NASA Plans On Bringing Back Martian Rocks

FortKnox writes: "In this Y! article, NASA is planning on sending a robotic mission to Mars in an attempt to bring back Martian stuff (rocks, soil, etc...). Looks like its a tough mission to plan for; they are calling it 'Apollo without the astronauts.'" I would like to go to Mars in person, but if they're spending my money already, I'd like them to please use robots for a while.

Comments

Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[pgrote]

I like NASA's new approach to things. My primary concerns about the mission though are the following:

1) What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

2) What other benefits do we get out of the mission?

3) Will there be additional scientific study accomplished on the ground? I mean NASA's track record on landing things on Mars hasn't been great ... this doesn't even include shooting things back.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Drizzten]

I'm pretty sure the lab work NASA wants to do simply cannot be done if the equipment must be squished into a small surface lander. Besides, I'm certain they want to LOOK at it in person. I'd want to. :)

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[astroboy]

What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

There's a limit to how much experimental equipment you can shove onto a Mars probe. Some amazingly cool things have been done, but once you get the rocks back to Earth, you can unleash everything you've got in the lab on 'em.

What other benefits do we get out of the mission?

Anything which pushes the boundaries of the engineering -- getting the unmanned probe to launch itself back to Earth -- will have great impact on both the Space program and terrestrial spin-offs. And that's quite apart from the science.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[zpengo]

"Touching" the rocks serves no useful purpose other than public relations, but what a purpose that is!

NASA needs support right now, and there are few ways to do it better than showing people a rock and saying "Look. We plucked this off a remote planet. See what we can do?"

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[kaimiike1970]

What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely?

We can kick major martian butt when things go horribly wrong. What are rock-picking robots gonna do then huh?

Unless we are sending super-intelligent-killbots!

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[HRB]

I think this could give a definite proof if there
has been life on mars (and I am speaking here about bacteria).

If there once was life on mars, there is strong evidence, that life is more likely on other planets than we have ever thought. This would lead to the question whether life formed itself on earth or whether it was sort of planted by impacts of comets.

The only hints so far have come from meteorits which have been found on earth - but there is more speculation than hard evidence.

On the moon we saw, that it contained no life. The mars is different in this respect - it has an atmosphere. An atmosphere is a necessity for life, because it filters the hard cosmic radiation.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[_typo]

Anything which pushes the boundaries of the engineering -- getting the unmanned probe to launch itself back to Earth -- will have great impact on both the Space program and terrestrial spin-offs.

Shortly after the Apolo 12 mission the russians landed an unmaned probe on the moon and brought it back. Considering the fact that Apolo 12's computer was spewing errors throughout the descent this was a great achievement for the time.

Naturaly it didn't achieve the media coverage of the apolo mission but IMHO was a much larger feet than landing a duct-taped together mission.

Did you know Nixon alrealy had the speech written in case the astronauts weren't able to come back from the moon?

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Anonymous Coward]

1) What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

We can do anything we didn't originally think of, didn't think we needed, that requires equipment that is not rugged enough or small enough to send, etc ...

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Galvatron]

Did you know Nixon alrealy had the speech written in case the astronauts weren't able to come back from the moon?

Well, I would certainly expect so. After all, if the mission failed, the country would have been pretty hard hit. Apollo was the first time that America pulled ahead of Russia in the space race. Had it failed, an awful lot of people would have started to wonder if we were really on the winning side. So, a deep, stirring, well written speech would be a must. I imagine he spent much more time on the "if it fails" speech than the "if it succeeds" one.

Speaking of historic events, I'd really like to see video footage of Kruzchev (sp?) banging his shoe on the table at the UN. Anyone know where such a thing could be found?

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[fossa]

Absolutely. We can also take advantage of any new advances that might allow us to study the rocks better. IIRC, the rocks (from mars originally) that were studied a few years ago that some believed showed evidence of bacteria had been dug up long ago and had been sitting in a storage somewhere.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Alsee]

What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

By returning the samples we can bring to bear the full might of Earth's Laboratories, scientists, and infrastructure. A lander can only carry a few specific and limited tests. If we discover something unexpected we could even build new equipment to preform tests never before concieved.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[rice_burners_suck]

What can we do by inspecting the rocks in person we can't do remotely? We should be able to do everything except touch it.

Well, for one thing, you can put the damn things next to the moon rocks in the museum. Then, folks and their annoying little brat kids will flock from all over the world to bust a gander, and while they're there, you can shove all sorts of fascinating propoganda in their face.

