7 ms·

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Is Able to Drill Holes into Rocks Again

171 points by wglb 8y ago

usermac 8y ago
The engineer(s)/tech(s) name was never mentioned or the group members who came up with this. Why no credit? I'd be nice to read about a human with a name, a history, a story. I see that a lot in stories.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I am ambivalent about this. You often see people getting public credit for something that was actually done by a lot of people working together which is also not good. Maybe a team photo would be nice. My favorite stories are where you hear the perspective of the different contributors.
  - aklemm 8y ago
    But then that one very eloquent guy gets all the play in the stories and his contribution seems out-sized while implicitly diminishing the contributions of others, especially the really camera-awkward guy who made a huge contribution but no reporters can handle listening to him long enough to tell his story.
    - Intermernet 8y ago
      In good teams the eloquent guy heaps adequate praise on the camera awkward guy to make it known how large their contribution was. This happens, but not enough.
    - snackbugs 8y ago
      Personally that seems like a better alternative to the PR downplay of engineering accomplishments to make space for the praise and glory of managers and funders.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        SpaceX and Tesla are good examples for this. If you read the news about them you could easily thing that Musk is pretty much developing everything in his basement.
- Anzate 8y ago
  It is actually quite deliberate. NASA and JPL are big on always communicating their work as a team effort, rather than highlighting individual contributors. As a practical example, notice how, during critical events (anytime you have a live-stream from Mission Control), everyone in the room wears the same shirt. Another fun anecdote on the "one NASA" philosophy (albeit at a different scale) is that the Pathfinder lander (if memory serves me right) had a JPL sticker visible from the cameras at landing. NASA was not impressed: although designed, built and managed by JPL, this was a NASA mission. So Curiosity (also designed, built and managed by JPL) only has NASA stickers - but the wheels have a pattern that spells out "JPL" in Morse code and is visible in the rover tracks.
  - cjsawyer 8y ago
    The holes were for (to paraphrase) “allowing sand to fall out of the wheels”. Very sneaky :)
    - overlordalex 8y ago
      This is not true - their original (and current) purpose is to calibrate the distance travelled by looking at the marks the tracks make - you can look at the distance between marks and use the circumference of the wheel to determine the distance travelled. The actual pattern meaning was snuck in by the engineers and the director was only told about it after he had approved the design.
  - gitgud 8y ago
    There's a reason everyone wears the same shirt now, after all the attention the guy got on the rosseta comet mission for his shirt. https://i.imgur.com/vEhcUjr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/vEhcUjr.jpg
    - deepfriedbits 8y ago
      Different agency, though, right? NASA’s ethos predates the Matt Taylor situation.
    - 8y ago
duxup 8y ago
It never ceases to amaze me when I see pics that look like they could have been taken anywhere on earth, but no that's on another planet and humans put a little hole there!
- JonDav 8y ago
  I am amazed how quickly and how many images we get from another planet.... For those that might not know, http://www.curiosityrover.com http://www.curiosityrover.com is a great site for the image feed, if you scroll down you can see the CHEMCAM images of the most recent drilled holes.
- jobigoud 8y ago
  I also had to double check the picture wasn't just for illustration purposes of a hole. The structures really looks like dried mud.
jonah 8y ago
A few links in from this article are one about the problem with cutaway drawings of the drill[1] and a more detailed article about developing the fix[2] which includes a video[3]. [1] http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/0906-curiosity-balky-drill-problem.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/0906-cu... [2] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7070 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7070 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqsp7on1ErHOTweF5eHzOTt&v=B5TWtxRvydE https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqsp7on1ErHOTw...
tachang 8y ago
It's a testament to humanity's ingenuity that we managed to put a rover on Mars. I sometimes wonder if in 1000 years we will look back and think how primitive we were and curiosity will be in some museum.
- andreapaiola 8y ago
  A museum on Mars!
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  On the other hand, for all the marvel that Curiosity has provided, a human on the surface of Mars could have achieved vastly more and vastly faster. Rovers and especially probes are ultimately very limited technology. If we continued on the trajectory we were on in the 60s we'd likely already have human outposts, if not civilizations, on the Moon, Mars, and perhaps even some of the outer planets' moons. Just imagine all the amazing discoveries and economic potential we've missed out on due to myopia mixed with a bit of conservatism. The entire space race was ultimately just a global level dick waving contest, and what space exploration we have had since has been hamstrung by fear of failure. That people will die in human space endeavors is hardly a reason to avoid them. Columbia was named after the ship that first circumnavigated the globe. And unsurprisingly that voyage came with immense risk. Nearly every seaman associated with that mission, though successful, would go on to die in sea related voyages and I doubt they would have had it any other way. Exploring new frontiers always comes with risks and it has never served as a deterrent to the right sort of people. That one of the biggest advocates for Martian colonization today is Buzz Aldrin, is not a coincidence.
  - iamgopal 8y ago
    The thing you overlook is, billions people mindlessly sharing their photo on phone, are the ones actually providing economical and in turn technological advances that enabled such high tech missions. I really doubt we could reach sub 10nm chips only with government funding without such strong demand for consumer products. So a bit late is much better because it gave us time to actually improve technology at micro level, instead of just building larger rockets.
simooooo 8y ago
Reading an article on gizmodo is like trying to assemble a puzzle from 10 internal links to it's own articles
minusonly 8y ago
Lies lies.. what more ?? Nasa and space ?? Lie

