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Further, NASA was a part of the United States Air Force at the time, not a separate entity with its own (very limited ) budget.

Erm, what?!?

NASA has always been a separate, civilian agency. It grew out of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), itself a civilian organization.

The Air Force did have its own space program during the late 1950s and early 1960s (around the same time as the creation of NASA), which centered around the X-20 Dyna-Soar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The USAF even built an astronaut school at Edwards Air Force Base, and Chuck Yeager was the commandant. However, that whole program lost steam in the mid 1960s and was abandoned by 1969. This led the USAF to send its best remaining astronaut pilots to NASA, and convert the school into a test pilot school.

Even so, many of the most famous astronauts from the Apollo days were not USAF pilots. Neil Armstrong was a civilian (he worked for NACA in the X-15 program), and Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Alan Shepard were US Navy pilots.

The difference between then and now, in terms of budgets is this: First, the entire nation was deathly afraid of the Red Menace and national pride was on the line (nobody wanted go to sleep by the light of a Commie moon); Second, a very charismatic US President had staked his legacy on the US getting to the moon before the end of the 1960s (this at a time when the US had only put one man in space, and briefly, at that) before being assassinated and leaving the entire nation in shock.

Congress voted big dollars to the space program because it helped fight the blasted Commies, and because Lyndon Johnson, among others, helped spread the pork to important states (California, Texas, Missouri, New York, Florida, etc.). It also helped the nation pay its final respects to JFK. By the early 1970s, however, Americans began to question the investment in the space program, regularly saying things such as, "I don't think it makes sense to spend so much money to send people to the moon when we have so many problems here on Earth that we need to deal with first, such as hunger, pollution, disease, poverty, etc."

You made some valid points in the rest of your piece, but your glaring fallacy about NASA's status kind of undermines your credibility, don'tcha think?

Further, NASA was a part of the United States Air Force at the time, not a separate entity with its own (very limited ) budget.

Erm, what?!?

NASA has always been a separate, civilian agency. It grew out of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), itself a civilian organization.

The Air Force did have its own space program during the late 1950s and early 1960s (around the same time as the creation of NASA), which centered around the X-20 Dyna-Soar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The USAF even built an astronaut school at Edwards Air Force Base, and Chuck Yeager was the commandant. However, that whole program lost steam in the mid 1960s and was abandoned by 1969. This led the USAF to send its best remaining astronaut pilots to NASA, and convert the school into a test pilot school.

Even so, many of the most famous astronauts from the Apollo days were not USAF pilots. Neil Armstrong was a civilian (he worked for NACA in the X-15 program), and Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Alan Shepard were US Navy pilots.

The difference between then and now, in terms of budgets is this: First, the entire nation was deathly afraid of the Red Menace and national pride was on the line (nobody wanted go to sleep by the light of a Commie moon); Second, a very charismatic US President had staked his legacy on the US getting to the moon before the end of the 1960s (this at a time when the US had only put one man in space, and briefly, at that) before being assassinated and leaving the entire nation in shock.

Congress voted big dollars to the space program because it helped fight the blasted Commies, and because Lyndon Johnson, among others, helped spread the pork to important states (California, Texas, Missouri, New York, Florida, etc.). It also helped the nation pay its final respects to JFK. By the early 1970s, however, Americans began to question the investment in the space program, regularly saying things such as, "I don't think it makes sense to spend so much money to send people to the moon when we have so many problems here on Earth that we need to deal with first, such as hunger, pollution, disease, poverty, etc."

You made some valid points in the rest of your piece, but your glaring fallacy about NASA's status kind of undermines your credibility, don'tcha think?

Further, NASA was a part of the United States Air Force at the time, not a separate entity with its own (very limited ) budget.

Erm, what?!?

NASA has always been a separate, civilian agency. It grew out of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), itself a civilian organization.

The Air Force did have its own space program during the late 1950s and early 1960s (around the same time as the creation of NASA), which centered around the X-20 Dyna-Soar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The USAF even built an astronaut school at Edwards Air Force Base, and Chuck Yeager was the commandant. However, that whole program lost steam in the mid 1960s and was abandoned by 1969. This led the USAF to send its best remaining astronaut pilots to NASA, and convert the school into a test pilot school.

Even so, many of the most famous astronauts from the Apollo days were not USAF pilots. Neil Armstrong was a civilian (he worked for NACA in the X-15 program), and Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Alan Shepard were US Navy pilots.

