A Mercury Rover Could Explore the Planet by Sticking to the Terminator (universetoday.com)

by bookofjoe • 6 comments • 18 points

6 comments

[−] elzbardico 34d ago

I miss the times when I grew up, where such kind of news would inevitably lead to speculations and very detailed artistic impressions of what a human colony in Mercury's terminator zone would look like.

[−] jauco 29d ago

One of my favourite (dutch) children’s books is “400 degrees in the shade” which explores exactly that. A human colony sticking to the terminator. (It’s quite dystopian though)

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7697564-400-graden-in...

[−] bookofjoe 34d ago

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1743.pdf

[−] runako 29d ago

Absolution Gap[1] has a plot device similar to this. If you like hard sci-fi, Reynolds belongs in your queue.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolution_Gap

[−] bell-cot 29d ago

Cool - but "A Mercury Rover Could ..." presupposes a soft landing on Mercury.

Try asking an aerospace engineer about the delta-v requirements for that. Mercury has no atmosphere - so you can't aerobrake, as we do on Mars.

[−] darkerside 29d ago

How many dumb ideas that we had as kids turn out to be good

[−] aaron695 29d ago

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