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Reply to
C G

From Mars? Really?? How do they KNOW it's from mars?? And if it really IS from mars, WHY are they spending million$ of $$$ to put robot rovers on mars???

Inquiring minds want to know

Skeptical Old Bob

Reply to
Bob Cowell

| You will need an FCC Amateur Radio Operator's License of at least Technician | Class to operate the aerial video equipment that you will use. Most | retailers will not sell amateur radio gear without proof of license. It is | easy to pass the exam after one weekend of studying the manual.

Not entirely true.

Much of the video equipment available runs in the 900 mHz or 2.4 mHz unlicensed spectrum, and produces low enough power not to require any special licensing.

(And if you use low enough power and/or a low enough duty cycle, you can even transmit in the ham bands (or just about any other bands) without any license at all. You may find that your garage door opener or car keyless entry transmits in the ham band, for example.)

However, the stuff that sticks within the unlicensed blocks of spectrum generally isn't very good and has poor range. And the stuff that uses so little power that it can transmit anywhere really has almost no range at all.

The good stuff will require a ham license, or a frequency to be allocated to you (not easy to do.) You'll also need to ID yourself every 10 minutes, which is generally done by either (low tech) filming a card with your call sign before and after each flight, or (higher tech) adding a device to occasionally send your call sign in morse code over the transmitted signal. In practice, I think people tend to ignore the identification requirements a lot when doing this sort of thing. Not legal, but it happens.

And Ed is right -- the technician test is indeed quite easy, especially since you have access to the entire question pool and the answers.

I've not noticed many vendors of wireless camera equipment actually verifying that you have a ham license. Some

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don't even mention that a ham license is rquired (but it is.)

| You will be limited to visual range flying only, if you have any common | sense at all

If you stop here, this statement is correct. :)

| or unless you live out in the boonies.

Trying to fly by what you see on a camera is a recipe for a crash, boonies or not. Don't try it.

| At the very least, you will have acquired a very enjoyable hobby. Having a | mission to accomplish, such as discovering meteor impact sites

Personally, I don't think any video systems you can cheaply mount on a reasonably sized R/C plane will be good enough to find any impact sites that haven't already been found years ago by others.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

| >There's some site in the Antarctic where they found the meteorite | >from Mars. I think the rocks there have to be examined by hand in | >order to see whether they are worth collecting. | | From Mars? | Really??

I'm skeptical too. In order for a meteor to be from Mars, something would have had to hit Mars so hard as to eject rocks into space -- they'd have to exceed escape velocity by some margin (because the atmosphere (thin as it is) would still slow them down, maybe burn them up?) and then it would have to actually make it to the Earth (which seems unlikely -- space is big) and then not burn up on the way down. And then somebody would have to find it, and know what is is.

Sounds impossible ...

I haven't researched it very carefully, but the claims come from NASA, so I'm not willing to dismiss it out of hand.

More on it here --

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| How do they KNOW it's from mars?? | And if it really IS from mars, | WHY are they spending million$ of $$$ to put robot rovers on mars???

Well, just because they've found a few rocks from Mars, that doesn't teach us everything we'd want to know about it.

But how is it related to R/C? Well, the Mars Rovers are R/C controlled, though with several minute (depending on the current distance to Mars) lag times (the speed of light and all), they need to be mostly autonomous.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

The phrase "the meteorite from Mars" implies there is only one such known specimen. There are 34 according to JPL.

Yes.

No, it's all part of a vast government conspiracy. Didn't you ever watch The X-Files?

Among other things they have characteristics indicating a very hot entry through the atmosphere, and their age and composition matches rocks from Mars.

Because inquiring minds want to know more about Mars.

If that's actually true, there are far better places than this group to find information on meteorites and areology:

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This newsgroup has by far the laziest population of any I read.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

| > Trying to fly by what you see on a camera is a recipe for a crash, | > boonies or not. Don't try it. | | With aid of GPS, gyros, and some auto-pilot software, it | becomes feasable to "supervise" if not actually fly a plane | from remote distances.