171 points by wglb 8y ago

The engineer(s)/tech(s) name was never mentioned or the group members who came up with this. Why no credit? I'd be nice to read about a human with a name, a history, a story. I see that a lot in stories.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I am ambivalent about this. You often see people getting public credit for something that was actually done by a lot of people working together which is also not good. Maybe a team photo would be nice. My favorite stories are where you hear the perspective of the different contributors.
- aklemm 8y ago
  But then that one very eloquent guy gets all the play in the stories and his contribution seems out-sized while implicitly diminishing the contributions of others, especially the really camera-awkward guy who made a huge contribution but no reporters can handle listening to him long enough to tell his story.
  - Intermernet 8y ago
    In good teams the eloquent guy heaps adequate praise on the camera awkward guy to make it known how large their contribution was. This happens, but not enough.
  - snackbugs 8y ago
    Personally that seems like a better alternative to the PR downplay of engineering accomplishments to make space for the praise and glory of managers and funders.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      SpaceX and Tesla are good examples for this. If you read the news about them you could easily thing that Musk is pretty much developing everything in his basement.
Anzate 8y ago
It is actually quite deliberate. NASA and JPL are big on always communicating their work as a team effort, rather than highlighting individual contributors. As a practical example, notice how, during critical events (anytime you have a live-stream from Mission Control), everyone in the room wears the same shirt. Another fun anecdote on the "one NASA" philosophy (albeit at a different scale) is that the Pathfinder lander (if memory serves me right) had a JPL sticker visible from the cameras at landing. NASA was not impressed: although designed, built and managed by JPL, this was a NASA mission. So Curiosity (also designed, built and managed by JPL) only has NASA stickers - but the wheels have a pattern that spells out "JPL" in Morse code and is visible in the rover tracks.
- cjsawyer 8y ago
  The holes were for (to paraphrase) “allowing sand to fall out of the wheels”. Very sneaky :)
  - overlordalex 8y ago
    This is not true - their original (and current) purpose is to calibrate the distance travelled by looking at the marks the tracks make - you can look at the distance between marks and use the circumference of the wheel to determine the distance travelled. The actual pattern meaning was snuck in by the engineers and the director was only told about it after he had approved the design.
- gitgud 8y ago
  There's a reason everyone wears the same shirt now, after all the attention the guy got on the rosseta comet mission for his shirt. https://i.imgur.com/vEhcUjr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/vEhcUjr.jpg
  - deepfriedbits 8y ago
    Different agency, though, right? NASA’s ethos predates the Matt Taylor situation.
  - 8y ago

duxup 8y ago

It never ceases to amaze me when I see pics that look like they could have been taken anywhere on earth, but no that's on another planet and humans put a little hole there!

JonDav 8y ago
I am amazed how quickly and how many images we get from another planet.... For those that might not know, http://www.curiosityrover.com http://www.curiosityrover.com is a great site for the image feed, if you scroll down you can see the CHEMCAM images of the most recent drilled holes.
jobigoud 8y ago
I also had to double check the picture wasn't just for illustration purposes of a hole. The structures really looks like dried mud.

jonah 8y ago

A few links in from this article are one about the problem with cutaway drawings of the drill[1] and a more detailed article about developing the fix[2] which includes a video[3]. [1] http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/0906-curiosity-balky-drill-problem.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2017/0906-cu... [2] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7070 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7070 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqsp7on1ErHOTweF5eHzOTt&v=B5TWtxRvydE https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTiv_XWHnOZqsp7on1ErHOTw...

tachang 8y ago

It's a testament to humanity's ingenuity that we managed to put a rover on Mars. I sometimes wonder if in 1000 years we will look back and think how primitive we were and curiosity will be in some museum.

andreapaiola 8y ago
A museum on Mars!
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
On the other hand, for all the marvel that Curiosity has provided, a human on the surface of Mars could have achieved vastly more and vastly faster. Rovers and especially probes are ultimately very limited technology. If we continued on the trajectory we were on in the 60s we'd likely already have human outposts, if not civilizations, on the Moon, Mars, and perhaps even some of the outer planets' moons. Just imagine all the amazing discoveries and economic potential we've missed out on due to myopia mixed with a bit of conservatism. The entire space race was ultimately just a global level dick waving contest, and what space exploration we have had since has been hamstrung by fear of failure. That people will die in human space endeavors is hardly a reason to avoid them. Columbia was named after the ship that first circumnavigated the globe. And unsurprisingly that voyage came with immense risk. Nearly every seaman associated with that mission, though successful, would go on to die in sea related voyages and I doubt they would have had it any other way. Exploring new frontiers always comes with risks and it has never served as a deterrent to the right sort of people. That one of the biggest advocates for Martian colonization today is Buzz Aldrin, is not a coincidence.
- iamgopal 8y ago
  The thing you overlook is, billions people mindlessly sharing their photo on phone, are the ones actually providing economical and in turn technological advances that enabled such high tech missions. I really doubt we could reach sub 10nm chips only with government funding without such strong demand for consumer products. So a bit late is much better because it gave us time to actually improve technology at micro level, instead of just building larger rockets.

simooooo 8y ago

Reading an article on gizmodo is like trying to assemble a puzzle from 10 internal links to it's own articles

minusonly 8y ago

Lies lies.. what more ?? Nasa and space ?? Lie