What this means is that the theory behind something — in this case encryption using “hard” mathematics — may be very good, but the implementation can be full of “gotchas” — errors, omissions, faults — and that‘s what will get you in the long term. He was specifically commenting on Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US National Security Agency and whether they can read all encrypted messages, but it can apply to many other software endeavors.

If you’re thinking of writing some software whose function is critical, and especially if lives depend on it, you have to be extremely careful with your implementation. And Open Source is a big plus because other eyes can look at your code and spot mistakes that you, as author, are likely to overlook.

So whatever you’re working on, be very, very careful with the implementation.

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As the craft was descending into the Martian atmosphere, one of the engineers reported it was drawing 300mA of current. That’s the same current my FT-817 radio draws when receiving (let alone transmitting, as Curiosity was). Hardly anything at all. And later they reported just over 2000mA while transmitting and landing (at 32V). About the same power as a 60W bulb. The signals that were going out from the spacecraft were a bit stronger than those I put out when I’m on the air (but not much), and yet they were traversing 156 million miles (if my math is right – based on 14 seconds and the speed of light) before being received here on Earth, and the data was coming through just fine. Of course, we’re also talking extremely high-gain antennas here on earth (Canberra and Goldstone—the deep space network).

Also, the idea that these signals could bring telemetry data with them — those first 64×64 photos, then 256×256 photos of the craft’s wheel on the Martian surface, was quite striking. The bit rates were way low, and yet data was coming through on those weak signals. Then the first photo, of one wheel of the most recent object from Earth to reach Mars. What’s more, the signals were being relayed through another satellite, so the whole process was even sketchier. Xeni Jardin’s question about what data-compression method was used to transmit the photo was fun, but probably irrelevant for a 64 x 64 photo (probably 32k bits altogether).

So why do I say this affected my radio operations? It’s because I’m now motivated to dive even more into data transmission and automated operations. And especially radio communications that can function well under adverse conditions.

In the words of White House Science and Technology Advisor John Holdren, “Long live American curiosity.” And I would add, all curiosity.

The post Mars Curiosity Inspires me to Explore more Radio Data Modes appeared first on Sky's Blog.

This music video is a trippy artistic rephrasing of how two thinkers talked about the meaning and inspiration of all of this.

Please also continue reading for footnotes and a second video where Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan discuss the universe…

Also for more fun, listen to this discussion: Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Arthur C. Clarke (momentarily) — play it below God, the Universe and Everything Else

Phil Plaitt’s original Bad Astronomy blog.

Hubble Telescope web site at NASA.gov.

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