Of course it can be done. It's been done for years now by the military and others. But you're right -- I should have been more clear.

Taking somebody with limited R/C experience, and a reasonably stock R/C airplane, and putting a cheap wireless camera and transmitter on it facing forward, and trying to use this to fly out of direct visual contact is a recipe for disaster. And it gets worse if the camera is pointed down and you're trying to look for something ...

It can be done by throwing enough money, know-how and time at the project, but I'd certainly not suggest it for somebody new to the hobby.

Personally, I think an ultralight (with a human pilot onboard) would be the best for what he's saying he wants to do. I don't think he'll find any meteor impact craters, but it gives the best chance of doing so. Yes, it's a bit dangerous, but the fun hobbies often are :)

Reply to
Doug McLaren

Because the Martian told them so?

Reply to
Sport Pilot

"Doug McLaren" wrote in message news:7QEZd.1925$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.texas.rr.com...

And after very careful study and peer review it was determined to really, truly, HONESTLY from mars. Weird but true...the darnedest things happen in spite of what we humans think is possible.

Yes, mostly autonomous but with close (within practical limits) adult supervision...YAdult Suervision MV. 8^)

Reply to
Keith Schiffner

Ummmm, Matches WHICH " rocks from mars " ????

I would expect ANY solid object entering the atmosphere at high velocity to show a hot entry, the "age" of the rocks is nothing more than a WAG and We don't have any rocks which can be proven to actually be from mars to compare them with.

as to placing any particular weight on what NASA says about anything, their track record leaves room for doubt.

I guess maybe I'm just a little jealous that they get to play with multimillion$ in toys and get paid to do it while I have work to pay for my own (and theirs)

still Skeptical

Reply to
Bob Cowell

The ones on Mars that have been analyzed via spectral analysis.

Just refusing to believe things is not being skeptical. Its just being stubbornly ignorant.

A true skeptic would follow some of the links and read the papers. You can choose to ignore science if you like and believe the world is flat, the universe is geocentric, and heavier than air craft will never fly. That won't make it so.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

| I would expect ANY solid object entering the atmosphere at high | velocity to show a hot entry

Actually, when a meteor lands, it's usually not even hot.

The outer parts of it often ablate off, leaving the cooler candy center inside, and once it gets into the thicker part of the atmosphere, it slows to terminal velocity and has several minutes to cool off.

The reason that space craft re-entering get so hot is that they're going around 16,000 mph when they hit the atmosphere, and they need to bleed off all this speed. If a metor just happened to hit our atmosphere without much velocity (it could happen under the right conditions) it could conceivably make it to the ground without ever getting too hot.

| as to placing any particular weight on what NASA says about anything, | their track record leaves room for doubt.

I didn't say I trusted everything NASA said. I said I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand -- huge difference. As for their track record, how many times have you gone into space?

If the Weekly World News said they'd found Martian meteorites, I'd probably skip over that and look for more pictures of the batboy. But if NASA does, well, it's probably worth reading, and I haven't done more than skim over the stuff so far.

Ultimately, I consider myself to be reasonably smart. I'm probably smart enough to be an expert at a few things, but instead I'm usually just somewhat knowledgable about a lot of things. But I also know that there are people out there who are orders of magnitude smarter than I am, and some of these people put all their mental energy and time into just one field. And many of these people work at NASA. If they make a claim (Martian meteorites found on Earth!) and put it up for peer review, I realize, no matter how skeptical I am, that it's probably correct. Or if not, that I'm not likely to prove it wrong without devoting a few years of my life to it. And since I don't have enough time, energy or patience to investigate everything completely, for some things I just have to take their word for it.

| I guess maybe I'm just a little jealous that they get to play with multimillion$ | in toys and get paid to do it while I have work to pay for my own (and theirs)

Perhaps.

