"blag-it" Forum
Industrial and scientific related topics => Astrophysics and space exploration => Topic started by: cybernut on 22 August, 2020, 09:39:11 AM
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I'm not sure we did, but would like to know what others think about this before I give my reasons.
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I think Viking 1 landed on Mars in the mid 1970s? Bit before my time though, so don't know to much about it.
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I'm not sure we did, but would like to know what others think about this before I give my reasons.
Fact and truth may not be the same thing. As a 'fact' there were further Viking lander missions to Mars in the 70s and 80s, so we have. Whether this is actually true, who knows.
Global Moderator
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I'm not sure we can do it now never mind all those decades ago. :-X
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Thanks for all the inputs so far. I don't think we did because I don't think we had the capability to do it in the 70s and 80s. I'll never forget a visit to the London Science Museum where one of the Viking missions was being exhibited, including a sample of Martian rock! Frankly, it could have been a rock from the Gobi Desert. :P
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We landed on the moon in 1969, right? Makes sense to me that we could then land something on Mars a decade later. I think we did.
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We landed on the moon in 1969, right? Makes sense to me that we could then land something on Mars a decade later. I think we did.
First part is debatable for many reasons. I still don't think we landed radio controlled trucks :P on Mars.
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We landed on the moon in 1969, right? Makes sense to me that we could then land something on Mars a decade later. I think we did.
First part is debatable for many reasons. I still don't think we landed radio controlled trucks :P on Mars.
Well said, because r/c vehicles is exactly what this is about. Who controlled them? Where were they located? In a Martian orbiter? Of course not. ::)
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We landed on the moon in 1969, right? Makes sense to me that we could then land something on Mars a decade later. I think we did.
First part is debatable for many reasons. I still don't think we landed radio controlled trucks :P on Mars.
Well said, because r/c vehicles is exactly what this is about. Who controlled them? Where were they located? In a Martian orbiter? Of course not. ::)
Weren't they controlled in the Kennedy Space Centre or something?
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Officially, yes or somewhere like that, but not in real time. I think the Viking landers would have been programmed in advance of the mission or missions.
Admin
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To say the least. The point is this. These were unmanned missions to Mars so there was nobody in the lander craft that got the Viking buggy's on the surface, so how were they controlled? By someone on Earth? It would have taken too long for the signals to get there, so impossible. This leaves the only other option of them having been programmed before the mission itself, but then they would have had no autonomous control. They didn't land anything on Mars in the 70s and 80s.
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I think it was part of the mission profile for the doors of the lander craft to open after touch-down and then for the Viking rover to exit onto the surface via a ramp, but I agree that lack of autonomous control is a big sticking point.
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I think it was part of the mission profile for the doors of the lander craft to open after touch-down and then for the Viking rover to exit onto the surface via a ramp, but I agree that lack of autonomous control is a big sticking point.
Thanks for saying it's a big sticking point. :) Without autonomous control, how would it have avoided the next pothole or crevice or large rock?
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I thought the co-ordinates and terrain data for the landing location were worked out prior to launch.
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Co-ordinates for the landing would only have been approximate at best and not sure that available terrain info would have been detailed enough in 1969.
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Co-ordinates for the landing would only have been approximate at best and not sure that available terrain info would have been detailed enough in 1969.
First Viking missions were in the mid-late 70's. 1969 was the manned Moon mission. :P
Global Moderator
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Yep, sorry - my mistake. :-[
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Yep, sorry - my mistake. :-[
Easy mistake to make, no doubt you were referring to available martian terrain data in the 70's. I think you have a good argument there.
Admin
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Thanks! :) I know it was certainly a silly mistake to make. Must be because both begin with an 'm' that made me think of moon not mars - and o.c the moon landing was in 1969 - and well that's my excuse... :P
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Thanks! :) I know it was certainly a silly mistake to make. Must be because both begin with an 'm' that made me think of moon not mars - and o.c the moon landing was in 1969 - and well that's my excuse... :P
Everyone's entitled to an excuse. Anyway, so you still think it didn't happen? How could they have fabricated something on that scale involving numerous US gvmnt departments, research bodies and so on?
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Thanks! :) I know it was certainly a silly mistake to make. Must be because both begin with an 'm' that made me think of moon not mars - and o.c the moon landing was in 1969 - and well that's my excuse... :P
Everyone's entitled to an excuse. Anyway, so you still think it didn't happen? How could they have fabricated something on that scale involving numerous US gvmnt departments, research bodies and so on?
I don't know what the US equivalent of the UK's Official Secrets Act is, but believe me they have it. The principle contractor would have been NASA which is a US government agency, and they in turn sub-contracted to various technical firms, etc, that would all have agreed to and signed some form of NDA or confidentiality agreement. That's how they kept much of it a secret and how they fabricated it!
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But you don't know that!
Admin
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But you don't know that!
Admin
Exact! You can't say these martian landings were fabricated unless you have proof, nor the moon landing for that matter. As to NDA's, these couldn't have been applied to everything and to everyone involved.
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No, not to absolutely everything and everyone, but certainly to all key personnel, contractors and other US gvmnt departments involved.
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They may well have signed NDA's to stop scientific and technical stuff from being leaked, but this still doesn't mean the mission's were fabricated.
Global Moderator
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They may well have signed NDA's to stop scientific and technical stuff from being leaked, but this still doesn't mean the mission's were fabricated.
Global Moderator
It doesn't mean they weren't either and I just don't see how they had the capability to send two landers onto the surface of Mars just seven years after the manned moon mission. Both Viking 1 and Viking 2 landed in 1976 allegedly... :-X
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They may well have signed NDA's to stop scientific and technical stuff from being leaked, but this still doesn't mean the mission's were fabricated.
Global Moderator
It doesn't mean they weren't either and I just don't see how they had the capability to send two landers onto the surface of Mars just seven years after the manned moon mission. Both Viking 1 and Viking 2 landed in 1976 allegedly... :-X
Yea, doesn't seem likely somehow a mere seven year window between the two. The Moon's 238,855 miles away, Mars is 356,000,000 miles away!