A Mercury Rover Could Explore the Planet by Sticking to the Terminator

18 points by bookofjoe11 days ago

6 comments

elzbardico11 days 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.
- jauco6 days 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)<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7697564-400-graden-in-de-schaduw" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7697564-400-graden-in...</a>
bookofjoe11 days ago
<a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1743.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/pdf/1743.pdf</a>
runako6 days ago
Absolution Gap[1] has a plot device similar to this. If you like hard sci-fi, Reynolds belongs in your queue.<p>1 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolution_Gap" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolution_Gap</a>
bell-cot6 days ago
Cool - but "A Mercury Rover Could ..." presupposes a soft landing on Mercury.<p>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.
darkerside6 days ago
How many dumb ideas that we had as kids turn out to be good
aaron6956 days ago
[dead]