just for a bit. AND to make it On Topic. Here are some pics of the JPL and their machine shop.
See Inside NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Home to the Mars Rover Curiosity Mission

-DU-

This is what rocked my boat as a young man:

(Poem #241) The Green Hills of Earth

Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.

We rot in the moulds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

[ --- the harsh bright soil of Luna ---
--- Saturn's rainbow rings ---
--- the frozen night of Titan --- ]

We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

-- Robert A Heinlein

Still brings tears to my eyes.

Lee (the saw guy)

This is what rocked my boat as a young man:

(Poem #241) The Green Hills of Earth

Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.

We rot in the moulds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

[ --- the harsh bright soil of Luna ---
--- Saturn's rainbow rings ---
--- the frozen night of Titan --- ]

We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.

Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

-- Robert A Heinlein

Still brings tears to my eyes.

Lee (the saw guy)

At last, some good news to celebrate.

I watched the landing web broadcast from RPL in real time last night. The jubulation expressed by the group there was fabulous to see. Not many have the experience of devoting a large portion of one's entire career to a single highly challenging project with but one chance of success after the candle is lit. I was fortunate to have been involved in similar activites decades ago and fully appreciate what was going on there.

Congratulations to them all for a job well done!

Originally Posted by Gary E

Saw somthing on the tube about this the other day and the geek talking said
"and to think this is only costing 2 1/2 BILLION $$ or so... what a deal"
THAT's a WELFARE Program for geeky engineers....
FIRE the bums and get a REAL JOB, STOP bleeding the taxpayers

Internet posts don't do well to convey expression but I really hope this was a sarcastic post...

Originally Posted by David Utidjian

Well to bring it back to our world. Just for a bit. AND to make it On Topic. Here are some pics of the JPL and their machine shop.
See Inside NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Home to the Mars Rover Curiosity Mission

-DU-

Thank you very much for posting this. And does anyone recognize the manual lathe on the right hand side of the first picture of the machine shop? Just curious.

David

Originally Posted by 310 Guy

Gary E... what have you done to change the world? What have you done to push the human race forward?

Helped with the design, developement, and manufacture, and the sales of N/C then CNC Machine Tools...
Or do you want them detailed?? fogit it...
How about the manufacture of parts and assemblies for the NAVY... no details, those are not for public disclosure.

Your still just a talented engineer working on govment jobs and paid intirely from the taxpayers money ....
Why dont you get a real job in the private sector that builds something without the taxpayers paying for it?

I would imagine the list of private sector companies that build things without the taxpayers subsidizing/paying for a portion of it is pretty much limited to very small companies.

Dave

Originally Posted by Gary E

Helped with the design, developement, and manufacture, and the sales of N/C then CNC Machine Tools...
Or do you want them detailed?? fogit it...
How about the manufacture of parts and assemblies for the NAVY... no details, those are not for public disclosure.

and how many of those Navy parts and assemblies pushed the human race forward in any direction other than more efficient at killing other humans? (and yes, I'm a US Navy veteran).

Originally Posted by Gary E

Your still just a talented engineer working on govment jobs and paid intirely from the taxpayers money ....
Why dont you get a real job in the private sector that builds something without the taxpayers paying for it?

wow, your levels of ignorance are unbelievable!

If it wasn't for government-funded exploration, you'd still be someone's serf in Europe. Remember Columbus and the Spanish Queen? Remember Cook's exploration of the Pacific? Better yet, lets examine what happens when private industry does it (even with government sanction): remember the Hudson Bay Company? Remember the (real) Carribean pirates?

If it wasn't for government-funded exploration, we wouldn't have had a functioning rail system in this country......or have you forgotten that every single privately-run rail company went bankrupt without the US Government's intervention?

Or let's have a look at the Inland waterway system here in the US:

Inland waterways of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

all funded by the US Government, and has benefited everyone, and at an exponential ratio to what it cost to build and maintain.

