[FPSPACE] What might have landed on Mars instead of Viking

[LARRY KLAES]

David, I hope you don't mind my touting your recent Beyond Apollo

article on the Automated Biological Laboratory (ABL) which might have

landed on the Red Planet as part of the original Voyager program

developed in the 1960s.

 

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) [link] in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is preparing a new exhibit on space exploration based 

"in large part on material on long-term loan from the New Mexico Museum of 

Space History in Alamogordo. That material included a 1/4-scale ABL model."

 
Images of that model with the article are here:

 

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/10/abl-images-from-new-mexico-museum-of.html

 

The design, especially the metal petals used for uprighting and balancing

the ABL remind me a fair bit of the Soviet Luna and Mars robot landers.

Did one group copy the other, or did function follow form?

 

Thanks for the article and pics, David.  I wonder if something like ABL

could be used with modern technology for multiple lost-cost solar

system missions?

 

Larry

 

 
 		 	   		  
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