Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror

Team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory share the challenges of the Curiosity Mars rover's final minutes to landing on the surface of Mars .

It may be described as reasoned - even genius - engineering. But even the engineers who designed it agree it looks crazy. Six vehicle configurations, 76 pyrotechnic devices, 500,000 lines of code, zero margin for error. What exactly will it take to land NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, on the surface of Mars on Aug. 5? The latest video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory breaks down all "7 minutes of terror."

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CONFIRMED: WATER ON MARS

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water

July 31, 2008   Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

And in case you were wondering about the weather at the Phoenix site in the Martian arctic region for today, it will be a bit cool with a maximum of -30 C / -22 F during the day, dropping down to a bone tingling -88 C / -122 F. at night.

PHOENIX LANDS ON MARS

Космический аппарат Phoenix совершил посадку на Марсе

Nasa's Phoenix Mars lander successfully touched down on the planet's surface early today on a mission that could yield evidence of primitive life amid the permafrost.

Jubilant mission controllers described landing the probe as wonderful.

Less than two hours after landing, the Nasa spacecraft beamed back four dozen black and white images, including one of its foot sitting on Martian soil amid tiny rocks.

Others included the horizon of the arctic plain and ground with polygon patterns similar to those found in Earth's permafrost regions.

There have been 40 attempts to reach Mars but two-thirds of them have ended in failure, the majority losing contact en route, burning up on entry or being dashed to pieces on attempting to land. Soviet missions Marsnik 1 and Marsnik 2, designed to fly past the planet, fell to Earth shortly after being launched in 1960. Two years later the Soviet Sputnik 22 probe exploded.

The first successful flyby was not until 1964 when the US Mariner 4 returned pictures of the dusty red landscape. The first successful landing took place in 1976 when US twin Viking landers touched down, took soil samples and tested them for signs of life. A Russian mission ended in failure when the launch vehicle blew up in 1996. Japan's single attempt to reach Mars failed in 1998 because of problems with its propulsion system. In 1999 Nasa lost three missions. In 2003 the European Space Agency's Beagle 2 probe disappeared before landing.

Vendrán vientos suaves . . .

Hoy recibí una carta de un amigo-poeta en México — mas que un amigo, es un compañero del alma.   Parecce que lo siempre he conocido, y siempre he amado como uno de los tesoros de mi vida. 

Aunque el trabaja como profesor de ingenieria en una universidad en el estado de Veracruz, mas que todo tiene sensibilidad y alma de poeta.
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             [poema de E.F. con un imagen fractal en el fondo]
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Y un regalito para ti amigo, "La petite fille de la mer" por Vangelis con vistas de tu época favorita, el tiempo de la melacolía, el otoño.
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Autumn  [con música de Vangelis]

GOOGLE MARS & OLYMPUS MONS

Oh WOW - I have just discovered  "Google Mars".
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                                       Olympus mons

At this moment I feel somewhat the same excitement that I felt when, as a teenage, I discovered my first science fiction novel.  Then in 1953 I encountered the superb writing of Ray Bradbury and 'The Martian Chronicles", a book that has traveled the planet with me. Almost like a religious ritual I open it at least once every year and savor each delicious word from cover to cover. 

"They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs. K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls.....    ...you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp.  And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the seas was red steam on the shore...."   [from Ylla]

So I have had a long, passionate love affair with Mars, but it was a short story in Omni magazine about Olympus mons [Vox Olympica by Michael Bishop] that truly sealed our relationship.  This novelette, published in the December 1981, issue of Omni was especially significant since it concerned both that most incredible volcano in the solar system and music, two of my fervent passions.  This issue of Omni was another treasure that traveled with me as I made my nomadic treks around the globe, but somehow, inexplicably, it never arrived with me when I moved from Veracruz, Mexico to Thailand.  A major tragedy. 

Olympus Mons (Latin, "Mount Olympus") is the tallest known volcano and mountain in our solar system. It is located on the planet Mars at approximately 18° N 133° W.  The central edifice stands 27 kilometers (around 16.7 miles/approx. 88,580 ft) high above the mean surface level of Mars (about three times the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level and 2.6 times the height of Mauna Kea above its base). It is 550 km (342 miles) in width, flanked by steep cliffs, and has a caldera complex that is 85 km (53 miles) long, 60 km (37 miles) wide, and up to 3 km (1.8 miles) deep with six overlapping pit craters. Its outer edge is defined by an escarpment up to 6 km (4 miles) tall; unique among the shield volcanoes of Mars.
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                                      Olympus mons

Both the size of Olympus Mons and its shallow slope (2.5 degrees central dome surrounded by 5 degree outer region) mean that a person standing on the surface of Mars would be unable to view the upper profile of the volcano even from a distance, as the curvature of the planet and the volcano itself would obscure it. However, one could view parts of Olympus: standing on the highest point of its summit, the slope of the volcano would extend beyond the horizon, a mere 3 kilometers away; from the three kilometer elevated caldera rim one could see 80 kilometers to the caldera's other side; from the southeast scarp highpoint (about 5 km elevation) one could look about 180 km southeast; from the northwest scarp highpoint (about 8 km elevation) one could look upslope possibly 240 km and look northeast possibly 230 km.