A giant remote controlled doohickey touched down safely on Mars, within the last ten minutes. With all the work done by the Bialystok student groups, and the fervent fandom of the Mars Society Polska, I'm sure my geeky friends on both sides of the pond are enthused, to say the least. Congrats! And to our imminent alien overlords, I am here to welcome and serve you! marssociety.pl
Mars Society Poland (MSP) is a branch of the Association of The Mars Society, which aims to achieve a manned mission to Mars, and promoting the idea of his research. The organization brings together specialists in the field of astronautics (such as Robert Zubrin, Buzz Aldrin), scientists, filmmakers (eg. James Cameron), writers (Kim Stanley Robinson), enthusiasts - all who share the vision of human presence on Mars.
P3undone, I support exploring new worlds, but what about the other two Mars rovers? You never hear about them anymore. What can this do that those two could not?
This is the cool part. Curiosity is nuclear-powered, with rock disintigrating lazers. It's been shooting thru space for 9-months, it's huge drills hungry to dig into the Gale Crater, Mar's lowest point, and if estimates are correct, it's oldest lake. As you surely are aware, my dear PP, water flows downhill, and this counts true on the Red Planet, as well. There are minerals that are only capable of forming once they are in contact with water. This reaction will be observable even billions of year later. If all goes well, and so far it does, the Curiosity will find it. Lasers! Atomic energy! Micron-sensing diodes! This baby has it all, man!
TBH, I hope it has more than that. Why doesn't NASA send one up that will do everything that needs done instead of just sending up more and more parcels of space-junk? Haven't we learned a thing or two by how we manage Earth? I disagree with the way they are handling these rover missions. They should just stay grounded until they come up with a super rover because they are just littering and contaminating Mars with an endless parade of probes. Other nations are doing the same thing, btw, so it isn't just NASA.
PlasticPole,I don't think it's just litter on mars,data is important;especially if they plan on going there.Nasa no longer able to do what they did before with all the cuts and is becoming more dependent on the private sector.I think space exploration is a worthy endeavor myself.One day people are going to have to leave this planet.
I'll tell ya why. My old man's in NASA, and the way he relates it, it works like so: You put too many eggs in one basket, and God help whomever drops said basket. Bite-size, marketable, easily digestible victories are where it's at. The space program is hanging on a string and a prayer.
p3undone, I think it is too but this is irresponsible on the part of the International Space Community. If they want to live on Mars one day, they shouldn't be littering it with endless probes. They need to design and build one that does what they require and send only one there..
What they should do, Jason, is make sure they have all the errors figured out before sending the probe to Mars.
PP, we're not scouting Mars so we can develop condos, there. We wanna know what turned it into a barren landscape, so we can keep the same inhospitable conditions from occurring here.
it's not endless litter and how many do you think have been sent up?
I just read an article about failed Mars missions. We already have two rovers on Mars, this is the third one.
Jason, they want to find that out, but they also hope, one day, they can terraform the surface. The biggest problem with Mars is it lacks a magnetic field. Perhaps the middle is not made of nickel. For whatever reason, the atmosphere is not shielded from the solar winds so the climate is inhospitable. Earth has a magnetic shield which is why it is not like Mars. The core is made from different elements and Earth is a bigger planet, closer to the sun.
PlasticPole,Three doesn't exactly constitute litter on a planet that size.If you sent a thousand a day for the next ten years it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the size of that planet.
It still doesn't justify the waste, P3undone. We have this attitude on Earth that we can just waste everything when we should carefully manage our resources and conserve. We should take care to protect the Martian surface by sending up one probe that will do everything we require and will last a while.
PlasticPole,It does if it attains the goal,how else would we get there,I'm not for wanton litter and my attitude is that this is a worth while endeavor.If we were sending thousands of these things then I would agree with you.If we had to worry about being able to send any then there's no point in doing it at all because there is no other way,It's always trial and error.
.If we were sending thousands of these things then I would agree with you
It has to start somewhere, p3undone, which is why NASA should be reminded and watched on this, to be sure they don't do what people typically indulge in, mindless wasting of resources and taking everything for granted. Not just NASA but the space community as a whole. They seem to have developed this attitude that it's fine to litter up space. It's already a big problem orbiting Earth. Over 200,000 pieces of space-junk and counting.
PlasticPole I agree with that,but no matter how they approach it there is going to be waste and they have to know what they're dealing with and as for all the junk in space I agree they need to be more conservative in there approach.What there doing now with these rovers I'm sure is necessary;so I don't have a problem with it.Over all as far as space is concerned I agree with you 100%.
What there doing now with these rovers I'm sure is necessary;so I don't have a problem with it.Over all as far as space is concerned I agree with you 100%.
Why not just start with Curiosity. Did they really need to build the other two first?
PlasticPole,If it has more capability and can do more then I agree with you,If it doesn't then I agree that it shouldn't have been sent.I don't know if it does or not,If it does I don't have a problem with one probe.They can start by not sending any that don't serve a purpose,otherwise just scrap the whole idea;because it's not going to happen without some waste.
because it's not going to happen without some waste.
They should strive for as little waste possible attitude which, so far, has not been demonstrated. Space is seen as vast and just begging to be filled with...something. At one time, the same thing was thought about the North American continent. It will always be vast and it's resources un limited. We have already lost a few species to extinction due to this attitude, one of which is a beautiful, giant woodpecker in Arkansas. Another is a cool looking green parakeet indigenous to North Carolina that used to exist in the millions if not billions.
At a speed of 5 mph, Curiosity will be tearing across the Martian surface llickity split!
With only one rover up there, how do you expect it to perform large-scale exploration of various different geological structures? Saying that we need one rover with everything conceivable attached to it is no different than saying "Tanks... Flying tanks... Flying tanks that can land on and submerge under water, armed with nuclear bombs, turret weaponry, SAM/STS missile systems, laser weaponry, an in-built hospital and the ability to blast off into orbit". More rovers = greater coverage. Rovers designed for a specific purpose will be more efficient than a jack of all trades trying to waddle a few thousand miles to the next POI. After all, we do want to make some progress within our lifetime, right?
Curiosity is the most scientifically advanced probe ever sent to another planet,It can scan and sniff.It's mission is to explore the Gale crater.It has a laboratory that will be able to scan sediment which it can drill and process from the crater,It has the most sophisticated computer with wich to analyze with.It will search to see if the elements that induce life are present under the surface.It will also scan the outer lying area as well.The mission is to last 2 yrs. Poland should be proud! well done in the partaking of this!