The difference between then and now, in terms of budgets is this: First, the entire nation was deathly afraid of the Red Menace and national pride was on the line (nobody wanted go to sleep by the light of a Commie moon); Second, a very charismatic US President had staked his legacy on the US getting to the moon before the end of the 1960s (this at a time when the US had only put one man in space, and briefly, at that) before being assassinated and leaving the entire nation in shock.

Congress voted big dollars to the space program because it helped fight the blasted Commies, and because Lyndon Johnson, among others, helped spread the pork to important states (California, Texas, Missouri, New York, Florida, etc.). It also helped the nation pay its final respects to JFK. By the early 1970s, however, Americans began to question the investment in the space program, regularly saying things such as, "I don't think it makes sense to spend so much money to send people to the moon when we have so many problems here on Earth that we need to deal with first, such as hunger, pollution, disease, poverty, etc."

You made some valid points in the rest of your piece, but your glaring fallacy about NASA's status kind of undermines your credibility, don'tcha think?

If the device cannot land like a plane it has no hopes of recovering anything from space.

The Big Gemini (upon which this design appears to be based) used a parawing. This gave it the best of both parachute and landing gear systems. i.e. Slow rate of descent and horizontal flight path.

Parawing Video
Big Gemini

the delta clipper http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x-33/dc- xa.htm would have been a great replacement for the shuttle. It took a ground crew of 6 and demonstrated quick turn-aroud launches (on the 1/3 scale prototype). McDonnall Douglas made many successful test launches, Nasa crashed it the first time, and the project was cancelled. Androk

Hasn't the space shuttle program done enough damage to the pioneering heritage of the US already?

First, NASA delivers a space transportation system with a cost per lb to leo that is an order of magnitude higher than it promised.

Then, NASA stomps out private investment in launch service companies because it would dilute the monopoly value of the bad technology NASA produced.

Then when grassroots space enthusiasts try to get NASA to stop stomping out privately financed space transportation companies, and passed legislation requiring NASA to follow the Reagan policy of purchasing commercial launch services whenever possible, NASA thumbs its nose at the taxpayers most interested in space and launches the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite via the Shuttle.

Then when grassroots space enthusiasts, totally fed up with NASA's lawlessness and detemination to destroy the pioneering spirit of the US, start offering their own launch technology prizes, NASA waits until one of them embarrasses it before providing even lip-service to the prize award concept.

Finally, a private entrepreneur is offering $50 million of his own money as an incentive for other private investors to create a de facto replacement for the Space Shuttle* and NASA responds by trying to pump taxpayer money into the same good old boy network that has so effectively destroyed hope among pioneering peoples that they can embark on a new age of exploration to escape the burgeoning bureaucracies that proclaim themselves the hope of mankind while destroying its spirit.

Kill NASA before it kills the human spirit.

*An exploding myth.

http://www.spotimage.fr/html/_167_171_810_.php Launched 1986

Aster 15 m stereographic

http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/content/03_data/01_Da ta_Products/DEM.PDF

First launched 1999. $3600 sq km cost US$60 and are public access.

IKONOS 1 m stereographic

http://www.spaceimaging.com/products/ikonos/stereo .htm

This isn't the first stereographic satellite that's accessible to the general public; that would be MISR - NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer, built by JPL, with nine cameras pointed in different directions along its direction of travel in polar orbit, ranging from nadir (straight down) to 70 degrees in either direction. Compared to India's new high-resolution satellite, MISR seems very low resolution - 275 meters per pixel - however, it covers the entire surface of the Earth every few days and all of the data is available for free at this resolution, while India's satellite is "targeting"; it only images a particular area when it is programmed to do so. MISR is used primarily to study clouds and aerosols.

To see some 3-D images taken by MISR or some animations of its 9 cameras' views of different scenes, check out their gallery.

This isn't the first stereographic satellite that's accessible to the general public; that would be MISR - NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer, built by JPL, with nine cameras pointed in different directions along its direction of travel in polar orbit, ranging from nadir (straight down) to 70 degrees in either direction. Compared to India's new high-resolution satellite, MISR seems very low resolution - 275 meters per pixel - however, it covers the entire surface of the Earth every few days and all of the data is available for free at this resolution, while India's satellite is "targeting"; it only images a particular area when it is programmed to do so. MISR is used primarily to study clouds and aerosols.