And then, like others have said, there's the fact that you can't fit an entire laboratory on a mars lander that will likely be built so light, they won't be able to build a model as light as the real thing.

I wonder what kind of processors they'll use on this lander, whether they'll be in-house specialties, military components, or products otherwise available on the market.

The other reason for a mission like this is development of new technologies and sciences. Imagine if 20 years from now, NASA will send up unmanned ships containing robots of various types that will land on the solid planets or moons in our solar system, perform experiments on site, collect materials and come back. When that becomes possible, imagine the effect on technology we use here on Earth. (I mean, Mafiasoft Windoze 2020 will probably take up 84 exabytes of disk space by then, and there won't even be a desktop--all your content will be served by Mafiasoft's servers, after authenticating through DRM-2020 that you're actually allowed to use Windoze, and all operations will be carried out by talking directly to the talking paperclip. If you don't want to talk, body language, hand and face gestures will be recognized by the paperclip, and it will usually perform the wrong operation, such as deleting your dissertation when you actually wanted to get the latest stock quotes or some other typical Mafiasoft result. Anyway... enough about that.)

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Transcendent]

What other benefits do we get out of the mission?

Well... by sending more probes, we can rule out this [attrition.org]......

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Not getting back might have a great *impact* also!

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[kiwaiti]

That scene certainly is famous enough to be included in some of those "multimedia encyclopaedias".

Kiwaiti

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[sc7007]

As a geologist (and one who has seen the thin sections of some of the moon rocks) I'll tell you that there is quite a bit that could not be done remotely with any reasonable results. First off, just making thin sections would be very difficult. A lot of petrography and petrology is as much an art as it is a science.

I suppose, however, alot of the electromagnetic and x-ray diffraction stuff could be done pretty easily on the surface by robots.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not send monkeys to Mars like the early space program days. It would be a good test to see if man can make it to mars in one piece, and you don't have to worry about the monkey making it back home - one way trip = less money.

I guess the monkey would have to die..but so what!

Damn it, why bring them back?

[jfdawes]

Can't they just analyze them there and send the info back? How much extra money is it going to cost to get a couple of rocks that will end up being a paperweight?

Re:Damn it, why bring them back?

[CheshireCatCO]

No, you don't get the same information. The lab equipment on Earth is far superior to what we can get onto a spacecraft. Ultimately, is it cheaper to ship the lab to Mars, or the samples to Earth? (Answer: the latter.)

Additionally, having people actually handling the rocks is more important that you might think. People are intereactive, able to notice things not thought about during mission planning, then able to persue those questions. If you built a probe, you make a set of assumptions about what kinds of instruments you need and tests you'll do. You have to limit yourself more than you would if you have a person actually handling the rocks.

The fullest continuation of this logic is that we ultimately will want to put people on Mars for these same reasons. However, we're nowhere near ready for that at this time.

Re:Damn it, why bring them back?

[Millyways]

Working in a physical Sciences research department you get to see the size of most of the equipment used in this field. Particle Accelerators used for analysis techniques such as carbon dating (just and example) can way thousands of tons. Even a humble electron microscope used in almost every form of material research in its usual form would have to way at least a ton. And the sample preperation techniques used would be very dificult to automate and again take advantage of some pretty heavy equipment.

Then there is the question of powering these big power hungry machines. Are we sending powerplants to mars too now?

I realise that none of the equipment we use in our labs is state of the art in terms of miniturisation, but I doubt that we will ever be able to shrink the research equipment available to just one University down small enough to send to Mars, let alone the entire world's research equipment. Of course it is a good idea to bring the samples back.

But we already have some!

[MsWillow]

Haven't they decided that some meteorites that have been found here originated from Mars? It'll be interesting to see how the known-real stuff compares with those teeny tiny fragments.

Re:But we already have some!

[UberNex]

yes, but those "mars fragments" have been altered by our own environment here on earth, not to mention all changes the rock chuncks underwent when the were superheated during entry into our atmosphere.

Mars Rock?

[SpanishInquisition]

Is it better than Christian Rock?

Go to mars?

[FortKnox]

I would like to go to Mars in person

I'd like Jon Katz to go to mars in person. 3 years w/o Katz.


And then I wake up...

Re:Go to mars?

[sbeitzel]

Hear, hear! I want in on that dream!

Franklin said it best!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who would trade mars rocks for earth rocks deserve neither mars nor earth rocks.

Re:Franklin said it best!

[jesser]

Those who would trade essential scientific exploration for a temporary increase local social programs deserve neither.

and if we invent a new test??

