Where would you land on earth?

[bonyetty]

Indonesian costal flats. A biological hot spot both terrestrial and marine.

[magnemoe]

Are we talking robotic exploration? For robotic, I wouldn't land at all, really. I would place a solar-powered robotic aircraft into the atmosphere to fly high above any inclement weather, and scout across wide swaths of landscape. Perhaps include some hard-impact drop probes to dump into interesting areas.

If we're staying with only soft landing, anywhere with vegetation would be very very risky. So the best option in that case would be to land something softly in a plain region that borders an area of dense population of organisms. The African Savannah would be a great choice. Huge biodiversity, large, open landscapes, and nearby rainforests that a rover or short-range aircraft could easily reach. Assuming it doesn't get smashed by an elephant or something. Also, powered landing via thrusters should be avoided so as to not incinerate several hundred square kilometers of your landing site in a forest fire. But parachutes are unpredictable - something with a skycrane and airbags might be preferred.

Depend on the objective, if you want to get samples for analyze you have to land, if you want overview pictures you use an plane or balloon.

And I agree with you about landing, you want to land an flat area with high biodiversity.

Multiple ways to land, one option might be to use an quadcopter drone, it has the benefit of being able to move after landing and get overviews.

For samples an dead animal would be very interesting but hard to find from ground.

If you wanted to go fancy with an robot probe an quadcopter dropship and an rover would be prefect, rover for close up analyze quadcopter for overview and moving the rover.

[kerbiloid]

To protect the probe from rust, heat and frost - at a place with mild and relatively dry climate.

So, no deserts, oceans, tundra, mountains, jungles.

To investigate seasonal changes - somewhere not far from sea, but not on the shore. Not in a bog, but somehere on hills.

To get diverse geological samples at the same place - in some region with complicated geological structure and without thick layer of soil.

That means some ancient hilly meadows between 35°N and 50°N with multiple traces of geothermal activity.

I.e. on some European spa.

[mellojoe]

Ideally I would try to make a coastal landing. Gulf of Mexico would actually be interesting. Semi-sheltered from major ocean currents, the Mississippi River delta, and yet a big enough target that if you miss slightly in almost any direction, you should still safely drift to shore. I'd design some sort of splash down landing with a small motor to cruise toward land if possible.

Major problem would be take-off again, so probably not going to happen in any event. Think of how large our rockets are just to launch currently. Even small satellites need fairly massive rockets. Trying to carry something like that to land on this planet will be near impossible with current and near-future technologies. Thus, this would either be a remote landing (a la Rovers) or a permanent base, in which case landing near water would be ideal.

[_Augustus_]

I would land in the Sahara. You have a nice flat landing site with highly predictable terrain... unless you land on an elephant or something.

[SargeRho]

To protect the probe from rust, heat and frost - at a place with mild and relatively dry climate.

I would think that a race that can send a probe across interstellar space can build it out of non-corrosive materials.

[Dkmdlb]

Why not try to land on top of the rainforest canopy?

[RainDreamer]

Why not try to land on top of the rainforest canopy?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4f/e0/69/4fe069772cbea63bffe9d179213a357f.jpg

How would you get your probe down safely to the ground from up there? Unless it is meant to be there, of course.

[Dkmdlb]

Why do you want your probe on the ground? Why not do the science from the canopy? If you need to get something down there, drop the instruments over the side attached to a string and reel them out.

[_Augustus_]

Why do you want your probe on the ground? Why not do the science from the canopy? If you need to get something down there, drop the instruments over the side attached to a string and reel them out.

Good idea!

But what if your lander crushes the tree?

[Tristonwilson12]

someones farm..... I don't know why

[ouion]

If were a alien that launch a expedition to Earth......

I would not land:

Urban and Suburban areas: There is no diversity of species, because its mainly humans and Crows,pigeons, mice, rats and insects. If I were to land on a urban area, then this would cause Human society to change its course and would cause unrest

I would land:

Ocean: Most of the ocean is unexplored and if I would make a base of operations, I would build it on the bottom of the ocean. So our operations would not be discovered.

