Talk:Mars Science Laboratory

Mars transfer orbit — confusion about speed

The given number 36,210 km/h is less than the Earth escape speed ([[1]]). The source says "the Centaur re-ignited as planned for a final eight-minute burn, accelerating the spacecraft to an Earth-escape velocity of 22,500 mph" without conversion to km/h, but the article Miles per hour says that "Nautical and aeronautical applications, however, favour the knot as a common unit of speed: one knot is one nautical mile per hour." 22,500 nautical miles per hour (41,670 km/h or 11.575 km/s) looks more suitable for Mars transfer orbit speed. Should this be corrected in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.187.7.81 (talk) 00:57, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Editors can provide a correction as long as they can cite a published reliable source to the specific point, as per the MOS; otherwise such changes would constitute original research. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 01:20, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Although the USA aeronautic industry favors the use of "nautical" miles and knots, the source and the general public relate to common units of measure, such as miles per hour and km/h. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The source cited in the article has no km/h, it has 'Earth-escape velocity of 22,500 mph', but 22,500 statute miles per hour is significantly less than the Earth-escape velocity. 22,500 nautical miles per hour (knots) is enough for the inter-planetary cruise speed. The calculation from [[2]] suggests that the departure speed was 11.490km/s, or 22,335 knots, but 25,708 statute miles per hour. May be it would be better just to remove "36,210 km/h", which doesn't exist in the source and causes the confusion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.124.157.26 (talk) 10:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

You are correct: the source cited in that section of the article merely states "...accelerating the spacecraft to an Earth-escape velocity of 22,500 mph. ..." There is nothing in that article on Spaceflight Now to indicate that the speed is not in miles, but is is "knots" or "nautical miles per hour." Moreover, in spaceflight articles, which have left the terrestrial frame of reference for which knots and nautical miles were first use, we generally see only SI units (km/h, km/s, m/s, etc.) used, or we see the conventional English units of miles per hour, feet per second, etc.

At the end of the day, without a source that has a different number, it is exactly correct for this Wikipedia article, which is written for an international audience, to have both km/h (and mph, parenthetically) given, and to utilize the number from the cited source. Cheers. N2e (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Citation link not working

I honestly don't know why the page act up on me. The citation link I added to Air&SpaceSmithosian http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/WORLDS-MSL.html Do not work, if any one want make the adjustment so it show and become working it would be nice. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.209.8.16 (talk) 01:51, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Martian-Sunset-O-de-Goursac-Curiosity-2013.jpg image removed from article?

@Nikthestunned - seems you may have recently removed the File:Martian-Sunset-O-de-Goursac-Curiosity-2013.jpg image from the Mars Science Laboratory article as "against image policy" - if possible, what is the *specific* image policy at issue? - Thanks in advance for your reply - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and restored the image, after removing the credit line. The title in the image should not be removed, as it is a part of the image itself. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Huntster - Thank you *very much* for your help with the image - it's *greatly* appreciated - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 03:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I removed it due to the aptly named WP:WATERMARK, which states "Free images should not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits in the image itself or anything else that would hamper their free use" - the current version, with just the title, is OK. I would say, however, that I don't recall seeing any other photographic image with an in-built title... Not to say it's against any policy (that I can find), but does look wrong to me . Nikthestunned 08:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Nik, but how does it look wrong? I take your word for it, of course, but I genuinely don't understand. — Huntster (t @ c) 09:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

This is an encyclopaedic article about an in-depth scientific topic, and right at the end we appear to have the work of an unconnected artist who has modified the images released by NASA - where is the value in including it?

It "looks" wrong as I've never seen this elsewhere - at least not in a well developed article. The picture itself is 100% fine - why have the title and border? What encyclopaedic value do these add? There is no reason, other than that the artist who made it wanted them there - they add no value, only confusion to some (like me). (Incidentally, if I took one of my images and added a 500px border & title for no reason, I guarantee it would be reverted!) Nikthestunned 11:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments - for my part (fwiw & atm) I'm flexible with this - removing the title/border (or not) is *entirely* ok with me - in any case - thanks again for the comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 12:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Nik, I appreciate the reply. I understand the sentiment, and frankly don't care all that much about the issue. I would like to see some additional opinions before removing it, though. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Requirement to avoid icy areas?

This article refers to a requirement that the rover avoid any landing site with ice near the surface. The story makes it sound like this is a contamination issue: we're scared to to touch the ice for fear of embedding Earth microbes into it. OK, maybe so. But if there's a ban on studying the ice, that seems important. I can't find anything else that specifically addresses this. Is there another reason (political, engineering) we avoided areas with ice? I've never heard anything about it. Can anyone find sources that detail why this decision was made? Are the coming rovers allowed to study Martian ice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.104.231.225 (talk) 03:22, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

A couple of errors?

First, article says the parachute descent starts at 578 m/s, but its own reference [136] gives this figure as 470 m/s. Is it an error?

Second, article says parachute is 16 m in diameter, but the paper my NASA's team says it's 21.5 m. The paper says it was scaled up from the 16 m Viking parachute, so maybe someone misread. http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/41708/1/08-0255.pdf

I'm no expert so I wouldn't want to make these changes myself, but I'm sure someone else can clarify. RobertCWebb (talk) 11:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, if sourced. Read the entire text to avoid inconsistencies. Best regards.PauloMSimoes (talk) 11:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)