[teambpsi]

oh yeah, and regression testing

and breaking up the samples and doing alternate testing

not to mention the really really BIG machines we have to do the type of analysis that won't fit in a spaceship going there

let alone the fuel to get it back

Mars

[crumbz]

I support an unmanned mission to Mars and back. I think the costs of sending men now versus 20-30 years from now are out of proportion with the results. Twenty years hence we may have lighter, faster propulsion technology and better materials for the ship. The ISS will certainly provide additional research that will be directly applicable to such a trip.
Robots are the way to go!

Re:Mars

[kaimiike1970]

Following this logic to it's conclusion, we should never send a manned mission. It will always be cheaper 10-20 years in the future. Are you still using your IBM PC jr. circa 1985?

Re:Mars

[crumbz]

Not necessarily. There is a point on the price/performance curve that is optimal. Where it is with a space mission, I don't know. If you spend a ton of money up-front on R&D, the payoff is indirect and appears in other sectors of the economy.

Bring back virus.

[A Commentor]

Maybe deep inside the rock that they will bring back has a virus that will kill us all...

;-)

Re:Bring back virus.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had actually read the article before posting, you would have seen that that's the whole damn point of the entire fucking article.

How much will they bring back?

[Anonymous Coward]

A hogshead? Perhaps just a bushel or two?

Re:Waste of money

[crumbz]

One answer:
Population control.

Send rocks to mars

[the_other_one]

A rock will make the same size of crater as an expensive spacecraft. They should see some huge cost savings with this mission plan. Just use the metric rocks.

Re:Send rocks to mars

[godscent]

Funny. Not troll.

godscent.

More Information...

[robbyjo]

Here is the lab of Jet propulsion labs that does the robot thingie. This is the software to test the robustness of the robots. NASA has learnt from several failures apparently.

A picture of martian rock with some explanations, if you're interested. Along with some interesting rock with bug patterns!

Re:More Information...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the labb of Butt fucking labs that does the ass thingie. This is the penis to test the robustness of the ass. GOATSE has learnt (sic) from several failures apparently.

A picture of martian ass with some cock, if you're interested. Along with some interesting ass with dick patterns!

Hubris

[jiheison]

I think these geniuses need a refresher in History. Perhaps a short refresher on the VERY NEGATIVE consequences of early travelers moving material from the SAME PLANET to different areas.

If we need to bring it back to study, I can only assume that we don't know enough about it already to be sure that it is safe to introduce to Earth.

Re:Hubris

[zoftie]

there's ecology throughout the earth. Ecology on mars as stipulated by large tempreature contrasts, would rather basic, even non-existant.
p.

Re:Hubris

[jiheison]

Of course you realize that your assumption is based on a knowledge of ecology that is entirely Earth specific.

Re:Hubris

[CheshireCatCO]

NASA, and other international groups, has already thought of that and long ago addressed it. Even the Apollo missions were carried out so that the Moon rocks were kept in a quarantine, at negative relative pressure. Scientists worked with them via those glovey things you see in labs. Admittedly, the Apollo mission's planetary protection was done rather half-heartly (I won't regale you with stories, here). But Mars is taken a lot more seriously, as is Europa (Europa is the reason that Galileo is being sent to crash into Jupiter while we still have control of it, rather than let it continue to orbit indefinately). Any Mars mission has be decontaminated to where they're gauged as having less than 1 change in 10,000 of contaminating Mars. Martians samples are to be treated as hazardous until we are certain they are not.

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, as if those damn mars asteroids always inflicting killer viruses on the population of remote arctic research stations wasn't enough they plan to bring back their own.

Man, you could run an entire series of what you've been watching too much of, from this.

Re:Hubris

[jiheison]

Europa is the reason that Galileo is being sent to crash into Jupiter while we still have control of it, rather than let it continue to orbit indefinately.

Sucks for Jupiter then, doesn't it? So, possibly contaminating some other planet is the only way they can figure out how to avoid contaminating ours. This is evidence of sound judgement and planning?

Re:Hubris

[jiheison]

There is a big difference between a peice of rock that is blasted off the face of Mars in a cataclysmic impact, and one that is carefully collected and transported in a controlled environment.

Re:Hubris

[gentlewizard]

Dang, you mean we're NOT going to lose
Piedmont, NM?? Shoot.

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

It would suck to hit europa since it has no atmosphere to burn up the craft.

Jupiter is nothing but atmosphere.