To see some 3-D images taken by MISR or some animations of its 9 cameras' views of different scenes, check out their gallery.

Perhaps I'm not understanding how the submitter is using the term "non-military", and not to wave Uncle Sam's flag too much, but offhand I can think of more than six US RS platforms/sensors:

EOS/Terra/MODIS http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat ETM+ http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat MSS (yes still going)
AVHRR http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataset/AVHRR/
GOES http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
ASTER http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Not to mention US based commercial satellites:

IKONOS http://www.spaceimaging.com/
Quickbird URL:http://www.digitalglobe.com/

Perhaps I'm not understanding how the submitter is using the term "non-military", and not to wave Uncle Sam's flag too much, but offhand I can think of more than six US RS platforms/sensors:

EOS/Terra/MODIS http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat ETM+ http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat MSS (yes still going)
AVHRR http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataset/AVHRR/
GOES http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
ASTER http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Not to mention US based commercial satellites:

IKONOS http://www.spaceimaging.com/
Quickbird URL:http://www.digitalglobe.com/

Perhaps I'm not understanding how the submitter is using the term "non-military", and not to wave Uncle Sam's flag too much, but offhand I can think of more than six US RS platforms/sensors:

EOS/Terra/MODIS http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat ETM+ http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat MSS (yes still going)
AVHRR http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataset/AVHRR/
GOES http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
ASTER http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Not to mention US based commercial satellites:

IKONOS http://www.spaceimaging.com/
Quickbird URL:http://www.digitalglobe.com/

Perhaps I'm not understanding how the submitter is using the term "non-military", and not to wave Uncle Sam's flag too much, but offhand I can think of more than six US RS platforms/sensors:

EOS/Terra/MODIS http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat ETM+ http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Landsat MSS (yes still going)
AVHRR http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dataset/AVHRR/
GOES http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
ASTER http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Not to mention US based commercial satellites:

IKONOS http://www.spaceimaging.com/
Quickbird URL:http://www.digitalglobe.com/

Over the summer and last semester I worked in a nano-satellite lab at ASU. The most recent satellite of ours that was launched was Three Corner Sat and one of its primary mission objective was sterio imaging.

http://threecornersat.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://nasa.asu.edu/
https://spacegrant.colorado.edu/tiki-index.php?pag e=3CS

Unfortunately, the two of our satellites that got launched were released at 50,000 km instead of 100,000 km so they burnt up before they could power up.

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2737

AFAIK, all the "water" finds on Mars have been indirect - albeit very convincing - evidence of surface water in the past.

Radar sounding will produce no more direct evidence of water/ice than this or this. Radar just adds another plodding data point to something that has already been established, by NASA by the way.

The images are not recoloured. It is simply a product of swapping the red channel for an infra-red channel as NASA often does.

This graph shows the reflectance of each of the colours on the calibration target. Notice how the blue target relects infra-red light in the region of 400-500mm.

When taking most science photos, more often than not they use the infra-red filter. When putting together pictures for the press they use the infra-red channel rather than red. The upshot of this is that particular blues reflect strongly in infra-red and come out in the final picture as red.

You can see a wonderful example in this picture which shows the blue insulation tape as pink, and the usually blue NASA logo as red.

They're not modifying the images, just using the filters most useful for science applications.

The images are not recoloured. It is simply a product of swapping the red channel for an infra-red channel as NASA often does.

This graph shows the reflectance of each of the colours on the calibration target. Notice how the blue target relects infra-red light in the region of 400-500mm.

When taking most science photos, more often than not they use the infra-red filter. When putting together pictures for the press they use the infra-red channel rather than red. The upshot of this is that particular blues reflect strongly in infra-red and come out in the final picture as red.

You can see a wonderful example in this picture which shows the blue insulation tape as pink, and the usually blue NASA logo as red.

They're not modifying the images, just using the filters most useful for science applications.

And what if Asteroid 2004 MN4 comes head-on towards earth?
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html
We may become extinct along with the other species on earth.
May be that's paranoid. But there is a possibility. Having an extra-terrestrial colony is a safe bet in such situations.
The amount of knowledge we gain from these missions justifies the funds we put into them.
Homo Sapiens are not a perfect species. We have our problems. We always had. But that should not stop us from exploring. This exploring habit is one of the traits which makes us fit for survival.
I accept your thought that we should try to alleviate the hazards facing our planet, but that should not be at the cost of these explorations.

