Yet more NASA micro-resolution images..

Has anyone seen this?

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Is anyone else sick of this absolute BS? Are you telling me I can get a 5mpixel sensor in a tiny cellphone, a 10mpixel sensor in a tiny camera and the above image on a gazillion dollar NASA probe is "full resolution"? This is absolutely absurd, not to mention the other images coming in from the 1024x1024 B&W sensor?? The stereo camera is the size of a suitcase and they can't stick a modified D100 in this thing? What could possibly be the argument for this? Power requirements? There are some pretty efficient sensors on the market and using lower resolution snaps would reduce power.. transmitting that much data is not feasible? They could choose to take low res images but if needed take a massive shot of ultra high res. I doubt anyone here can convince me that a probe this expensive can only swing 1024 sensors. This really burns me up and is proof we'll never see ANYTHING interesting with all these supposed 1024 B&W photoshopped scans.

thank you! i feel the same way and have said so over many of these threads and have yet to get a reasonable answer for this. *noting however that i do recognize i am posting the question on a board not even related to NASA, but still... instead of questioning and picking apart ONE SUPPOSED footprint that really only slightly resembles a footprint, i would think the greater question would be the one posed here.......... WHY ARE THE PICS ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE NOW and please don't feed me bs that it is bc of 'power' issues* after all, this is 2008!!! i have seen incredible technology possessed by ordinary citizens; hey, i am on laptop, w/ no wires connected to anything talking to you folks all over the world from the comfort of my living room......... come on, what gives?

[edit on 2-6-2008 by justamomma]

Here is a comparison shot

lmfao i laugh, but at the same time it is so true!! still waiting for someone, anyone who can answer why NASA's photos suck. i have a camera i'd be happy to give to the program in the name of science. it is only a kodak easy share, but the quality is at least satisfactory, if not great!!

[edit on 2-6-2008 by justamomma]

Ok, here is a proposal for Nasa, We launch a string of cell phone relay towers from here to Mars. We strap a cell phone to a kids RC Truck. Not some piece of junk, One of the three or four hundred dollar RC trucks.


The truck gets steered via the Cellphone relay, and the Camera takes great pictures. We even have room left over to strap a microscope to it and actually look for life on Mars!

If they are so concerned with looking for life on Mars, how come they never think of sending a microscope? I can just imagine what they will say when they get this proposal:
DOH! We shoulda thought of that. Send a microscope, how the hell did we miss that one?

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's annoyed with their tiny B&W pictures.
Their budget is $17.3 billion, paid for by us taxpayers. The least they could do is give us some decent pictures in return!

Is that an Egyptian statue in that NASA pic?? or maybe a skull? Coordinates to Nubiru?

Seriously, they aren't doing this for our amusement. Be honored we are getting anything at all.

reply to post by Chadwickus

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yeah well SAD as those pictures are and " Those resolutions are SAD "

That's not what the lander was for it's basically a mars weather station.
SAD I Know it has only three missions really

1. Look for water

2. Look for life in water

3. Report the Weather


We already knew there was water there we all saw the ice cap pictures from earth!

NASA engineers and mission specialist are like the boneheads that I use to work with at e-systems. They drool over things that the normal person would fall asleep over never wash properly, wear ties we'ed throw out, have no sense of humor, work 7 day work weeks and get nothing done,can't relate to people who aren't in their mind-set at all,very bad breath, cannot talk sports in any manner what-so-ever, either real skinny or shape like a pear,etc...oh! and do what they are told never ask for a raise...mostly they keep secrets really well .




[edit on 3-6-2008 by RUFFREADY]

we will have to find a way to send private robots on Mars! Maybe more megapixels is too much data to be transmited indeed. I guess they would need some stationarry satelites first (around Mars, of course) to act as "modems" then a little army of robots to walk and send pictures. Also , a more serious analysis of the soil should be done so we would be able to terraform Mars with the proper bacterias. I guess the private sector would successfully collonise Mars and the Moon within 100 years. If they are allowed to , of course.

Even if the images were in gigapixels, and very detailed, the only thing that would be talked about would still be "that rock in the right hand corner sure does look like the ruins of a statue"

NASA'S TECHNOLOGY EXPLANATION?

I found the above link on NASA's site and about halfway down there is a sect. labeled "Like We've Never Seen Before". I skimmed over the rest and that particular sect. although in that particular sect. there is babbling about how great they can see things, I can't find anything that really explains the black and white pics. I admit to skimming over it due to the fact that I am sick and not able to process information in my head as well today, so i was hoping maybe someone else can read through and find something I missed, bc I see nothing other than bogus claims of "great technology" that I have yet to see from the pics we are getting.