Those are just 3 examples off the top of my head, if it was worth the time, I'd bet I could come up with a hell of a lot more (oh, wait, let's not forget the development of penicillin, the polio vaccine, or the development of nuclear power) without much trouble...........


if you weren't quite as ignorant as you are, Gary, you would have noticed that humans have a genetic imperative to expand into new territories......if we don't: we stagnate, we rot, and we die.
Every single society in all of mankind's history that stopped expanding into new territories has withered and died. Ultimately, we (as a species) will strip this planet bare- and if we haven't opened space to settlement before then, much like all those dead societies, we, as a species, will die.

Originally Posted by Gary E

Helped with the design, developement, and manufacture, and the sales of N/C then CNC Machine Tools...
Or do you want them detailed?? fogit it...
How about the manufacture of parts and assemblies for the NAVY... no details, those are not for public disclosure.

Your still just a talented engineer working on govment jobs and paid intirely from the taxpayers money ....
Why dont you get a real job in the private sector that builds something without the taxpayers paying for it?

Wait a minute... so its a waste for scientists to spend government dollars on NASA research, but building parts for the Navy with government dollars isn't a waste?

The number one reason that I would never call what NASA does a waste is it may have cost $2.5 Billion to put the rover on Mars, but they actually did it. The money didn't go to welfare recipients only to go up in a cloud of cigarette and weed smoke. It didn't go in the pocket of a senator or another politician as a kickback, it put a rover on Mars. At the end of the day they actually did something, and it was an unfathomable feat. You ever think that those scientist could probably go make more money in the private sector but instead they do what they do because they have a passion to push the boundaries of humans to the furthest possible level?

This is amazing, and very exciting.

As for the cost- I'd rather my money go to landing ROV's on other planets than landing more food stamps in Fatty McBrokeshit's greasy hand.

Originally Posted by David Utidjian

One of the first pictures from Curiosity:



-DU-

MMMM....Must be USPS delivering the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator I ordered from EBAY. ...Odd... doesn't look like a flat rate box.!!??... I will annihilate that seller if he screwed me on shipping!!

JR

"And does anyone recognize the manual lathe on the right hand side of the first picture of the machine shop? Just curious."

Hard to get a real good look at it, but it looks an AWFUL lot like a late model 14-16" Pacemaker. Big heavy old-school American iron without doubt, whatever it is.

To ALL of you libs... THE COUNTRY IS BROKE... WE HAVE NO MONEY...
40 cents of EVERY USD the govmt spends is BOROWED MONEY....
WE ARE BROKE... CAPISHE??????
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

You want fliverous crap???? COUGH UP THE MONEY.... otherwize... STOP THE SPENDING...

Gary go talk your crap elsewhere. Everybody else is enjoying talking about how incredible of a feat this is for engineering and MACHINING. You want to talk politics, and debt clock, and frivolous spending then go find some people who feel like talking about that. Based on the title it seems to me that this thread was intended to be about curiosity's rube goldberg style landing that managed to go perfectly in a hailstorm of possible failures. Now back to trying to ignore your posts until you can at least try to stick to the topic at hand.

Just reading about all of the instruments this thing has. Imagine how sensitive some of those instruments are like the cameras and lasers and such. To put it through a 100+ million mile journey after launching into space with way too many g's and then landing it like that is just mind boggling to me. Absolutely incredible and I have the utmost respect for everyone involved.

Side note - My best professor in school was a machinist for NIST and JPL in his younger years. He had my vote for most interesting man in the world.

fliverous?

BTW, that work you did for the Navy was tax payer funded. And the largest consumer of NC and CNC tools, or more rightly the parts they make, you guessed it, the Federal Gov.

Watching nasa's latest adventure took me back to my youth....
The terror of a possible failure. The excitement of a new horizon. The pride of success....
It was the way I remembered watching the astronauts and the moon stuff....

Did anyone else notice the guy that mentioned this could pave the way for manned flights to mars in the next 20 years?