Believe it or not, Mars has both weather and seasons. Both affect the amount of dust in the atmosphere. If you really want to be clever, go play around a few of the 80,000 images from the mars rovers and see how much green you get by combining the red, green, and blue filtered images. You can compare images that show the color target (used specifically to make sure the color balance is right) taken on earth before launch to images taken on Mars, where the red dirt is pretty clearly visible. The color target looks the same.

More importantly though, since you've discovered this massive cover-up that none of us have been able to, you should take the next step and find out why. Does it truly benefit NASA to hide the existance of life, or at least green, on Mars?

As long as we're talking about color, I wanted to toss in a bit of little-known trivia: While on earth the sky is blue and sunsets are often red, on Mars, the sky is red and sunsets are often blue.

Well. maybe. But note:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep 98_1.htm

recounting the discovery of common strep (Streptococcus mitis) that was left in the camera on Surveyor 3 and returned 3 years later on Apollo 12, surviving the equally difficult environment on the moon.

This really tells you two things - first, that it's possible for bacteria with at least some protection to take the raw space environment for a while, and second, that although there are at least some consideration for preventing contaimination on most if not all landers (including Surveyor) that stuff slips through the cracks. They didn't pay nearly the attention to it on Surveryor that they had on others before and since (some of the early Ranger missions had failures suspected to have been caused by the sterilization procedures damaging the equipment) but they didn't just sneeze in it and shoot it off, either.

Brett

(and yes, space is sort of my personal hobby horse (not to mention my primary source of income), so please forgive my multiple posts!)

they already found water on mars!

really, why not lay out an experiment for me that can disprove the numerous theories put forth by evolutionists that try to explain what happened before the big bang (you know, I mean here we have essentially nothing or a tiny super-singularity but what was before. I've heard a half dozen theories but I don't see a discernable test for any of them.

The theory of natural selection and Darwinian evolution doesn't have anything to do with the big bang. They're independant theories based upon mostly independant evidence. One could be true while the other is false. In any case, for the moment both seem to explain our observations pretty well. The question of what happened in the very early universe (strictly speaking this is not before the big bang, actually slightly after) is still open, but trying to figure out possible explanations and test them is what many many scientists are up to. For any scientist studying these issues, obtaining testable ideas is the ultimate goal. Reading some accounts of what's going on in Physics may not give you that impression, but's it's the truth.

WMAP is probably one of the most recent and most successful attempts to directly measure evidence from the early universe, but experiments at RHIC and elsewhere are also probing the physics that would have been important at that point in time. These experiements are constantly giving us new data to help us understand the early universe and rule out many candidate theories about what might have been going on then. This is precisely the sort of thing that differentiates legitimate science from pseudoscience like intelligent design.

"This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made /., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government..."

And....Do they maybe see a connection here....?

I love the stuff ESO and ESA are doing but honestly, they have a LOT to learn about pr. They made watching the live Huygens Titan landing (surely the achievement of this decade for them in terms of planetary/moon exploration) into a boring coffee hour. The image and data release from Mars Express has been extremely disappointing at best. There have still been no images released from the high res imager HSRC. The ion-drive lunar orbiter Smart-1 which has been in stable orbit for months has released like what...4 lunar images? nice. If I were a tax paying member of a ESA member country I think I'd be a little pissed off at the data (non?)disclosure practices of the agency. NASA, on the other hand, while not perfect, does do a hell of a lot better job at data release.

"This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made /., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government..."

And....Do they maybe see a connection here....?

I love the stuff ESO and ESA are doing but honestly, they have a LOT to learn about pr. They made watching the live Huygens Titan landing (surely the achievement of this decade for them in terms of planetary/moon exploration) into a boring coffee hour. The image and data release from Mars Express has been extremely disappointing at best. There have still been no images released from the high res imager HSRC. The ion-drive lunar orbiter Smart-1 which has been in stable orbit for months has released like what...4 lunar images? nice. If I were a tax paying member of a ESA member country I think I'd be a little pissed off at the data (non?)disclosure practices of the agency. NASA, on the other hand, while not perfect, does do a hell of a lot better job at data release.

The new Digital NASA TV will be on the same satellite (AMC 6) as current analog NASA TV, but on a different transponder (17). In Alaska and Hawaii, we'll be on AMC 7, Transponder 18.

Griffin's predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, cancelled a planned Hubble mission in January 2004. O'Keefe cited safety concerns in the wake of the shuttle Columbia disaster.

