NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/skeptic/21755

Text File | 1992-12-28 | 3.8 KB | 81 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Ed McCreary)
Subject: Re: Hoagland?  What's the deal?
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Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:27:28 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ed McCreary) writes...
>>I actually bought his book a couple of months ago.  I figured if I
>
>What is the title of his new (updated) book?
>

"The Monuments of Mars:A City on the Edge of Forever", ISBN 1-55643-118-X.
I don't recommend it unless you're really interested in what Hoagland
has to say.  It's rather tedious.  He uses boldface like some posters
around here use caps.  He must have watched too much Star Trek.  Besides
stealing the title of his book, he talks about a Galactic Prime Directive.

>>He also claims that the only reason the Mars Observer has a camera
>>is too investigate the "face" and that NASA knows something but
>>is keeping the public in the dark.
>
>Does Hoagland present any "evidence" as to why he believes this?
>

He says,

"The exquisite "Malin Camera" (see Chapter XI) has been officially
(though, very quietly) added by NASA Headquarters to the Mars
Observer spacecraft-a spacecraft which, for overriding cost reasons,
was initially NOT supposed to carry-under any circumstances (in the
wake of exhaustively thorough apping, carried ot pole to pole by
Viking)-an imaging system back to Mars...", Hoagland pp 331.

There are several other quotes like this though out the book.  All of
the wink-wink, nudge-nudge "what do you thing this *really* means"
sort.  I'm not sure how quietly the high-res camera was added.
The original mission was proposed by the SSEC in 1983.  The camera
was present in the design by the preliminary design review in
1986.  But, changes in the instrument complement are not uncommon
with probes.  The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer was removed
in August of 1988 and the radar altimeter and rediometer was replaced
with a laser altimeter.  Does this mean there is a conspiracy
around these intruments also?

The Mars Observer was meant to be a "cheap" mission from the start.
It's fixed budget would result in some instruments suffering if others
ran over budget.
>
>What I dread is that NASA/JPL may claim that they could not get a shot
>of the Cydonia region.  This is entirely possible.
>
>The unfortunate part of this is that their failure to image that region
>with MO will be taken as further fuel to the conspiracy of silence.
>
>So, I would think that it would be in their best interest, if there
>is no conspiracy, to go out of their way to get images of the region.
>
>Jim Graham

There's not much they can do short of changing the orbit of the spacecraft.
The camera is if fixed to the body and points to the nadir. The camera
consists of a line of CCD elements.  The image is generated as the
craft passes over a particular area of mars.  But, crosstrack and
downtrack errors may prevent the imaging team from imaging the
exact area of Cydonia.  They will only have a few opportunities to
get it right.  Considering the restrictive budget, I doubt they
will bother with costly mission changes just to get an image of the
"face".

--
Ed McCreary                                               ,__o
[e-mail]                       _-\_<,
"If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao."  (*)/'(*)