Mars Challenger V1.0 > MCO Early Discussions

Laser-marker on top of the base - Idea

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Marco2001:

Laser-marker on top of the base



As an amateur-astronomer I often use a green 25 mW Laser to point a star at a night sky. It's very helpful.
Her's an easy Idea - let's put a laser on top of the base comm.tower.
Why?
It's an easy way for navigation, when navigation systems are off-line, during night and during dust-storms. It uses very little power. It's soo bright that you can see it during night or day! On earth, a simple hand-laser (green 25 mW) is visible....from 7 km!
On martian conditions (0.01% of the air on Earth) a little stronger laser can theoretically cover the distance of.....70 km!
That means that the laser will be seen long before you will gain eye-contact with the base itself.
Her's another cool-thing about spotter-lasers...the more dust in the air, the more bright they are (they cover less distance, but increase thei'r intensity).

All those positive aspects:
-low energy consumption
-easy and small
-wide distance covered
-work's during dust storms
make's it perfect for usage in a backup-navigation systems.

Whenever an astronaut get's lost/has no communication etc. he just look's up in the sky and notice a green-laser, and hed's toward it.
Easy, cheap and a safe idea.


http://laserpointerforums.com/attachments/f52/30220d1288634693-jetlasers-pl-c-250mw-532nm-handheld-laser-review-w-pix-6.jpg

profit004:
Would this actually be visible if there was not a dust storm, I know lasers are completely invisible unless there are particles in the air to bounce off of.

As an aside though it is a good idea, and a marker would be good to have.

Hyper:
The laser can not be seen from the side unless there are particles in the air, you are correct. There will be a marker on the base, top of the radio tower, red flashing beacon yes... when I get to it.

Marco2001:

Yes - the laser can be seen from the side, because normal air is filled with particles that reflect the laser. I know this for a fact, since I use my 25 mW laser. Mars air, as thin as it is, contains even more dust-particles than earth one. The more powerfoul laser, the more light those particles will reflect. Green color is not absorbed by air, and it travels futher. Only steryle, laboratory air will not reflect laser. Laser's aren't just some light - they are extremely bright. Even my small 25 mW laser with maximum cover distance of 7 km is seen at 3 km. But there are 250, 500, 750....and even 1000 mW portable laser-pointers. If a laser were used as a marker light seen from tenths of kilometers away, it could be even more powerfoul.



Some laser-pointers from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77CxWquJEU Paranal telescopes with Laser Guide star (Unique 360º night time lapse)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy5FRX6Vvik&feature=related Green laser 200 mW daylight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiwcE810es 200mw, 250mw, 300MW, 400mw and 500mw Green Laser PL-C JETLASERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEZ5dEi4oPo ChemCam rock laser for the Mars Science Laboratory

The difference between beecon-light on top of a tower and a laser-beacon is that the laser is seen from dozen-times futher away, yet it uses the same ammount of power.
I think it is the most simplie way for navigation on Mars - and simple is good.

profit004:
I can hardly believe this.. But I kinda agree with Marco,  if they really are visible I would prefer a laser to a light (I wonder what the reliability is like though)

One side note though Marco, It may not be feasible for hyper to program a laser beacon.   I notice when games use solid laser light emitter beams inside of a 3D simulation it causes massive frame rate loss for some reason.  Perhaps it is bad coding on the games parts, but I have seen it again and again.  So don't have your heart set on it, it maybe a just a light for performance reasons in the end.

 (Maybe they will also do better on cards better than Nvidia 9800GTX's with 1GB video ram)


*Edit now that I think about it, it is probably because the entire beam is a light source, forcing hundreds of millions of extra shader calculations per frame.

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