Watch NASA’s InSight Mars lander touch down live today - MON - 26th NOV, 2018
- Thread starter pete_c
- Start date
wkearney99
Senior Member
Much like the Moon landing... it'll be a while before we get more detailed pix. I was 5, sitting in front of our 19" TV watching the lunar landing. Why didn't they just jump out and run around! It was HOURS before they emerged.
Gotta hand it to the NASA folks and all the participating contractors. It's no small feat to lob a spaceship at a planet millions of miles away and land successfully. Bravo!
Gotta hand it to the NASA folks and all the participating contractors. It's no small feat to lob a spaceship at a planet millions of miles away and land successfully. Bravo!
Many years ago, during my college days, I took an astronomy course that was taught by Carl Sagan. This was during the early part of his career, before he became quite so famous.
One of our lab assignments was to figure out a launch date, necessary velocity and trajectory, plot the course, and figure the arrival date to get a spacecraft from Earth to Mars in a minimal amount of time. Sounded very hard when first described, but it was surprisingly easy to do. We had only slide rules to calculate with - there were no pocket calculators back in those days. Fortunately, we didn't have to figure out the hard part - how to land it. We only had to put it into orbit.
That class left me with a life long interest in Mars, and I'm always pleased to see NASA achieve a new success.
One of our lab assignments was to figure out a launch date, necessary velocity and trajectory, plot the course, and figure the arrival date to get a spacecraft from Earth to Mars in a minimal amount of time. Sounded very hard when first described, but it was surprisingly easy to do. We had only slide rules to calculate with - there were no pocket calculators back in those days. Fortunately, we didn't have to figure out the hard part - how to land it. We only had to put it into orbit.
That class left me with a life long interest in Mars, and I'm always pleased to see NASA achieve a new success.
pete_c
Guru
Geez RAL...recalling here too was made to use a slide ruler during my college days. Mostly relating to Chemistry (and Biochemistry) and Physics. I did have one of the first handheld HP calculators at the time. Old professors wouldn't let us use these though back then. Did have a run-in with a Dr. Boris Spiroff at the time. He was an ahole (my personal opinion).
Fast forward to the early 1980's I would meet with some astronomers from Northwestern for cheese and wine and talking Astronomy and the future of space.
Around the same time I was tinkering with lasers in my garage (argon helium rails) plus surgical lasers at "work".
I went to Loyola but many times would study at the Northwestern campus cuz I liked their library more.
Helped one of the Astronomers from Northwestern create a database using a Commodore 64.
I would speak with one retired Astronomer (J. Allen Hynek) untill he passed away in 1986.
Fast forward to the early 1980's I would meet with some astronomers from Northwestern for cheese and wine and talking Astronomy and the future of space.
Around the same time I was tinkering with lasers in my garage (argon helium rails) plus surgical lasers at "work".
I went to Loyola but many times would study at the Northwestern campus cuz I liked their library more.
Helped one of the Astronomers from Northwestern create a database using a Commodore 64.
I would speak with one retired Astronomer (J. Allen Hynek) untill he passed away in 1986.
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