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A Spot For Beagle On Mars
bitva writes: "A landing site has been chosen for the 2003 UK Mars mission. Here's the finer details." Beagle 2, being built now in the UK, will sample air and soil of the red planet, looking for evidence of Martian life. They even have a nice Minesweeper-looking map illustrating the ellipse within which the Beagle must land, in "Isidis Planitia, a large flat region."
The name "Beagle" (it's actually called the Beagle 2) is a tip of the hat to the great explorer/scientist C. Darwin. In 1831 Darwin joined the HMS Beagle as the ship's naturalist, much to his fathers consternation, who said to him "it's a wild scheme and no good would come of it".
Of course the observations made on that particular voyage of 170 years ago would be used to write "On the Origin of Species" and subsequently turn the western world on it's head with the realization of Evolution.
Hence, the high hopes for revolutionary discovery that lead to the probes name "Beagle 2".
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Join the Mars Society. Philip Dembo, the chairman, is conducting a drive to mobilize support. Make sure this project isn't canned like some others; governments can be fickle, and the funding might not be there tomorrow (just ask the folks at the supercollider). And when you leave, make sure you stop at the giftshop and buy something -- 5% of proceeds go towards helping conquer Mars.
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I hear that the landing site will be 10 meters by 10 meters square, or 30 feet by 30 feet if you're a NASA engineer.
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That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel.
They've gone with a completely different approach to testing for life than the Viking landers, whose results were hard to interpret. (Some of the Viking results were what you'd expect if there were bacteria, and other results were what you'd expect if there weren't. See this Slashdot discussion.) It's going to test for traces of methane in the atmosphere, which would be a strong indicator of subterranean microbes. It's also going to analyze how much of the carbon in soil samples is in organic forms and how much is inorganic, and the isotope ratios of organic and inorganic carbon.
If the results are positive, it'll be one of the two or three greatest scientific discoveries of all time.
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There's really nothing particularly minesweeper-esque about it...
It's just your standard, everyday map, divided into a grid, and with X's to mark things. Nothing to intersting there.
Or am I missing something, and there's now a version of minesweeper that lets you draw shapes and mark mines anywhere, regardless of the grid?
Max, in America, it's customary to drive on the right.