Curiosity Rover Parachute size Proves NASA Lies

Originally posted by FreeThinkerIdealist
reply to post by wmd_2008

 

but wouldn't they travel through the 'keyhole' at one of the poles and do their best to avoid as much radiation as possible, just as the Apollo missions did? Nothing to do with overall time to travel to Mars, but time to maneuver through/around the radiation; with the added benefit that they only need to keep accelerating because their target is much, much further away?

although this is only the smallest of complications on a trip that has a ton of logistical nightmares.

YES but the total travel time is VERY important its months to get there not 3 days like Apollo so any radiation between leaving the Earth's atmosphere and taking months to get to Mars is a real problem ie solar flares cosmic radiation etc.

reply to post by Watcher26


So in other words, you're just drawing your own conclusions and making assumptions about what is meant. Thanks for clarifying that.

So, go ahead and show us where these things were said. Dont just quote a single line, give us a link to read it for ourselves and see what context it was said in. You seem to have all the information about atmospheric pressure and conditions on Mars, I'm sure you can go find this link for us.

May I recommend that you read this paper:

trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by flyswatter
reply to post by Watcher26

 

So in other words, you're just drawing your own conclusions and making assumptions about what is meant. Thanks for clarifying that.

You are getting away from the point of my original post. Argue with my logic instead of trying to distract with side issues.

I firmly believe that the parachute used would not work to slow the rover and crane in the rarified atmosphere of Mars. And I've pretty much proved why. So there is something wrong. Either the atmosphere is a lot thicker than we have been led to believe, or it did not land on Mars.

Originally posted by hellobruce

Originally posted by Watcher26
NASA has recently said that radiation levels would prohibit a visit to Mars.

Care to show the exact quote NASA made?

why didn't they say long ago that sending people to Mars would be a radioacitive impossibility?

When have they claimed that?

I think I read it here first:

www.independent.co.uk...

reply to post by Watcher26


Smarter people than you worked on this!!!

From the link given above by NoExpert

Just prior to parachute deployment, the vehicle angle of attack is adjusted to 0
by ejecting balance masses while the azimuth is aligned for better radar performance
later during parachute descent.Parachute deployment is triggered at a navigated velocity of
over 450 m/s.

Also this

During parachute descent, the spacecraft decelerates from
over 450 m/s at parachute deployment down to
approximately 100 m/s at backshell separation;

reply to post by Watcher26


From your link, they didn't say that it was "radioactively impossible", they said that radiation levels would make it harder to do, as astronauts would receive most of a lifetime dose just on a Mars mission (note that the lifetime dose as imposed by NASA is not the same as that imposed on a "normal" person). New types of shielding have to be developed before you can send someone to Mars, even on a free return mission, let alone to stay there for long periods of time.

As for the reason they didn't say anything until after the announcement of a private free return mission, their lab measuring radiation has only been on Mars since last year. It takes most of a year to get a good solid baseline reading for radiation exposure.

When they point the cameras straight up ans take pictures of the clouds...that is a dead giveaway. There should not be any color to the sky. At that density the sky should be completely black. It is on Earth at the equivalent pressure. No clouds, no color. But they show it being pale pink with wispy clouds. Not possible with that pressure.

Originally posted by Watcher26
I think I read it here first:

www.independent.co.uk...

Care to show us exactly where the word "radioactive" is used in that article....

Mars sure is a rusty looking planet for not having any water or oxygen.

reply to post by sean


Just because it doesn't now, doesn't mean it didn't always. But the red color is apparently from the dust that has been blown around over the centuries.

Originally posted by Robonakka
When they point the cameras straight up ans take pictures of the clouds...that is a dead giveaway. There should not be any color to the sky. At that density the sky should be completely black. It is on Earth at the equivalent pressure. No clouds, no color. But they show it being pale pink with wispy clouds. Not possible with that pressure.

