WE LANDED!

[GordonD]

Perseverance is down safely on the Martian surface! 

[Mike]

Yes! We watched this on NASA Live, and apart from a few minor drop outs in sound, it was a good watch. The boy was suitably enthusiastic about the proceedings, and the “live” CGI rendering of what was going on along with the telemetry was pretty good at filling us in on what was going on. 
 

can’t wait to see the first powered flight on Mars in a couple of days, and am looking forward to all the new discoveries  

[Pigpen]

I was sat at my modelling bench sipping a beer and watching it on youtube. So glad it came off. I kept my wife and daughter updated, not in any realistic hope that they were interested but to annoy them while they were watching some bizarre program, seemingly about dog grooming.

 

I don't know how old your lad is Mike but he's got an exiting period of spaceflight to look forward to. Oh to have all those years to learn about all this technology and discoveries! 

 

I was only 3 in 1969 so I missed all that and other than Viking I don't recall any great excitement in the media even for the shuttle and the space station, I guess they were more "workmanlike" than exploratory. But these last few years it seems to have felt very different as the pace of development is huge and the new players seem to accept financial risk in the way governments can't.

 

Does he fancy a job as an astronaut in the future? 

[dnl42]

We're celebrating the event with Krispy Kreme "Mars" donuts! 

 

More seriously, I recall sitting with all of my entire elementary and middle school classmates, completely enthralled as we watched the Gemini and Apollo missions. My wife watched the Apollo 11 landing as a young girl in Poland. She retired from Boeing (née Hughes Space Systems) a few years ago as System Engineering Manager of some of well-known space projects.

[Eric Mc]

10 hours ago, Pigpen said:

I was sat at my modelling bench sipping a beer and watching it on youtube. So glad it came off. I kept my wife and daughter updated, not in any realistic hope that they were interested but to annoy them while they were watching some bizarre program, seemingly about dog grooming.

 

I don't know how old your lad is Mike but he's got an exiting period of spaceflight to look forward to. Oh to have all those years to learn about all this technology and discoveries! 

 

I was only 3 in 1969 so I missed all that and other than Viking I don't recall any great excitement in the media even for the shuttle and the space station, I guess they were more "workmanlike" than exploratory. But these last few years it seems to have felt very different as the pace of development is huge and the new players seem to accept financial risk in the way governments can't.

 

Does he fancy a job as an astronaut in the future? 

There was huge media interest in the Viking programme back in 1976. After all, they were the first successful landers on Mars. It was the US bicentennial year as well so all things American were in the news.

Obviously the programme lasted a long time so media interest waned after the initial excitement of the landings.

 

As for the Shuttle, there was also massive media interest in the Shuttle up to and including the first few flights. Most media outlets covered the first two launches live. After STS2 interest did drop off as it became "routine" only to pick up again in 1986 with the Challenger accident. Even before the Challenger accident, now and then a launch would be shown live - if it tied in with general programming. I remember one launch in 1983 being shown live on BBC Breakfast (with Frank Bough).

[Pigpen]

4 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

There was huge media interest in the Viking programme back in 1976. After all, they were the first successful landers on Mars. It was the US bicentennial year as well so all things American were in the news.

Obviously the programme lasted a long time so media interest waned after the initial excitement of the landings.

 

As for the Shuttle, there was also massive media interest in the Shuttle up to and including the first few flights. Most media outlets covered the first two launches live. After STS2 interest did drop off as it became "routine" only to pick up again in 1986 with the Challenger accident. Even before the Challenger accident, now and then a launch would be shown live - if it tied in with general programming. I remember one launch in 1983 being shown live on BBC Breakfast (with Frank Bough).

Strange what we remember isn't it? I was really interested in all this kind of thing and I clearly remember watching about the Viking and Voyager mission on "John Craven's Newsround". But of the space shuttle, when I was younger I can really only recall the Challenger disaster. That was one of those "I remember where I was moments" when I walked into my friend's university room and he was watching a news report of it on the TV.

 

 

[dnl42]

An IEEE article on the Ingenuity helicopter.

 

Quote

It’s important to keep the Mars Helicopter mission in context, because this is a technology demonstration. The primary goal here is to fly on Mars, full stop. Ingenuity won’t be doing any of the same sort of science that the Perseverance rover is designed to do. If we’re lucky, the helicopter will take a couple of in-flight pictures, but that’s about it. The importance and the value of the mission is to show that flight on Mars is possible, and to collect data that will enable the next generation of Martian rotorcraft, which will be able to do more ambitious and exciting things. 