Re:Hubris

[CheshireCatCO]

More to the point, if Galileo, which is NOT fully decontaminated of Earth bacteria, hits Europa and gets under the ice (either now or in a few thousand years via tectonics), the WHOLE ecosystem is contaminated, since it's all interconnected quite readily. Jupiter is presumed to have no life, since there is very little for it to use to build organic molecules. So Jupiter is a safe target to hit.

Re:Hubris

[jiheison]

Jupiter is presumed to have no life

'Nuff said.

Re:Hubris

[CheshireCatCO]

Indeed, it could possibly harbor life. But the probability is much lower than Europa harboring life. So NASA and the Galileo mission planners made a choice: crash into Jupiter a very low risk vs. crash into Europa at a significantly higher risk.

wonderful

[Dirk Stiletto]

Wow, I certainly hope this takes off. Pretty soon we'll all be living in domes on Mars. Just like in "Total Recall" with the mutants and guns and the "hey hey"!

Yet More Information...

[robbyjo]

Here is the link of the actual Mars mission along with the status and risks. And check out all the robotics projects behind the scene. Cool...

unmanned mission??

[psych031337]

So it's going to be an unmanned mission.

Just wondering who is going to sign the ever-present forms then. Look at www.slashdot.org/articles/01/03/19/2049249.shtml and tell me the bureaucrats will let them get away with just a single form today.

I doubt it...

Because we can

[MikeyNg]

People are asking why go all the way to Mars and then bring stuff back when we can analyze it there? I think people are missing part of the point. If you're going to send people there eventually, you'd like for them to have a way to get back. There are all kinds of tricky things involved with leaving a planet. Heck, landing on the moon and reaching lunar escape velocity was hard enough!

Part of the goal is to examine rocks from Mars so that we get a better understanding of Mars, our solar system, and space in general. I think another part of the goal is to actually land a craft on Mars and then bring it back. Carrying all that extra fuel to reach Martian escape velocity is going to be expensive, but we need to know that kind of stuff.

Why don't they send battle bots?

[Mr. Flibble]

Really, with all the cutbacks in NASA, you would think that they would want to make a mission like this more popular - think about it - battlebots on Mars (just think of the lag time) - the suspense as pictures come back, the contestants make their move - and wait....

On a more serious note it would be neat to have hobbyists designing bots for mars on a competitive level to see who can come up with the most efficent/reliable/lightweight etc design. The guys at NASA have great ideas and implementations - but I think that the bazzar vs cathedral idea could help here.

Re:Why don't they send battle bots?

[cvd6262]

On a more serious note it would be neat to have hobbyists designing bots for mars on a competitive level to see who can come up with the most efficent/reliable/lightweight etc design. The guys at NASA have great ideas and implementations - but I think that the bazzar vs cathedral idea could help here.

How about a manned mission, but instead if NASA, we can get CBS to do a reality-based series about it, like Survivor III. Tagline: "You thought a desert island and the Aussie Outback were rough, you haven't seen anything until we dump our castaways on Olympus Mons!"

Re:Why don't they send battle bots?

[Mr. Flibble]

Actually, that would be worth watching.

We would have to send up a bunch of used car salesman and forget to include extra oxygen al-la dilbert though. =)

Re:Why don't they send battle bots?

[redhotchil]

That's exactly how the mars lander worked. The wheel design for the mars lander was used because it won the contests of a few others. They had a big competition to see who's vehicle could manuever over large rocks and the design won.

We are going to get it back?!?

[thehun101]

NASA has had so much trouble getting stuff TO Mars, and now they think they can get a craft there AND back.

It's probably the only way they could get funding after there last two blunders with Mars.

--the Hun
I probably shouldn't be so mean, but, whatever.

Motto

[zoftie]

Wasn't motto "To boldy go where no man has gone before" in effect, or rather "To cowardly stumble in our own back yard" is in effect? Lets send people there, figure out a solid way to support
them there, and make for a renewable modular facilities, factories and plantations? As they live there we can innovate here. Being there, scientists can do way more in terms of exploration, interaction with environment, thus we can learn more. Missions should be marked high risk and not televised all over, and should be kept under lock, so the normal order of things
would be preferred instead of making a soap out of it.

Make bold assuring steps in exploration of our
system. Unfortunately things cannot be done that way, because people want to see the show they paid money for, in taxes - where priorities for
missions break down.

Re:Motto

[ivan256]

People today don't have the stomach for what it would take to set up a sustainable colony on Mars with today's technology. In the 1700's when europeans crossed the Atlantic they lost numerous colonists and expiditions before one took. And that was going to a place on the same planet where they know had to potential to sustain life. Without further information do you really think we could make a perminantly sustainable Mars colony with todays technology, and not loose a single person? Imagine how fast people of today would can the project after they saw the deaths of the colonists on TV a few hours later.