There have been several successful shuttle missions that have serviced the Hubble in the past so there's no reason to think that this particular type of mission is more dangerous than any other.

I think anyone stating that a shuttle mission to service the Hubble is not safe has an agenda beyond safety.

New Scientist has the story from about 2 weeks ago:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7284

"The rover has six wheels aligned in two rows and each of the four corner wheels has its own steering mechanism. The problem is with the front right wheel, which can still roll but is now stuck at a 7 inward angle. NASA rover project manager Jim Erickson says it is like a car losing its power steering."

It continues with a quote from the "Quote I wish I could take back" department:

"At this point, with this one actuator failed, it's an inconvenience, nothing more," says rover chief scientist Steven Squyres.

The JPL statement on the issue at that time is here: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_oppo rtunityAll.html#sol430
[...]
"Opportunity's right-front steering motor stalled out on sol 433 during an end-of-drive turn. While performing tests to help the team diagnose the condition of that motor, the rover also continued to make remote-sensing observations. Testing in sol 435 did show motion in the steering motor, but analysis is still underway. The rover resumed normal science and driving operations on sol 436, but with restrictions on use of the right-front steering motor. It drove 30 meters on sol 437. Opportunity and Spirit are capable of driving with one or more steering motors disabled, though turns would be less precise. The latest revision in flight software on both rovers, uploaded in February, gives them improved capabilities for dealing with exactly this type of condition. It gives them upgraded ability to repeatedly evaluate how well they are following the intended course during a drive, and to adjust the steering autonomously if appropriate."

So the JPL story seems to say on sol 435 that the steering motor was still working, but testing was still underway and its use was restricted.

The wheels are not moving. compare and contrast.

Aside from the position of the shadow those two pictures are identical.

The wheels are not moving. compare and contrast.

Aside from the position of the shadow those two pictures are identical.

I'm not so sure about that. The clean tire treads in this picture don't look anything like the treads in the GP post, in which you can definitely see packed material similar to the caked mud that piles up on off road vehicle tires. It looks as if the material on the tires has been there long enough to crack the same way mud cracks in the sun. Weird...

• Photos and panoramic data with Pancam and Mini-TES that can be used by scientists to select targets for further study
• Practice travel from point A to point B and have enough intelligence to maneuver through a Martian landscape littered with boulders and rocks
• Take measurements with the science tools the rover carries on its arm (called the Instrument Deployment Device or IDD) and study them
• Drive the rovers as great a distance as possible, or to approach a rock target that has been identified.
• Deploy the Microscopic Imager to collect close-up views of a selected Martian rock. The arm then rotates to bring the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) into position to grind into the targets surface. The Microscopic Imager is repositioned to collect images of these freshly exposed layers. The Alpha-Particle-X-ray-Spectrometer (APXS) then may be used to gather information on the elemental make-up of the rock, or the Mössbauer Spectrometer may be brought into position so that scientists can learn the composition of the iron-bearing minerals in the selected target.
• Collect airborne dust for analysis by the science instruments

Wouldn't it be amazing if they both lasted long enough to eventually meet up somewhere?

Let's do some math:

The top speed of the rover is roughly 0.036 km per hour.

The equatorial radius of Mars is 3397 km which means the circumfrence is 21344 km. Let's assume for simplicity each rover is exactly opposite the other, so they're 10672 km apart.

Travel time to go 10672 km at 0.036 km per hour is 33.84 years earth time.

Of course, this assumes travel around the clock, which they can't do since they need to recharge batteries.

In other words, it'd take a long damn time -- it ain't gonna happen.

Wouldn't it be amazing if they both lasted long enough to eventually meet up somewhere?

Let's do some math:

The top speed of the rover is roughly 0.036 km per hour.

The equatorial radius of Mars is 3397 km which means the circumfrence is 21344 km. Let's assume for simplicity each rover is exactly opposite the other, so they're 10672 km apart.

Travel time to go 10672 km at 0.036 km per hour is 33.84 years earth time.

Of course, this assumes travel around the clock, which they can't do since they need to recharge batteries.

In other words, it'd take a long damn time -- it ain't gonna happen.

It's also interesting to compare the above image with this one, taken Jan. 31, 2004 when the wheels were relatively clean an un-caked.

