"This is not an option. Mind you, I'm very pro-nuclear and strongly favor the use of RTGs in Space. However if you put RTGs on MER then you'd have to redesign the whole vehicle from a clean piece of paper. All the sunk development cost based on MER would be lost. I also suspect that once you included RTGs in the design, the MSL design would morph out of the MER design with all the issues associated with MSL. MER is a clean simple design that has been proven to work beautifully. Let's not argue with success but instead milk MER for all it's worth. AFTER the MER design has been fully exploited THEN bring out the RTGs along with the super big (and expensive) rover designs.
Gary "
And then...
Milk the next design for all it's worth and build a fleet of THEM!
Any chance of Sean O'Keefe stepping down in your favour, Gary?
Space/Science » in reply to Build to Print
re: Build to Print
The whole thread (46 posts)
- Beage 2: As I was saying
- a portrait ..
- Predictions, anyone? How long before ESA offers competitive prizes like NASA now is?
- A Difference Overlooked
- David Whitehouse lurks the Habitable Zone.
- You know this for a fact?
- Another article about Beagle 2
- Exactly on point
- re: Exactly on point
- Standard practice is to design for the worst case scenario
- Importance of feedback from protypes
- re: Standard practice is to design for the worst case scenario
- Standard practice is to design for the worst case scenario
- re: Exactly on point
- Exactly on point
- don't hold your breath for a refund (n/t)
- Sounds like what they said about Mars Polar Lander. (n/t)
- Let the space organization that does not have at least one pile of multimillion dollar junk littering the Martian surface, cast the first stone. (n/t)
- re: Let the space organization that does not have at least one pile of multimillion dollar junk littering the Martian surface, cast the first stone.
- A big difference
- Yes, there are some differencess...
- re: A big difference
- re: Beagle 2 was 'too great a risk'
- You're missing the point
- re: You're missing the point
- How much extra would Beagle 2 have cost if they used the NASA airbag sytem?
- Many space scientists said MPL's landing system was doomed to failure BEFORE it arrived at Mars. (n/t)
- re: You're missing the point
- You might be right.
- A big difference
- re: Let the space organization that does not have at least one pile of multimillion dollar junk littering the Martian surface, cast the first stone.
- Let the space organization that does not have at least one pile of multimillion dollar junk littering the Martian surface, cast the first stone. (n/t)