To all,
In my posting "Walking at the Mons" I've been quite complicated in com-
municating, that the probes had launched at the top plateau of Olympus Mons.
In her very first transmission Bette gave us
the location of the communication platform: 18N 134W
Highest point of Olympus Mons is at: 18,4N 133,1W (1).
That means they are up there, just outside the Ring-Wall²)
of the Main Caldera³)
Further evidence is, that Zachary told us, he had walked with Andrew to the
other side of the Vulcano two month ago, that means, in less than 60 days.
They never can do that at the foot of Olympus Mons, but easy, if they refer
to the caldera's ring-wall at the top. *
Andrews picture showing a flat place as possible landing site does not
contradict above evidences. **
If the "eagle" has really landed at the top plateau, then that explains, the
damages at the landing. Landing boosters had been working to meet
surface 27 km further down. I think this situation will give us interesting
targets and objectives to meet, concerning the cave, or tunnel (?) through
the ring-wall, as well as to find a proper landing site, and there might still
quite something more be waiting.
Looking forward to your reply ...
m.f.g.
Xanthos
APPENDIX :
*Diameter at the foot of the Olympus Mons is about 624 km, to walk around
pretty much more than 2000 km. They never can do that within 60 days at a
speed of 1 mile per hour. Highest speed of a probe is 1mile/h, if surface is
flat and no soil-analyses are done. Let's walk them 10 h a days at an
average sfr of 1.6 (surface factor of roughness, which slow them down) and
they will need 200 days. Theoretical minimum time 1 mile/h for 12 h a day is
124,3 days. But the theoretical minimum time, they can circle the caldera , is
124 hours or about 10 days, as its ring-wall is less than 200 km long. So
plenty of spare time to meet a high sfr and addinial time for spoil-analyses.
**Without any reference items a photo can't tell you how far the shown plain
will run, or brake away after few hundred meters into perhaps a canyon. As
I've been up Kilimanjaro , the Saddle up at 4500m between Kibu-Crater and
Mawensi's basalt rocks spreads about several km looks like a flat stony
dessert.
(1)http://fi-www.arc.nasa.gov/fia/projects/bayes-
group/Atlas/Mars/features/o/olympus_mons.html
URL that gives you only longitude/latitude of Olympus Month
---NO NEED TO CHECK--
²)http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/ic/projects/bayes-
group/Atlas/Mars/map/3x3/res=16/N/15/132.html
This URL is best to locate the platform, as it gives an overview of Olympus
Month and further down in a square of 17,5-22,5N / 135,0-130W so you can
find easily the locations 18N 134W (platform) and 18,4N 133,1W (top of Olympusm Mons). The ring-wall of the caldera is shown,
--- PLEASE CHECK---
³)http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/planet_volcano/mars
/Shields/Overview.html
This URL shows a schema, a very good model and the best picture of
the caldera with its ring-wall. (The caldera itself is an ellipse with a axis-
pair of ~50 km to ~70 km, size ~ 180 km², height of the ring-wall might be
approximately 4-6 km as Zachary has stated) ---VERY INTERESTING---
http://fi-www.arc.nasa.gov/fia/projects/bayes-
group/Atlas/Mars/VSC/views/mb15nxxx/mb15n135.html
This URL is just a zoom-able Mars-Atlas. If you zoom down or change the
URL to ...mf15nxxx/mf15n135.html, you'll have the best view to see, how
steep and high the ring-wall is. ---HAVE A LOOK, IF YOU LIKE---
m.f.g.
Xanthos