[FPSPACE] A *rover* on the Zond 2 Mars lander?

[LARRY KLAES]

Do you mean the mini-rovers on Mars 2 and 3 (and 6 and 7, I believe)?  Or do 
you have some
new information on Zond 2?  Please note I am not making a facetious comment 
here but a
genuine inquiry.

Larry

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Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:29:20 -0400
From: Chris Jones <clj at panix.com>
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Cosmos 1 Weblog Update - June 23, 2005 19:12
	PDT
To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
Message-ID: <200506271829.20588.clj at panix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"

On Saturday 25 June 2005 12:45 pm, DSFPortree at aol.com wrote:
>Dwayne:
> > In recent months I've discussed Mars entry, descent and landing with
> > several experts, and all of them have basically said that Mars'
> > atmosphere is a major pain for them--it's just thick enough to be a
> > problem, but not thick enough to be terribly useful.
>
>This is why the Mariner IV results were such a bummer - that and what it
>meant for the prospect for life on Mars. Up until the results from the
>Mariner IV radio occultation dribbled in, folks could convince themselves
>that martian atmospheric pressure was something like 10% Earth pressure.
[...]
>JPL was working on Mariner and Mars/Venus Voyager at the time. They had
>developed plans for low-mass capsules for Mariner missions - those designs
>either became unworkable or doubled in mass. So we never saw a Mariner drop
>capsule, and Voyager reeled from the blow, never to recover. Human mission
>planning was also impacted. The concept of aerobraking in Mars's atmosphere
>to get into Mars orbit, first proposed only a year or so before Mariner IV,
>would not recover for a decade. Plus it changed piloted lander design
>forever - all the cool-looking delta-winged piloted Mars gliders went away,
>replaced by ugly ballistic lumps.

Yup.  In _Das Marsprojekt_ (1948), von Braun had proposed a fleet of winged
Mars landers, with one landing on skis in the North polar icecap, and being
converted by its crew to a vehicle wich would travel on land to the equator
to build a landing field from the rest of the landers to land on wheels.
It's fate was a true case of "Romance to Reality".

Also, the Soviet Zond 2 Mars probe was meant to land and deploy a tethered
micro-rover.  It too turned out not be designed for the reality awaiting it
at Mars.