×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Making expensive craters on Mars

Making expensive craters on Mars

RE: Making expensive craters on Mars

Nice link, Greg.  You're right about the translation though, it seems to be written in alien-speak (the TLA's are a dead give-away).  Clearly the locals on Mars are getting a little bored, and are trying to scare up some new targets.  Wonder what anti-probe technology the Martians will come up with next.

 

RE: Making expensive craters on Mars

THIS got accepted?  Yikes, the IEEE's standards must have taken nosedive.  Acronyms used without definition, not following conventional style guides, invented unit symbols, etc.  MOLA, I still haven't figured out; the one definition readily found, Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter, makes no sense in the context of the article.

It's also a bit out-of-date, since it seems to have been ignorant of the EDL systems of Mars rovers.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Making expensive craters on Mars

The orbital laser altimeter was my guess too, IRstuff.  I think they mean to say "altitudes as measured from the zero datum determined from the Mars Global Surveyor's Martian Orbital Laser Altimeter data, ref. NASA document xyzblahtyblah."

Um, it did have mentions of the latest two sucessful rovers (Opportunity and Sojourner), just not well labelled.  There's a graph or two in there with unlabelled axes also...sigh.  Beta as the ballistic coefficient, fine.  I really liked the plots where, with L/D ratios of about 0.5 or so, you have to dip below zero altitude before climbing back out.  I guess they are promoting areolith-braking now instead of aero-braking.

Ok - a little explanation: Ares is the (greek?) name for Mars, thus areolith for rock/dirt on mars, regolith for lunar rocks/soils...right, stupid joke.

I didn't even see the IEEE as the recipient though, until you mentioned it.  What the heck is an obvious AIAA (if not SAE) paper doing in an electronics journal?  I knew the IEEE was trying hard to be the Wal-Mart of Engineering Journals, but this is ridiculous.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources