Caroline

**Facts You Need to Know in Order to Send a Rover to Mars**

 * Mars is covered by hundreds of thousands of craters so need to pick a smooth landing site.
 * Mars has dust storms so need to construct rover so it is a as resistant as possible to dust.
 * Need to launch when Earth and Mars are aligned so the distance between the planets is as short as possible so we can use the least amount of rocket fuel.
 * need to aim ahead of where Mars currently is in order to reach it.
 * Mars has polar ice caps so may need to make rover able to roam on ice.
 * Mars is about half the size of Earth so need to consider this for your trajectory/flight path.
 * Mars has seasons so in winter, the rover won't be able o recharge.
 * Mars only gets 44% sunlight so need a back-up generator.
 * Takes about 8 months to travel to Mars.
 * Mars is very cold (-250 degrees Celsius) so rover needs to be able to withstand cold temperatures.
 * Mars lines up with Earth about every 2 years, so that’s when you would want to take off for mars.
 * The bigger your spacecraft, the stronger rocket you need.
 * There is no magnetic field on mars, but there might have been one about 2 billion years ago.
 * Earth and mars both show a similar tilt in their rotational axises.
 * They both have water/evidence of water on them.
 * Earth’s atmosphere is similar to mars.
 * Temperature varies greatly within a few feet of the surface.
 * Rover needs good traction as surface is rocky and has loose soil.

// Ms. Mc: Good facts about Mars and its conditions from our class discussion but don't see much original work pulled from the provided websites. (-3). 7/10 //

History of Rocketry
One of the first devices to successfully employ the principles of rocket flight was a small machine called the aeolipile. This machine was invented by a Greek inventor named “Hero of Alexandria” around 100 B.C. The hero engine was powered by steam being used as a propulsive gas. A sphere was mounted on top of a water kettle, and a fire below the sphere turned water into steam. Then the gas travelled through pipes into the sphere. Two L-shaped tubes on either side of the sphere allowed gas to escape, powering the sphere and making it rotate. But, Hero didn’t make use of the first rocket; the Chinese did. The Chinese first used rockets to power fire-arrows. A tube capped at one end contained gun powder, and theother end was left open. The tube was attached to a long stick. When the gun powder was lit, the rapid burning of the powder produced fire, smoke, and gas that escaped out of the open end and produced thrust. Later, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposed the idea of space exploration by rocket. He also suggested the use of liquid propellants for rockets to achieve greater range. Tsiolkovsky was called the Father of Modern Astronautics.

Later, an American by the name of Robert H. Goddard achieved the first successful flight with a liquid-propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. People were fascinated by this success, and a German called Verien fur Raumschiffhart led to the development of the V-2 rocket which was used against London during World War II. The US eventually caught on to the idea of rockets as military weapons, and began a series of experiments with rockets. Eventually a variety of medium- and long-range missiles were developed. These became the starting point of the US Space Program. In 1957, a satellite called the Sputnik I was launched by the Soviet Union. Sputnik means sphere in Russian, and the Sputnik I was shaped like a sphere and had 4 radiating radio antennas. After the first Sputnik, the US followed with a satellite of its own. Explorer I was launched by the US Army on January 31, 1958. In October of that year, the US formally organized its space program, NASA. //Ms. Mc: Good overview of the important contributions to the science of rocketry. Nice drawings too. Please refer to them in your text as well (i.e., "as seen in Figure 1, . . .). Please make the date, entry # and title in "Heading 2." I did this for you :). Good job! 10/10//

Scratch Simulation
media type="custom" key="14075842" Instructions for How to Run Simulation Click green flag to start. Click red octagon to stop. If Simulation doesn't appear, click on the "learn more about this project" link above.

Tori B.- I really enjoyed your scratch, the timing for your quotations was good and your rocket moved without any bumps. The only thing is that in some quotes some of the words aren't capitalized.

