3 ms·
Not false, although if we went back in time and told them it would get stuck in the shade of the one shade tree on the asteroid, they'd probably just have put a
by VLM 11y ago
Not false, although if we went back in time and told them it would get stuck in the shade of the one shade tree on the asteroid, they'd probably just have put an arm on it to push against rather than ripping out and redesigning the whole power system. Escape velocity is like 1 MPH so they'd have to move pretty carefully.
I was hoping for an apollo 13 style duct tape solution to move the thing to a better, less shaded spot involving the drilling arm as a pogo stick or something, but that hasn't happened as of yet.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoWell, that's just the one failure scenario. An RTG would have solved many more - bad solar cells, cracked solar cells, particulate matter covering cells (ice/snow/dirt), failure to deploy cells, etc. In fact if an RTG was used on the ESA's Beagle 2, it would also have not failed. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a photo of it recently. Its in one piece, its just its cells didn't deploy correctly due to hitting the ground too hard. Landers take big chances with solar only power. There are so many things that can, and do, go wrong here. I don't know why taxpayers tolerate such shoddy work.