I have also sent an email w/ my inquiries.

You do have to consider that the project has been underway for quite some years and that the lander itself traveled 296 days to get there.

The hardware also has to be made to withstand extreme conditions, unlike satellites that remain in space, where the worst thing that can happen is the unlikely micro meteor strike, for this craft it needed to travel and land on a rather inhospitable planet.

Check what resolution camera's you could buy 5 years ago, then quarter that resolution as whats needed to make something robust enough to withstand what it had to go trough.

If you are ready to say to that 'well, they could've upgraded the camera just before launch, with the latest ccd's' you simply fail to see how a hardware project like this works. The design for the craft defines the parts and there can be no deviation afterwards, without upgrading all the other hardware.

[edit on 3/6/08 by thematrix]

i see your point... but still, don't they have access to better technology than we do? meaning that if we have the technology now, shouldn't they have had it then? i am sorry for my ignorance on this subject, i am just trying to understand something that hasn't made sense to me.. please have patience w/ me

(btw the matrix: your b-day is one year to the date after my b-day!! a late happy b-day to you! =) .... and yes, i am that nosey. )

Here's a blow-up of the little low res guy there for anyone who cares:

Don't you mean:

Slightly off-topic but it annoys the hell out of me that we could send a life-science lab to Mars in 1976, but probe after lander after rover 30 years later still lacks an updated life lab. Does this make any sense at all? Truely, JPL is run by geologists. As to the comment that we should feel honored that they provide us with any information, nonsense. If planetary research was done by private firms, they'd be pulling out all the stops to wow us. As it is, apparently our tax dollars are all that count--the actual taxpayers are merely a nuisance to them. Everything started going downhill when NASA was moved under the military's umbrella.

There are actually a few decent reasons why photos sent back from space are not what you'd expect.

First, there's a technology lag. The stuff on Mars represents the technology available when it was originally planned, so we're looking at 10 year old technical capabilities. Even counting possible inline upgrades during development, the latency is FAR behind the consumer market. If you find that hard to believe, look at your own computer. Mine was state of the art when I bought it 18 months ago. I can get a more powerful machine today for half the price.

Second, data transmissions are not coherent, and therfore not lossless, so even if the source data is high resolution the receiving end would not be. It's also not streaming, which means the images are not composites. Any interference in the tens of thousands of miles of contaminated space will disrupt a singular image. Also, black and white photos carry a very small fraction of the info in their color counterparts. And color is sort of pointless for an extra-terrestrial lander anyway; they're not sent up as photojournalists. Those pictures are add ons to give the media something to chew on and not much more. Spectroscopy is much more valuable than a color snapshot, and that data contains numeric values describing radiant variables like temperature and frequency - which can be extrapolated as color, but is not inherently "colorized."

Most people who challenge NASA have never managed a technical project of any scale and seldom see the complexities. Strap your cell phone to a model rocket, set the photo timer, launch it... what are the odds that it'll take a picture of a target you have specified with the clarity you'd expect from its hardware specs? Sure, NASA has better equipment, but even if you had all of that do you even begin to know how to compensate for thrust and atmospheric conditions, crunch the numbers so that your shutter goes off when it should, at the right angle, with the right lighting, and accurately predict the landing zone so you can retrieve your phone intact? That's just your back yard. Add a hundred thousand miles between you and your target and factor in gravity wells and a target mass that is moving out of synch with your launch pad at velocities your rocket can't keep up with. The fact that NASA is hitting their landing zones, piloting sensitive and yet intact equipment across the surface of Mars, and sending back any kind of information at all puts them far outside the league of all but the most elite criticisms.

Complaining that the rover doesn't take photos as clear as your cell phone only demonstrates that the critic has too much time on his or her hands.

Let's deny ignorance here.

NASA and the missions are under cost constraints.

The electronics must be space certified, which means much more resistant to radiation than common consumer electronics, as well as being much more reliable and resistant to environmental changes. This usually means that the smallest chip/transistor features common on consumer electronics are not used for these types of missions; you are several generations back.

It is also important that the sensors be physically calibrated, as in having proper spectral properties and sensitivity over various wavelengths compatible with the various filters. This is not an issue with consumer cameras.

And because of all these requirements, testing has to start years to a decade before mission start, so the technological base is much further back.

A consumer electronics device would never pass the reliability requirements and a dead sensor on Mars would make it a very expensive paperweight.

[edit on 5-6-2008 by mbkennel]