Ob R/C related:

I imagine that NASA's track record is probably somewhat better than my track record with R/C planes. Certainly, I've (accidently) crashed more planes than they've (accidently) crashed spacecraft since I've been in the hobby. (No idea how many plane crashes they've had, lately.)

Reply to
Doug McLaren

It's been done a couple of times and documented in some of the modeling magazines. Especially with today's off-the-shelf autopilots and GPS equipment, it wouldn't be hard to cobble together a working RPV.

I'm not saying I'm gonna do it, but others have and others probably will.

That's my guess, too. But he may have fun trying.

Marty

Reply to
Martin X. Moleski, SJ

Fabulous site!

Thanks for the link.

That guy is good.

Marty

Reply to
Martin X. Moleski, SJ

Also it's not usually NASA claiming these specimens are from Mars. It's scientists from various universities. The claims have generally passed through a peer-review system than is pretty conservative.

They've definitely got a better record than I have. 100% of my planes that have been airborn have been crashed.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

I stumbled across it a couple months ago and was completely floored.

That project sure makes my efforts at flying models look lame. It would have made a terrific documentary film.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

Now this is a grand idea ! But, I really don't want to get into really high altitude stuff , even though that would be cool to do even once. Too much trouble and the expensive camera would develop blank pictures.

This is kind of what I was thinking at least 5 years ago. Send up a rocket and take pictures on the way down.

I guess I'm not explaining it correctly or small (3 -6 foot) craters don't exist out in the desert. I just assumed they would leave some kind of dent from the ones I've seen in the soft ball size range.

Have ya'll ever flown over Nevada , I really can't imagine that every place has been looked over for a 5 foot crater. Maybe the black projects do that kinda thing , but I doubt it. They had to get prisoners to walk through the desert to look for shuttle parts.

Might be a waist of time , but I can think of tons of other applications.

I was thinking last night that it would be really really hard to fly one via the forward camera or too easy. I've never flown a RC plane , but soloed on my sixteenth birthday. The forward/flight camera can be really low resolution and even intermittent , but the other downward camera pod would record on board. I have problems understanding ya'll's hobby cause your flying from a completely different perspective. I would have to paint a RC opposite colors and opposite sides and after the 5th RC might remember which way is which.

The EE friend says it has to stay in line of sight , but doesn't matter if naked eye sight is lost. I haven't really thought about it yet. Guess a compass and maybe an air speed indicator would be enough.

Reply to
Sunworshipper

We understand what you're looking for, we just don't think you're going to find any.

That may not be the case. Below a certain size, meteorites may be slowed by the atmosphere to the point where they don't really leave an impact crater. Read up on the subject and find out.

Not sure what you're getting at.

Did you read about the sonde project to which I posted a link?

Reply to
Grant Edwards

That's good, I was starting to wonder. IIRC they do make craters from info. I ran into in the past. I think it was from a obsessed meteorite person in AZ. I'll have to hunt that down again cause it was on my last computer that died a horrible death.

Just that there is a whole lot of nothing out there. You know I never did hear if they found any parts of the shuttle, they were convinced a part came down in a specific area this far west.

Yes, very good stuff ! Thanks. I'm really surprised it wasn't lost till many flights later. One hell of an accomplishment IMHO , even if it was just for fun. Lots of stuff to learn from , but after 911, I just don't want to get into high altitude stuff.

I grew up around planes (my dad had 23) and I don't even like to pick people up at the airport anymore. I had three incidents the last time I traveled *just* before 911and can just imagine how I wouldn't like it now.

Reply to
Sunworshipper

Thanks, I'll have to go over all this info. from all the posts again and again to get it all.

Austin , my favorite place. What is that , the dam at Lake Travis? Someday I need to stop by that big gray cut out part for the road there and look for more fossils. I've got a big Heart Urchin from there. Some kind soul on the Internet told me what it was, good thing cause I would have never figured it out by myself.

I've been considering on moving back there. I've got alot of irons in the fire though.

Reply to
Sunworshipper

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