Re:Motto

[mjoconnor81]

I think we've had a few advances since the 1700's

Re:Motto

[Empty Sands]

I guess that's the difference between then and now. Today, if one of the =first= colonist died on Mars it would be on CNN within X mintues. Where X is just larger than the time light takes to travel between Earth and Mars. Back in the 18th century if your relation died in the middle of nowhere it might take you 6 months to hear.

Secondly the living conditions in Europe at that time meant by going to the America's (or elsewhere) people had a chance to improve their life. Kinda like modern day refuges. Compare that with the modern-day fat-cat OECD middle class, who laking an economic reason have only adventure as a calling card for emigration to Mars.

Vikings were (probably) making it to the Americas from Europe well before the 18th century. I'm not sure of the dates. Maybe we'll see a similar time frame between those adventurers and the equivalent 18th century colonist before 2Xth century Mars colonies are viable.

Redundant! And the quotes is incorrect!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those who would trade essential earth rocks for temporary mars rocks..."

Billion with a B

[Catskul]

"The constraint given to the industry teams is in the $1 billion to $2 billion range

I dont understand the financial aspects of these missions. If it costs $2 billion well Im all for spending what is needed, but do you know what a billion dollars is? Thats a fricking large amount of money. Where does this money go? What part of the mission cost so much ?

Im not being synical, I just want to know. Anybody?

Re:Billion with a B

[KingRygel]

To give you an idea of just how much (or how little) a billion dollars is:

• The California 210/30 freeway extension costs approximately one billion for 28.2 miles of freeway. [The Big Dig in Boston is over 10 times more expensive, for you easterners.]
  [www.dot.ca.gov]
• The federal government spends about one billion to pay interest on the federal debt each day.
  [www.publicdebt.treas.gov]

Really, one billion dollars isn't as much money as you think it is. It's enough to pay 1,000 people $100,000/year for 10 years...and you have to figure that it takes at least 10 years and 1,000 people to build, support, and fly a spacecraft to Mars and back. Not to mention materials costs.

Re:Billion with a B

[Usquebaugh]

It's NASA stupid!

NASA doesn't subscribe to the KISS principle. Think about any goverment funded large organization. It's not about being smart it's about covering your ass. NASA should volunteer to cut half it's budget and then get with the idea of taking risks.

We still need a relatively cheap method to get to earths orbit. I'm talking $100K per launch, max hopefully $10K. Mass produce these things and then prehaps we will see innovation in other areas. Once we can reliably get to orbit we should concentrate on innovative engines for space travel, ion drives have been proved, what about solar sails?

Taking a robot to mars? Why not take 10, the cost of the robot is bound to be miniscule compared to the transport. Better still, why not spend 10 years playing on the moon with robots? Put up a communications relay on the moon and then start blasting up robots and see which works best. If it cost $100K to get a robot to the moon then anybody could give it a go, IBM, Oracle, Amazon the Brinkley Gas Works Choir.

I'm sick and fed up with NASA being held up as a technical pinnacle when most of their missions are bloated PR exercises.

Does NASA need a large and complex mission control?
Does NASA need so much real estate?
Does NASA need so many employees?
Does NASA need astronaughts?

My belief is that the answer to all the above is no. The last one maybe open to debate but only if you like to view mans future as space.

NASA needs a good kick in the rear. It needs to be split into areas that need to focus on specific goals e.g. Rocketry, give us cheap earth orbit and then disband this group. Deep space, give us the cheapest way to leave the solar system, then concentrate on speed. Telemetry, what's the best method for remote control, radio, optical, quantum? Robotics, stop concetrating on specialist crap and start designing small cheap multi purpose explorers.

Lastly, NASA should have a sister organisation involved in earth exploration. We still have not colonised the whole earth and dim wits are talking about colonising mars. "Here there be dragons."

Re:Billion with a B

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does it go? It's not like we're sending a ship full of money into the sun or anything. All that money stays right here on Earth, and ends up at aerospace companies, and presumably, in employees' and investors' wallets.

One of the reasons everything NASA does costs so much is that NASA tends to take bids on a "Cost plus x%" basis, so it is in whatever company that wins any particular bid to do the job as inefficently as possible. That way they get more money. Kinda backwards way to go about it.

Re:Billion with a B

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a little bit misleading to those who don't know the business. The actual awards fee that is given in cost plus programs is a little more sophisticated. It isn't to your advantage to gouge NASA. The closer you are to your original bid, the higher the profit margin.