Griffin- I loved the rover! You may want to be a little more specific in the definitions:)


 * 4/16/12**
 * Log Entry #4**
 * Labeled Rocket**



Figure number one shows the parts of the rocket, and starting from the top, the nose cone's job is to guide the airflow around the rocket. This helps the rocket break through the air so it can go faster and fly straighter. Next, the body tube serves as the main structural part of the rocket. It also holds the recovery system; a device used for getting the rocket back safely after flight. The recovery wadding, directly under the recovery system protects the recovery system from hot ejection charge gasses. Located on the side of the rocket, the launch lug guides the rocket straight off the launch pad, for easy flight while the 3 fins keep the rocket flying straight. The rocket motor is a safe, reusable device. The motor mount is what holds this in place.

//Ms. Mc: great labels and descriptions! 10/10//


 * 4/18/12**
 * Lab Entry #5**
 * Atlas V 541 Rocket**

As seen in figure 1, the Atlas V 541 rocket is made up of a fuel and engine tank, solid rocket motors, a centaur, (the vehicle’s “brains”) and payload fairing, or the nose cone. The fuel and engine tank inside the rocket, powers it to leave Earth and eventually Earth’s orbit. The solid rocket motors are used in increase the rocket’s thrust, and there are 4 total. Next, the centaur, accelerates the engines to leave Earth, and then to leave Earth’s orbit. Finally, the payload fairing (nose cone) protects the spacecraft while leaving Earth’s orbit. The Atlas V 541 was chosen for this mission because it has the right liftoff capability for the heavy weight requirements. The rocket stands 191 feet tall, as tall as a 19 story building, and weighs 1.17 million pounds fully loaded with cargo and fuel.



//Ms. Mc: good overview and picture of the launch vehicle. The common core booster and the 4 SRBs provide the thrust to get the LV off the launch pad. The Centaur engine gets the rocket into Earth's orbit and then sends the cruise vehicle on to Mars (-1/2). The payload fairing protects the cruise vehicle from Earth's atmosphere (-1/2). 9/10//


 * 4/24/12**
 * Lab Entry #6**
 * Rocket Write-Up**

The purpose of this experiment was to figure out if the mass of a model rocket affects the point of apogee in the rocket’s flight. On the launch pad, the rocket had one force acting on it; gravity, keeping it on the ground. During liftoff, the rocket had gravity, pulling it down, air resistance, also pulling it down as well as thrust from the ignited engine pushing it up, opposing the two other forces and also overcoming them. While the rocket was coasting, two forces acting upon it; inertia, keeping it going, and also air resistance. During apogee, when the rocket momentarily stops in the air, there was gravity, and yet again air resistance acting upon it. During landing, there was gravity and also friction happening between the parachute and the wind. It was hypothesized that rockets with more mass and the same type of engine as rockets that had less mass would coast for a shorter amount of time and also their point of apogee would be much lower. This is because the thrust/fuel that was used to get the heavier rocket off the ground was used mostly during liftoff, and there wasn’t as much left for right before coasting.

In this experiment, the hypothesis was proven correct. The rocket with the most mass (rocket number 1) which weighted 47.2 grams flew the lowest, with an apogee of 100 meters, whereas the rocket with the least amount of mass (rocket number 7) which weighed 43.5 grams flew the highest with an apogee of 142.8 meters. As seen in Graph 1, there was an inverse relationship between the rockets that flew. But unfortunately, there were some errors during our experiments; half of the rockets were launched on one day, and the other half the next. This could have complicated our data because the weather changed a bit, and also we were launching from a different spot on the second day. There could have also been errors with the angle guns; people might not have been paying attention, they might have had a problem seeing the rocket, exedra. And last but not least, the most eccentric complication of all during our rocket launches was when the engine blew out of rocket number 6. Instead of the force from the gunpowder going through the rocket to eject the landing system, it pushed the engine out and suddenly, there was no thrust driving the rocket forward.




 * 5/1/12**
 * Log Entry #7**
 * Rocket Fin Redesign**

I thought that the new fins (shown in figure 1) that we added to our rocket will help keep it straight, because when we launched it before we put on the additional fins it leaned slightly to the right during flight. The new fins will help keep the rocket flying straighter, although the weight of the new fins might decrease the rocket’s apogee. I think that the rocket will actually reach about the same apogee as before because one, it will travel at a more perpendicular angle to the ground (the shortest distance between two points is a straight line), but the weight of the finswill pull it downwards a bit.

