God I know right! Dude you are so much smarter than these NASA scientist, go teach them a thing or two brah. We sooo need to "take a step forward". Why didn't they think of that. You're really really really really really really smart.
That's not the problem. The problem is that they didn't have enough time to test it or simulate the testing for the harsh Mars environment. What a total shame. What better way to test it is to have it on Mars? But I'm pretty sure these camera were tested for his deep diving under a lot of pressure. I don't really care for the 3D part but it would be great to have a real high quality camera on board the Rover and during it approaches to Mars and the entry. It would be nice to see this in your life time but once again how long are we going to wait? With all the great voyages so far all we have seen are pretty terrible video footage and what a shame it is. You have to make the best of that opportunity because it's isn't easy and cheap. Sure the footage might be nothing special with just sands and rocks but a moving pictures might worth a thousand words and I'm pretty sure could be inspirational seeing a real qualify footage for the first time.
Well apparently there will be. We just have to be patient. Although, I would think there is a bandwidth limitation maybe? I mean streaming HD content, or just sending it across space can't be all that great. I have no idea. I know that streaming in on my wireless network at times sucks balls.
So what make me stupid again? Good at least they do have a high quality video camera but still it's only 10fps. The guy call me out like I'm ****ing stupid and doesn't know that collecting data is priority # 1 but all I'm asking for is how about putting in a quality video camera. James Cameron camera could probably do a much higher FPS. It's not like Nasa profession are the best in the world when it come to video camera. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20048501-1.html
Bandwidth is definitely a problem. IIRC, they've had <= 30ish kilobits/s, although I think they upped it to around 100 kilobits recently. They'll eventually be able to hit 2 megabits, if all goes well, although that won't be for another week or two if I heard them right. Of course, only certainl times you can send that to Earth too I believe (although with the high gain antenna up and working, I think they can send data directly to Earth, although only <10 kb/s IIRC). (check out today's press conference if you're interested, they talk about this).
Even that wouldn't be a problem because it will just takes longer to collect the data but you will still get it. It'll just take longer to receive them all. But will a larger chunk data get distorted from that far a distant?
Sorry, I wasn't really following the conversation. What is the issue? Getting back video quickly, or getting video at all? IIRC, there will definitely be video. But due to bandwidth and other concerns, just don't have any yet. Might be low-frame rate though, but should be good resolution. Think MARDI took 4fps of the landing (1-2 mins I think), all at around 1600x1200 resolution (color). They already showed one of the frames (also showed the "thumbnail" version of the animation/"video"). Guess you could wish for more frames, higher resolution, though not sure how much storage space the rover has to handle that. Can't keep 20 minutes of 1080p/48fps video taking up vital space, waiting for the next time slot available to transfer a small portion of it (extreme example, but you get the idea). edit: Think the Rover's computer has 2GB of flash storage, although there are 2 of them (one for backup...not sure if they store the same thing, or if there is effectively 4GB total).
Well you learn something new every time. So pretty much a 1GB would take around a month to transfer from Mars to Earth. So Right now that is our bottleneck. http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/faq-data.html But this look promising: NASA Announces Technology Demonstration Missions under Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Mission It's just sad that trillion of dollars are spend on stupid useless wars. Imagine if that much was put in to science and we would probably 20 years ahead instead of 20 yrs behind.
They have to use older tech because the equipment they use is designed for years to fit perfectly with an exact balance for the rest of the machinery. Everything also has to be extremely robust -- think about the Voyager(s) their recording device is a tape player and it still works. You can't just pop in the latest tech off the shelf at Fry's and plug it in before launch -- everything is purpose built for years. And don't forget we still have Opportunity rolling around taking nice pictures and performing science experiments.
Well that's the first coolest close up image we have so far from Mars. Glad that they decided to pick a better spot to land on this time around.
We have hundreds of pictures of this quality level over the 8 years the rovers have been on the planet. Spirit died about a year ago, but Opportunity is still functioning well.
I probably have but never pay much attention to it because most I that have seen are small quality version and the quality of the photo aren't that great on top of that most of them are just boring flat land images. That problem is that you are letting a robot to decide how to frame your shots and images so that's probably there are so few good images are out there. But I have seen many shots taken from above Mars are very cool and interesting and very Mars like in term or alienated.
It is mostly flat, but I really love this panorama from Opportunity: http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html
Nerdy side coming out, but it's just amazing to think these are photos from some place so freaking far away...I mean insanely far away. It took Curiosity 8-9 months to get there going FAST. I mean just getting there, nevermind the whole landing sequence...you can't exactly punch it in the navigation system and just show up there, you have to aim to land where the planet will be in it's orbit around the sun when you get there after traveling for 8 months through space. Then you have to take into account the planets rotation on it's axis to pinpoint where you plan to land. Whoever designed/programmed the computers to figure this stuff out are the true geniuses.
Simply breathtaking...I take it back. I can look at dirt and stuff, and it's awesome. I actually haven't looked into this stuff before. For shame...
Those Spirit/Opportunity images are with cameras that are almost 10 years old.Curiosity is sure to deliver some even more amazing images.It's just a slow process for so many different reasons. It also get's extremely cold probably around -80F at night,so not like they can just use any camera.May have been part of the problem with some of Cameron's stuff.