While it is to your advantage to charge back as much as possible to the program, often times you can't. The audit trail of exactly what you are charging and what you are providing is incredible, and trust me, NASA has alot of auditors to keep tabs. The space industry is so competitive and specialized that if you tick off NASA once by taking too much advantage then you might as well close shop because you'll never get another contract again.

For the most part you have to understand that space is an extremely unique and unpredictable business. At proposal time it is virtually impossible to tie down a final cost. If things werent cost plus then everyone would no bid jobs because it is simply too risky.

Re:Billion with a B

[egomaniac]

It's important to keep in mind that the money doesn't just vanish. It's not like NASA has a huge furnace that they shovel money into while they work on the spacecraft.

Most of the money ends up paying people's salaries and buying components from aerospace/electronics companies. A portion of it will end up right back in your hands as the recipients spend their money on other things and it circulates back to you. Government projects like this usually create value, rather than destroy it, because these people might not have jobs or be producing anything without taxpayer dollars, and there wouldn't be as much money in circulation. Generally, everybody benefits.

Re:Billion with a B

[dragons_flight]

Paying PhD engineers to build custom parts.

If you're going to build something where you only have one and it has to work the first time, then you pay for experienced people to do the best job possible. Or so the theory goes. In reality not everything needs to be the very best imaginable, but do you want to be the guy they point to if the cheap alternative fails?

For example NASA was doing a robotics project for one of the missions, and a particular section was budgeted at a little over $1 million. A group of poorly paid students at my university built equipment to the same specs for around $50,000. It may be cheaper, but without the serious credentials no one is going to want to use it.

Re:Waste of money

[Heph_Smith]

War or missions in space? pick one

Too bad it won't be the one we want.

martians

[geekoid]

As long as they don't bring back any of those Instant martians. One accident and we would be up to are eye balls in matians!

Haiku

[575]

Can't find terrorists
Search earth, then the red planet.
They hide under rocks.

Re:Haiku

[sien]

Oh no - this was actually an amusing Haiku. But people - take heed and join the call for the comlete elimination of joke Haiku production on the internet !

Is there life of Marx ?

[vlad_petric]

(this is actually a book by Benjamin Kuras)

From the Yak department

[A Rabid Tibetan Yak]

We sent an explorer to Mars,
The maker of chocolate bars.
They returned one day
With rocks and a sway
Of budget boosts beyond par.

Re:From the Yak department

[ArsonSmith]

I meet a homeless astronought
helmet filled up with beer and snot

I gave him 30 candy bars
told him to go back to mars

-Gals Panic

Put the ISS to use!!

[Garak]

This should be a job for the ISS to collect the samples from mars. Then when the next resupply mission stops by the station it isn't leaving with an empty hold.

Why do they send the space shuttle up say to fix hubble, why don't they move the hubble into the same orbit as the space station and to the eva's from the station.

Maybe the ISS isn't into the right orbit todo this but its something they should have considerd. The ISS should be the center of all low earth orbit activity. Maybe a little unit could be built that could go out and grab satlights and bring them to the ISS's orbit where they can be fixed and upgraded.

IMHO the ISS in its current state is not much good for anything useful.

Re:Put the ISS to use!!

[AKAImBatman]

Maybe a little unit could be built that could go out and grab satlights and bring them to the ISS's orbit where they can be fixed and upgraded.

Isn't that what the Canadian retractable arm is supposed to do? Now I agree that it doesn't give you much range beyond the station, but the problem isn't getting stuff there, it's figuring out what to do with it once it IS there.

Re:Put the ISS to use!!

[BMazurek]

Okay, I'll bite....

You're not making any sense...

You're proposing diverting a huge space station to rendevous with the return vehicle to collect the rocks. Here's a brain wave: Have the return vehicle reenter Earth's atmosphere on it's own, drop it over the Pacific, deploy your parachute and have ships rendevous with it. What do you think they did before they had a reusable launch vehicles like the Shuttle?

Now for as to why they don't use the ISS to fix and upgrade satellites: It's a really big multi-purpose laboratory! It wasn't designed to be a garage in space populated by astronaut grease-monkeys....

Besides, fixing a satellite is probably a little different than replacing the hard drive in your computer. If something is broken, chances are they are not going to be able to take a spare replacement part from storage. Chances are they'll have to get a replacement part sent up.

Re:Put the ISS to use!!

[JoeRobe]

1) We simply cannot "catch" the spacecraft with the ISS. It's magnitudes cheaper to drop it into the ocean, and there's much less thought involved. Yeah we should use the ISS for something - this isn't one of them.

