typical humanity dropping plastic pollution on another planet before ever setting foot on it
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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That's metal.
Man that wheel is so much thinner than I was expecting. I was surprised it was broken at all until I noticed how thin the material is. That looks like it's less than a quarter of an inch of what appears to be rigid material for something about the size of a medium-ish car.
It was just thick enough to hold well past the initial mission time. That means any thicker would have been a waste of materials, weight, and energy. If anything, it was too thick. Every gram counts when bringing objects to space.
It’s thicker than it looks because the rover is much larger than it looks of course proportionally it’s still thin but curiosity is lighter than it looks because it was made for space snd mars is smaller than earth.
It was getting damaged power much as soon as they started using it. It's kinda weird they didn't catch something like that in testing on earth? Were the rocks on Mars just that more jagged?
But also I think the wheels are aluminum as well, so very soft metal.
It's lasted this long. I think they made the right decisions. No matter what it is, it's going to be damaged. The goal is to make it still operate despite the damage for as long as possible. The goal isn't to make it last forever, or to never be damaged. The more massive the wheels are the less mass everything else can be, so it's a big trade-off.
It has travelled 32.39 km (20.13 mi) on Mars as of 19 September 2024
Designing any kind of space vehicle is always a trade off.
The vehicle needs to be light enough to be launched from earth to mars, but durable enough to fulfill its mission goals.
I’m sure if nasa had access to a vehicle that could send an M1 Abram’s sized, solid steel rover to mars, they totally would, but that would probably cost more than a moon mission, and the whole point of rovers is that they’re fairly cheap for the amount of research you can get out of them.
They're gonna drive that thing till the wheels fall off.
In this economy? We have wheels at home.
Bruh home is like a billion miles away ur turn to hoof it
What I'm curious about is the "engineering model."
All NASA missions have duplicate probes, satellites, rovers, here on earth. They're essential for testing various scenarios like training astronauts (in the case of the Hubble repair missions), or testing the limits of the systems in question. I wonder if the engineering model for Curiosity has one of its wheels cut away in the same pattern, to simulate difficulties in navigation and traction?
iirc, they did use a damaged wheel to try to figure out a situation where a rover was stuck, though I don't remember any details about it.
Maybe that's why the took the photo of the wheel?
Now that you mention it, that's probably why.
Im tired, boss.
And the little bugger is still chugging along. Amazing.
I feel this. It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage.
That thing hasn't even traveled 20 miles I think. Going to say it must be getting a lot of damage from winds or something. Someone said it is aluminum.
Martian winds can't damage anything at all. Actually that's the main reason why rocks are super sharp, and cause this much damage.
Yeah I was wondering that, they always talk about storms, but the rockz would have rounded out.
You're saying we've polluted Mars with microplastics too!?
No, the wheels are made of aluminum, not plastic
Oh, Cool!
They've lasted quite well.
But it's apparently one of the things the designers want to do better with future rovers.
The design was meant to be light-weight while providing good traction on the martian surface, but it has turned out more fragile than they'd hoped. All six wheels on Curiosity are quite damaged.
The wheels on Perseverance are still aluminium, but instead of the zig-zag tread, the large gaps of flat metal that have been getting punctured, were done away with. The wheels on Percy instead have a dense pattern of wavy tread.
Fascinating! Thank you for including a picture of the new design, using the ribs to reinforce the surface should improve things a lot with minimal material added.
you answered my question before I could even ask, thanks for sharing!
You're welcome! Percy and Curiosity are magnificent machines! There's a ton of fantastic content out there about their design and engineering. Smarter Every Day and Real Engineering both have videos about them.
Most people also don't realize how absolutely HUGE they are, until they see a person stand next to one of them on video or in a picture.
I had the opportunity once to see Curiosity modeled in a VR environment as if you were standing on Mars next to it and I remember how very surprised I was at how big it was.
As a fun side note now that you've jogged my memory. That same demo also had a model of the Rosetta spacecraft orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. For whatever reason it was sized so that the ~~asteroid~~ comet was about the size of a cat and I will never forgot watching that itty bitty little satellite orbit around that odd shaped ~~asteroid~~ comet in front of me.
https://www.aam-us.org/2016/02/23/experiments-in-virtual-reality-at-the-museum-of-flight/
Not just Mars, but yes. Biodegradability isn't even a factor since there's no biosphere to speak of, which also raises philosophical questions like: "what is pollution, exactly?"
What will really bake your noodle is to imagine a future where we settle the Moon and Mars. Do old space program artifacts become monuments and parks (debris and all), or are they trash to be removed from the environment?
Removed, obviously. Gotta put that new STARbucks somewhere
Knowing humans, yes! I think they will. Probably not the bits that fall off, they'll most likely be placed in the visitors centre but given how sentimental we are as a species I can absolutely see us one day touring the sea of tranquility space reservation.
It's okay, Mars is low on fossil fuels and could use some global warming, so the Martians are already burning it as we speak.