Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles
Agree 100%. The "sky-crane" concept is as novel as it is ambitious, and I felt a lot of tension as it was coming down. With the airbag landings they used for Spirit and Opportunity, it was sort of assumed that unless the bags failed to inflate it was pretty much impossible for the mission to fail once it got on-target for the landing zone.
With the Sky Crane it seemed that things could so easily go awry at each stage.
If anyone can do this, it's NASA. Proving again they're the cream of the crop.
I hope I live to see a manned mission to Mars.
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Even when the craft was ~ 1 km high, it was traveling 5.4 - 5.9 kms per second (obviously travel was more horizontal). It's amazing that in that time/space it had a controlled descent, slowed down to a managable speed and then was able to use the sky crane.
Every time the techs breathed a sigh of relief after each check point I gulped air too.
08-06-2012, 09:43 AM
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