2) Let's say we get the Hubble into the same orbit as the ISS. When the ISS needs to do something to it, you're proposing moving the entire ISS (Hubble certianly can't do it) to the Hubble then grabbing it? The ISS isn't designed to be moved very much at all, it's designed to float. It doesn't have the fuel to move very far. While it may be a great place to fix satellites from, it's not a towtruck.

3) Satellites do not all have the same orbital altitude, and making a little "thing" (let's call it, oh, I don't know...CowboyNeal maybe) to go get them would require a lot of money and fuel. If we are going to get then in the first place, we're much better off letting the shuttle grab it and bring it in, like we have been doing. If we do any work on a satellite, we would probably need special replacement parts thatthe Shuttle would need to bring up anyways.

Just my thoughts,

JoeRobe

Re:Put the ISS to use!!

[Garak]

The space station shouldn't have to do much to catch the return vehicle. The return vehicle will come to the ISS and not the other way around. The point of going to the ISS is that they save money. They don't have to put all kinds of sheilding on the return vehicle which means less mass, less mass means less fuel and less money. The return vehicle gets a free ride back inside the shuttle from the ISS on a regular mission.

Re:Put the ISS to use!!

[JoeRobe]

It's easy to hit a planet with a spacecraft, it's far more difficult to make the orbit of the ISS coincide with the orbit of the incoming spacecraft, and that's assuming you even get the spacecraft into Earth orbit from Mars. Yes, if enough effort is put into it, it probably can happen, but how much easier and lower-risk is it to just toss a heat shield on it and drop it? We would need more fuel because of the added weight, yes; but we would also need more fuel to get into ISS orbit. In addition, I *assure* you that it's not as simple as just "tossing the spacecraft into the shuttle" and getting a free ride home. With the way our shuttle program works, there's no such thing as free - an astronaut sneezes in space and NASA forks out $X million dollars for some reason or another.

how about the headlines...

[kaoshin]

NASA gets thier rocks off.

"You don't sweat much for a fat chick."

Send robot-building robots

[egburr]

Why don't they make some robots to mine materials and make new robots, and the new robots can make a lab, then use the lab to analyze the rocks. That would be better than shipping rocks back. And, we wouldn't have to send more robots for future missions, just send the existing robot-building robots new instructions.

Yeah, it would probably be difficult to find the needed materials. Either wait while the robots explore and find what's needed or redesign to use what gets found. Power shouldn't be a problem; use solar power.

Okay, so maybe this isn't likely for another 10-20 years. It may be slow to start with, but long-term, it would end up being a lot faster than express-mailing more robots out there every time we think of yet another task to do.

Re:Send robot-building robots

[Garak]

I think the one major problem with this is smelting the metals you find. Smelters are huge plants and I don't think they scale down very well. Also these plants use alot of fuel and require chemicals that will also be hard to find and expensive to send there.

Robots are only 1/2 metals the rest is semicondutors, rubbers, plastics, etc...

It would be cheeper to send a person to mars than send all the equiment and supplies to build robots.

Re:Send robot-building robots

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe me thats alot harder than it sounds. It would be like instructing a child to build a robot with materials found in the back yard and then see how far they get, even if you take them step by step through the procedures.

A better solution would be to send out hundreds of programmable microbots and then the chance of them being able to work together and do something useful increases dramatically.

Apollo without astronauts?

[ikekrull]

Sweet, now they won't even have to kill anybody to stop them blabbing about the fact the entire mission has been manufactured in a film studio out in Area 51 :)

Re:Apollo without astronauts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up. Or there will be consequences.

Buzz.

We should think twice...

[Krokus]

...before we consider invading Mars. Remember what happened when they invaded us. :)

"You can argue at length as to how likely it is. But at the end of the day, if you think about the potential of what's really at stake, it's humanity versus a microbe," Lee said.

blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Satellite Not Active
You must be running your Satellite to access your shared directory.

Warning : High Server Load
Our Satellite servers are very loaded down today. You may become temporarily disconnected even though your Satellite is running properly. If this has happened to you, please be patient - your Satellite will re-connect when the server is available. You might also want to try back after 9:00pm CDT when the load is usually lower.

Legos in space

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA could save some real bucks by building the probes out of Lego Mindstorms. For that matter, why not build the whole thing out of legos? I'm sure they could do it with a few thousand "Moon Base" kits from the 80's. Then they could build a habitat for future human astronauts out of something more durable, like Duplos!

first troll on mars!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes I will bring my laptop and do first post from mars. f33r m3.

