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There was a discussion on Reddit about the instrumentation on MER - specifically that every concievable scientific instrument is on the rover, but no HD video c

by marvin 14y ago

There was a discussion on Reddit about the instrumentation on MER - specifically that every concievable scientific instrument is on the rover, but no HD video camera or microphone. Apparently, the reasoning behind this is that these things are scientifically uninteresting. But imagine the PR benefit of getting full-motion video and audio from Mars. Even if we don't learn anything interesting from this, the media effect would have been tremendous. People could finally see video and sound on the evening news, in HD...almost like being on Mars. It's too bad the MER team wasn't willing to do this, seems like it would have been a relatively cheap addition to the project. But don't get me wrong, this is still very, very cool.

mtgx 14y ago
That's an interesting take. But HD video would be slower to transfer from Mars to Earth as well, wouldn't it? Although it might not matter since it's not like we have to watch everything live 24/7.
- joeyh 14y ago
  HD video would also be competing with science data for both storage and transfer time. If you read the blog of the MER driver at http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ you can see this tension already play out sometimes, both in scheduling nice panoramic pictures and managing the data storage until a transfer window opens. Science normally wins. :) One of the surprising thing to me about the internet response to curiosity is that I've seen many commenters who seem to assume we can stream live HD video from Mars; some expected it to somehow manage this feat even while landing. But really, Curiosity talks directly to Earth at only 32kbps, and has around 16 minutes per day of high-bandwidth (2 mbps or less) communication with the Mars orbiters.
Achshar 14y ago
If i remember correctly, rover has a 720p video camera that records 10fps. And considering the speed of the movement of camera or robotic arm, any higher fps would have been redundant. I don't know about microphone though. Plus there is a novelty factor. The first full HD 3d 60fps video with 6 channel sound will probably be the most popular YouTube video of the year. But that's it, no one would watch the second video because all of it would be same. largely because rovers travels very slowly and also because it's just rocks and dust, just like any desert here on earth. The cost of the added weight and volume of more capable camera for just one popular video is not justified IMO.
- ra 14y ago
  Yes it does have a 720p 10fps camera; it actually has 17 camera's in all: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/curiosity-mars-rover-cameras/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/curiosity-mars-rov...
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EthanHeilman 14y ago
I don't understand why bandwidth needs to be such a problem. Invest in a ring of small satellites in mars orbit, have them broadcast to earth satellites using line of sight transmitters for whatever mars satellite is facing the earth. Once you build such a system you can reuse it for each future mars/deep space mission. Nasa was actually doing this but the program got canceled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Telecommunications_Orbiter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Telecommunications_Orbiter Use open standards so other nations can expand the network. How much would it cost to cover the inner core of the solar system with 100 Mbit/s bandwidth using a mesh network of satellites? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet Also does anyone want to do an off-planet backup solution startup?
- deleted 14y ago
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by marvin 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

That's an interesting take. But HD video would be slower to transfer from Mars to Earth as well, wouldn't it? Although it might not matter since it's not like we have to watch everything live 24/7.

joeyh 14y ago
HD video would also be competing with science data for both storage and transfer time. If you read the blog of the MER driver at http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ http://marsandme.blogspot.com/ you can see this tension already play out sometimes, both in scheduling nice panoramic pictures and managing the data storage until a transfer window opens. Science normally wins. :) One of the surprising thing to me about the internet response to curiosity is that I've seen many commenters who seem to assume we can stream live HD video from Mars; some expected it to somehow manage this feat even while landing. But really, Curiosity talks directly to Earth at only 32kbps, and has around 16 minutes per day of high-bandwidth (2 mbps or less) communication with the Mars orbiters.

Achshar 14y ago

If i remember correctly, rover has a 720p video camera that records 10fps. And considering the speed of the movement of camera or robotic arm, any higher fps would have been redundant. I don't know about microphone though. Plus there is a novelty factor. The first full HD 3d 60fps video with 6 channel sound will probably be the most popular YouTube video of the year. But that's it, no one would watch the second video because all of it would be same. largely because rovers travels very slowly and also because it's just rocks and dust, just like any desert here on earth. The cost of the added weight and volume of more capable camera for just one popular video is not justified IMO.

ra 14y ago
Yes it does have a 720p 10fps camera; it actually has 17 camera's in all: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/curiosity-mars-rover-cameras/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/curiosity-mars-rov...

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EthanHeilman 14y ago

I don't understand why bandwidth needs to be such a problem. Invest in a ring of small satellites in mars orbit, have them broadcast to earth satellites using line of sight transmitters for whatever mars satellite is facing the earth. Once you build such a system you can reuse it for each future mars/deep space mission. Nasa was actually doing this but the program got canceled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Telecommunications_Orbiter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Telecommunications_Orbiter Use open standards so other nations can expand the network. How much would it cost to cover the inner core of the solar system with 100 Mbit/s bandwidth using a mesh network of satellites? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet Also does anyone want to do an off-planet backup solution startup?

deleted 14y ago
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