I'd have thought the dust devils the rover's been seeing to be hazardous to the mission [and they potentially could be] but at this point they've given the rover a boost, as the dust that's been settling on the solar pannels, has been partially cleaned off, which increases the rover's power generation.

"Accompanied by Wind

NASA's Spirit rover spotted the first dust devil of the Mars Exploration Rover mission on martian sol, or day, 421 (March 10, 2005). The dust devil was observed the day after martian winds cleared the rover's deck and increased the amount of power the rover harvested from sunlight shining on its solar panels." http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20050325. html

Nope, it's the front - the rover was driving 'backwards' at the time. See the corner of the stowed arm at the lower left of the image?

They were driving in reverse because the right front wheel has developed a steering problem.

Actually, this shot from the Mars Rover site shows the front wheels pretty well buried and covered with caked-on soil.

The rover is driving backwards so there is more to see in the front view than there is in the back view

I hope they get it out...

The rover is driving backwards so there is more to see in the front view than there is in the back view

I hope they get it out...

So your plan is to replace something which is in many ways the essence of pork-barrel politics (i.e. the source of tens of thousands of constituent jobs and local funding), and replace it with competitive enterprise (essentially the opposite of pork-barrel). Sure, that sounds great, but it's politically dead in the water.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of things like the Centennial Challenges. However, there's a reason that Congress put a cap on how much NASA could spend on that program.

I also found this page, NASA STD 8739.3 which is the nasa high reliability soldering standard.

Wow, I used to teach a course on that. WAYYY BACK...

My apologies -- my global imagery dataset which I thought was well geo-referenced, was wrong. Way wrong. Dataset courtesy of http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarb le/, geo-referencing courtesy of me. So you're right, Hawaii is not in the range of 140-145W -- it is at longitude W154, and must have been the launch location.
Sorry for the confusion -- I should have double-checked my numbers.

I don't want to know, really I don't.

But seriously, yes, at the bottom of Valles Marineris at noon on a summer's day, you could probably stand the weather if you had on a good parka and a breathing mask. Of course, then there's the radiation that would give any exposed skin a serious sunburn in just a few minutes; at least that's the way I understand it.

I suspect you understood that I was just saying that, due to our media exposure to a very familiar looking place, we're slowly getting indoctrinated to the idea of living on Mars. It's kind of neat, really. We look at pictures of Venus and think we'd never want to go near such a hellish place. Mars, on the other hand, looks more inviting than some places on Earth.

Didn't RTFA or even TFC. But here's a mirror of a longhorn pic:
Mirror

sorry, it's 4:59pm. Dont have time to check if someone already posted. :)

We've done that.

If the pressure is like being under 1000 meters of water, don't we have submirines that can withstand that?

The pressure isn't such a big deal as long as there isn't a pressure differential. Humans can't deal with 90 bars of pressure, so we maintain a pressure differential when we go underwater. Unmanned probes don't necessarily need to maintain a pressure differential for all of their equipment.

And if it is so hot, don't we have some steel or somekind of substance which would not melt?

Ok, let's shoot a chunk of steel at Venus. It'll get pretty soft but it won't melt. What were you expecting that chunk of steel to do?!

Probes usually contain circuitry, cameras, radios, etc. It's only a matter of time before they assume the temperature of Venus's surface. You wouldn't have the energy available to maintain your equipment in the equivalent of a cryogenic freezer. Making all of these things survive at Venus's surface temperature is quite a challenge.

What are our subs made out of?

Steel, typically, which isn't a good choice for containing sulfuric acid.

Bottom line, Mars has allure that Venus doesn't, because it would be possible to colonize Mars. You'd never be able to live on Venus.

Then lets build a space ship that can orbit Venus? Would we learn more that way than just using telescopes?

Build an orbiter ?, thats a good idea maybe NASA should try that. And they could use radar to map the surface too.

Then lets build a space ship that can orbit Venus? Would we learn more that way than just using telescopes?

You mean like Magellan?

Funny to see this code; I was just pinging the developers of C Global Surveyor (a vaguely similar tool that operates on C/C++ code instead of Java) to see if I could get access to their work. I didn't get a reply, but hopefully Java Pathfinder will give them the cover they need...seriously, CGS looks absolutely brilliant.

Actually, while one of the Pioneer Venus atmospheric probes did survive its impact with Venus's surface, it had no cameras. All the landing site images we've seen of Venus's surface came from Soviet Venera landers.

... any self-respecting geek checks the rover mission website daily!