The colour of the Earths sky in daytime is not due to pressure but light scatter and guess what at night on Earth what colour is the sky

Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time

Originally posted by hellobruce

Originally posted by Watcher26
NASA's unwillingness to discuss anomalies on Mars

Exactly what anomalies are NASA unwilling to discuss?

For example, see this: exopolitics.org...

It's not hard to find things that NASA won't comment on.

But back to my point - parachutes need to be 100 times bigger, or rather, need to have 100 times the volume when the air density is 100 times less than our own. That's the thing!

reply to post by Watcher26


Only if you're trying to slow the object down to a landing speed. If you're only trying to create enough drag to slow it down, no you don't. You can see it happen here on earth all the time. They'll use a tiny drag chute on objects to slow them until the main chute opens. All the parachute was used for was to create drag until it was slow enough for the thrusters to fire.

just a question? with low air pressure on Mars .... what is the gas make up of that low pressure atmosphere? I would think that even different gases have different atomic structure size which would translate into wind pressure?

if the gas molecules are spread apart due to low pressure it would seem logical that using an earth based measurement would produce abnormal and unrealistic measurements ....

Originally posted by hellobruce

Originally posted by Watcher26
I think I read it here first:

www.independent.co.uk...

Care to show us exactly where the word "radioactive" is used in that article....

I didn't say that the word "radioactive" was used in the article...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Watcher26

 

[...] All the parachute was used for was to create drag until it was slow enough for the thrusters to fire.

Yes, but my point is that there was almost nothing for it to drag on. Parachutes of normal sizes don't work 35km up in the Earth's atmosphere, where the air pressure is the same as that at ground level on Mars. So why would they work many kilometres up in the Martian atmosphere where the air would be maybe 100 times thinner than the already tenuous ground level atmosphere. So that would make it 10,000 times (or so) as thin as our atmosphere at ground level.

Hello everyone. First Post!

To the OP:

I know nothing about parachutes, but surely the effectiveness of the parachute in question is a function of the amount of atmosphere passing through it over time.

If Curiositiy's descent was vertically downward, your OP would be true because there wouldn't be enough time to slow it down. But the rover entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle, meaning that it passed through a great deal of atmosphere over an extended distance, allowing it to slow sufficiently for the engines to take over. If the angle was even shallower you could probably use a handkerchief pretty effectively.

Originally posted by Watcher26

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Watcher26

 

[...] All the parachute was used for was to create drag until it was slow enough for the thrusters to fire.

Yes, but my point is that there was almost nothing for it to drag on. Parachutes of normal sizes don't work 35km up in the Earth's atmosphere, where the air pressure is the same as that at ground level on Mars. So why would they work many kilometres up in the Martian atmosphere where the air would be maybe 100 times thinner than the already tenuous ground level atmosphere. So that would make it 10,000 times (or so) as thin as our atmosphere at ground level.

You are again making an incorrect assumption based on what you "think" to be true, rather than based on facts.

The density of the martian atmosphere does not drop off as quickly as you go up as it does on Earth. The scale-height (a measure of how much an atmosphere decreases with altitude) of Mars is about 11 km, while the scale-height for the earth is about 6 or 7 km on average.

So that means that the Earth's atmosphere gets thinner more quickly as altitude increases.

Mars' atmosphere has a scale height of approximately 11 km (36,000 ft), 60% greater than that on Earth.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by Watcher26

 

First of all, as 'bullwinklekicksbutt' pointed out in his post above, you need to consider total volume of the parachute -- not just the diameter. A chute has 3 dimensions; you cannot directly correlate the diameter of the chute on Mars compared to on Earth just by dividing by 100 -- you need to correlate them using the volume of the chute.

Secondly, the parachute was not designed to slow Curiosity down enough for a soft landing. It was still falling at 170 mph when the parachute was cut from the rover (although that is still quite a bit slower than the 1,500 mph it was falling before the chute was deployed).

edit on 7/17/2013 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

You also have to consider the coefficient of friction is applied across the larger surface area than that used for similarities to the earth parachute.