 

[Mike]

I had a read round the subject last night after the event, and it could be a couple of month before they unload Ingenuity and carry out the flight tests.  Some mutual selfies will be pretty cool for a technology demonstrator.  I'll wait for the power armour and underground complexes for colonists for a little while longer

[spitfire]

It will be interesting to see if the helicopter can fly in whatever atmosphere there is on Mars.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[cmatthewbacon]

1 hour ago, spitfire said:

It will be interesting to see if the helicopter can fly in whatever atmosphere there is on Mars.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

I think they’ll have thought of that when they designed it... Seriously, one of the goals seems to be evaluating the real (off)world performance vs all the flight testing they did in simulated Martian environment (temperature/pressure/composition) chamber on Earth..,

best,

M.

[Eric Mc]

3 hours ago, Pigpen said:

Strange what we remember isn't it? I was really interested in all this kind of thing and I clearly remember watching about the Viking and Voyager mission on "John Craven's Newsround". But of the space shuttle, when I was younger I can really only recall the Challenger disaster. That was one of those "I remember where I was moments" when I walked into my friend's university room and he was watching a news report of it on the TV.

 

 

I have the 1983 Breakfast TV broadcast recorded on VHS somewhere.

 

The first launch was covered extensively on BBC and on RTE (Ireland). I was living in Ireland in 1981 so watched a lot of the action on RTE. Their space correspondent was a chap called Leo Enright who really knew his stuff. For the first few Shuttle missions, the BBC relied a lot on their Tomorrow's World team, so Michael Rodd did a lot of the London studio work and Kieran Prendeville was sent out to Cape Canaveral for the launch and was also at Edwards Air Force Base a few days later for the landing.

 

Quite a bit of the BBC footage of STS1 is on You Tube if you want to search it out.

[John_W]

 

[Mike]

10 minutes ago, John_W said:

 

 

Poor old Bernie had been photoshopped onto Mars within about half an hour of landing, on Reddit.  Initially he was a bit smaller and in the top right corner, but the larger one's a bit more effective.  Did any of you see the picture that the Mars Orbiter caught of Percy on its parachute as it drifted down to land.  A few white pixels, but incredible nonetheless.  Me & Boyo had bin grins on our faces when we first saw it.

 

 

Link to the article: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/hirise-captured-perseverance-during-descent-to-mars

[BIG X]

it's all so amazing - images like @Mike so sad too that I probably won't be around for the bigger events - GO EARTHINGS GO!!!! 

[GrahamS]

I too watched it live on NASA TV. I was riveted, it was SO tense but I did have a smile on my face when it was announced it landed safely.

 

Looking forward anything and everything that it turns up.

 

you’ve gotta love the Americans when they do stuff like this (not that I don’t love them anyway, of course.....).

 

Graham

[Mr T]

When are Martians' relatives going to put in an appearance? Or are they hiding to keep their superior technologies from us inferior humans. 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Mr T

[SleeperService]

I watched too and was quite impressed by the NASA coverage, somebody has been watching SpaceX and taking notes. Having watched Apollo 11 live at my Grandparents there are a couple of things that really struck me;

• How many women are involved
• How natural these very clever people are in front of a camera including some at Doctorate level who look like teenagers
• The age spread of those involved at all levels
• How big Perseverance actually is, I thought it'd be about 4 feet long

On a silly note I am quite surprised at the time scale to return samples and the convoluted method adopted. I'd put a small bet on SpaceX collecting them for NASA quicker. With a human crew.

[Natter]

Bernie Sanders - Love it!!!

 

Until recently I worked for Heathcoat Fabrics, the company who made the fabric for the supersonic parachute, so hearing the anouncement about 'parachute deployed, lander decelerating' meant I could stop holding my breath.

[NoSG0]

F-1 getting in on  the Mars landing

 

https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/1362836379818987521

Edited February 20, 2021 by NoSG0

[Bonhoff]

Meanwhile - On Mars.....

 

 

IanJ
 

[GrahamS]

More updates: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-perseverance-rover-provides-front-row-seat-to-landing-first-audio

 

Graham