The Ocean is a more diverse place and some of the crust thinnest places are in the ocean.

Desert: If for short expedition with the ship as a base and to explore terrestrial animals and how they adapt to this environment

Location: Sahara Desert

Rain forests: Second best place to hide and a lot of diversity especially terrestrial lifeforms.

[justidutch]

I would land wherever the biggest, lushest, most fertile beer-trees are.

[FreeThinker]

I think they would probably be most interested in the source of all life on this planet. It would also allow them to remain undetected by nasty humans which trash and poison the planet. They could reboot earth by triggering the bacterial life that produce Hydrogen Sulfide and kill most of life on earth. It worked the last 5 times, so why not again?

Edited August 14, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Newt]

==My original thought for this question was something sort of parallel to Viking on Mars. We have an idea of what is there, maps, but somewhat crude ones (I spent all this morning going through Viking and Mariner 9 images (there were a few earlier Mariners there too), and even the high resolution data is somewhat bad by modern standards. We therefore know that there is life on Earth, we probably have an idea of roughness and slope of areas, but we do not know too much. ==Our mission is an early lander mission. Unmanned, one way, and no sample return. The landers will have preference for a lower latitude region.==Forests are interesting, but very rough surfaced. It is possible that there are plants there, but also possible that there are boulders, quite the size and nature of these items is difficult to determine, so landing in them puts us at great risk of falling and tipping over, ending the mission. Consequently, We will avoid them. ==The Ocean, on the other hand, is pretty interesting. Spectroscopic images indicate that they are primarily water (H20), which likely plays an important role in the composition of terrestrial life. Furthermore, some have speculated that life on the planet may have arisen first in the oceans. Though this is questionable, it may suggest a higher diversity of life in those areas. ==Importantly, the oceans are big, flat, expanses that are easy to target for landing. They offer an interesting chance also to explore the planet with a lander, as ocean currents can take us to different climate zones, different latitudes, and perhaps even land.==Another good candidate may be the Sahara. This is another, large area that appears generally flat. Although it appears to be more empty than other areas, for a first lander mission there is an argument to be made that landing anywhere is probably highly instructive. The Sahara is near to the equator, and so there will be many opportunities to land there assuming an equitorial orbit for an orbiter. Other areas include the large plains of America, central Asia, or much of central Australia, and many other, smaller regions exist into which one could cram a landing ellipse. The poles could both be facinating, reachable destinations, but might be more difficult to reach.==In considering the possibility of contaminating the life of Earth with our on bacteria, it seems there really is no ideal destination. Life seems ubiquitous on the planet, and consequently wherever we go we can expect to both encounter, and be encountered by, it. There really is no point in trying to avoid this, and the only solution is to sanitize the spacecraft as best as possible prior to (and perhaps during) the flight.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Newt
trying to fix (lack of) paragraphs

[magnemoe]

I would think that a race that can send a probe across interstellar space can build it out of non-corrosive materials.

More so as its pretty trivial to make and that the cost of the probe is pretty irrelevant compared with the starship.

Biology would be the main interest of the lander, they know that earth has life but how similar the life is to their own would be very interesting.

[RandomRyan]

either in my backyard or around London.

cause it be a pain in the neck flying back home in the middle of the ocean and its shark infested ocean.

IF i did landed in my backyard it (might) would leave a crater.

for the London thing,

its for the killer view.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

[...]

Amazing post!

More so as its pretty trivial to make and that the cost of the probe is pretty irrelevant compared with the starship.

Biology would be the main interest of the lander, they know that earth has life but how similar the life is to their own would be very interesting.

I was imagining if it was launched from somewhere like mars, so not much more advanced than humans when we launched the first mars probes.

either in my backyard or around London.

cause it be a pain in the neck flying back home in the middle of the ocean and its shark infested ocean.

IF i did landed in my backyard it (might) would leave a crater.

for the London thing,

its for the killer view.

I was thinking of having no humans. Same as right now, minus all human impact and humans.