Our rocket had an engine failure when it was on the launch pad, so it was not launched.




 * 5/3/12**
 * Log Entry #8**
 * History of Robotics**

Robotics date all the way back to 350 B.C., when the first mechanical bird called “The Pigeon” that flew and was powered by steam was created. Later, in 200 B.C., as seen in figure 1, the first water clocks were invented by Ctesibus of Alexandria. These were clocks that had mechanical pieces on them, that moved when water flowed through them. This was a big step up from the hour glasses (seen in figure 2) that the Greeks used to use to tell time, which had to be flipped over every hour. In 1495, Leonardo DaVinci designed something that looked and worked like a robot that we have today; it was in the shape of a person and called “Leonardo’s Robot.” It also moved like it had a real person inside of it.

In 1950, after a few 100 years and a few genius inventions, comes the “Turing Test” created by Alan Turing. The Turing Test was a test to determine whether or not a machine has gained power to think for itself. Later, Heinrich Ernst invents the MG-1 in 1961; a computer operated mechanical hand that worked like a human’s hand would. In 1977, Deep Space Explorers 1 and 2 were launched from the Kennedy Space Center. In 1989, a walking robot by the name of Genghis was created, and becomes known for the way it walks. And Finally, in 1998, Lego Mindstorms was invented by none other than the Lego Company!



Ms. Mc: Good general summay and I like how you included Lego Mindstorms! What are robots mostly used for today? (-1/2). 9.5/10


 * 5/17/12**
 * Log Entry #8**
 * On The Edge**

The goal of this challenge was to have the robot to move forward and stop before it got the edge of the lab table. First, we built on the sensors to help the robot determine where it had to stop. Then, we started the program and observed the robot while it came to the edge of the table. (How did the robot start and what did it say when it stopped? -1/2)

block 1 - tells the robot to go on indefinitely by activating servomotors b and c at a 75% power (-1) block 2: tells the robot to get ready to receive a sound (What port and how loud of sound?, -1/2) block 3: tells the robot to stop moving. block 4: the robot listens to the sound and responds. Robot responds by going forward. (What ports and how fast? -1). block 5: robot says sense the edge of the table (What type of sensor? What port? How much distance? -1). block 6: robot stops (servomotors b and c stop by braking or coasting? -1/2) block 7: robot says "watch out" (What port and how loud? -1/2) media type="file" key="caw_ontheedge.AVI" width="330" height="330"

Figure #1: On the Edge Experiment


 * Ms. Mc - good overall but left out a few details. 15/20**


 * 6/4/12**
 * Log Entry #11**
 * Life on Mars?**

As scientists have already figured out that there are not intelligent forms of life on Mars, they're digging out their microscopes and looking at the much smaller (microscopic even) forms of life that are potentially on Mars. Now, scientists are taking a more optimistic view of living organisms on Mars. They're thinking that life can survive in a far wider range of conditions than first thought. They're looking in basaltic rock, and in very acidic environments. The scientific world also came up with evidence of there being living organisms in a Martian meteorite. To support their theory, they listed bacteria-like objects (as shown in figure 1), hydrocarbons, and magnetic particles that must have been produced by some terrestrial bacteria. (This is highly disputed not to only be produced by bacteria but by non-biologic means now, though).

A microbe or micro-organism is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell, cell clusters, or multicellular relatively complex organisms. If a sample from Mars was alive, you could tell because it would have characteristics of life, where as you could tell that a sample from Mars was dead because they all had the characteristics of life but are no longer functioning such as a cotton ball (figure 2). You could tell that a sample was non-living, because it never showed any characteristics of life ever. You could tell that a sample from Mars was dormant when some of the characteristics of life such as growth/development and reproduction are temporarily suspended.

//Ms. Mc - good general overview but missing evidence from the spacecraft missions supporting the evidence of water and perhaps life on Mars (-1). Non-living objects may have some of the characteristics of life but not all 8 (-1/2). 8.5/10//