Why not retry the failed missions?

[MobyDisk]

"...the back-to-back Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander losses..."

I know those failed, but I thought we learned why. Wouldn't it be cheaper to "fix" the bugs in the prior mission and re-send? Just because we found a bug in something when it went into deployment doesn't mean we should scrap the project and re-architect it with different goals. Surely this would be cheaper, and a great way for NASA to way off the nay-sayers.

Someone please explain why they do not do this.

Re:Why not retry the failed missions?

[SnapperHead]

Also, its important to remeber that not every mission can be 100% successfull. Science is *NOT* a sure thing. There will be screaw ups and things will go wrong. We need to stop yelling about the past and fix it. I agree, there where bugs, lets work them out and go to mars.

Re:Why not retry the failed missions?

[Iron Sun]

There are plans to relaunch the science package that was lost on the Climate Orbiter. The 2005 Mars Reconnasisance Orbiter, which will essentially be a Martian spy satellite capable of resolving surface features 20cm across may carry the entire sensor package originally carried on MCO. This will be made possible due to continued advances in miniaturization.

There was actually a twin to the MPL slated for launch this year along with the Mars Odyssey orbiter that arrives in Mars orbit in a few weeks. It was mothballed after the MPL screwup in spite of being nearly completed. There are noises being made about finishing it and launching it along with the MRO in 2005. It would seem a pity to waste the millions of dollars that had already been spent on it.

D-U-M-B

[Coniine]

We have problems on our own planet with overpopulation, energy, food production, pollution, resistant microbes and militant groups and these guys want to bring back rocks from Mars? Open your damn eyes. I'll personally send them a box 'o rocks. Just give me the address.

Let's stop letting NASA ride the "if it weren't for the space program you wouldn't have all this neat technology" horse and spend our collective efforts on something useful.

What a bunch of really bright nitwits. Truly amazing. Incredible, in fact. Sheesh.

Misleading Article Title

[PingXao]

This should be "NASA Would Like to Bring Back Martian Rocks". NASA would like to do a lot of things. Draconian budget cuts in recent years have put a major crimp in their style, however. They are currently not "planning" to do anything of the sort. They are simply groping about for a project that will let some of them keep their jobs by hitting on something that will engender public and Congressional support (and dollars). That's about as far in advance as their "planning" allows these days.

It seems like every 6 months now they some out with some new "discovery" that turns out to be just a rehash of old science with a new twist. Truth is, if you think along the lines of timothy here, you could also say that:

• NASA Plans on Sending Astronauts Back to the Moon
• NASA Plans on Sending Satellite Fleet to Jupiter
• NASA Plans on Searching For Life on Titan's Oceans
• NASA Plans on Tripling Space Station Size
• NASA Plans on New Hubble Replacement

The list goes on and on. I love NASA, don't get me wrong, but the only serious stories worth looking at are the ones that start with NASA Receives Budgetary Committment From Congress For [insert project here]. That's the point where any serious planning really starts.

Re:Misleading Article Title

[Darth Yoshi]

The list goes on and on. I love NASA, don't get me wrong, but the only serious stories worth looking at are the ones that start with NASA Receives Budgetary Committment From Congress For [insert project here]. That's the point where any serious planning really starts.

As long as we're dreaming, I'd like to see, NASA Fires Bloated Middle-Management, Turns Into Lean, Mean Engineering Machine.

Ode to Slashdot: A Poem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since I was

a tiny tot

I longed for a website

like slashdot

Natalie portman scans,

IP's banned,

lameness filtration

O, divine moderation!

Hellmouth! apache!

The Enterprise theme's catchy

anime! hentai! lego dildos!

beautiful ascii goatsex posts!

It brings tears to my eyes,

it brings rhapsodies to mind

As I imagine Dmitri

taken from behind in fedral prison

Good use of criminals

[Anonymous Coward]

I say we send criminals into space, and see if they blow up. Theorecitally, because our bodies are accustomed to 14-odd lbs of pressure, put into space, where there's no air pressure, would cause them to blow up.
I don't believe it though.
Maybe if they catch Bin Laden, they could try it on him.

Betting pool open

[fleener]

So how much will these trinkets fetch on Ebay?

Russian lunar rock retrieval

[peter303]

I recall the Russians had a couple of successful lunar rock retrievals in the early 1970s. When they felt they couldn't get men to the moon first, they tried to beat Americans to rock samples, but lost that race too.
Perhaps there are lessons from the Russian lunar missions.

Re:Smaller, Cheaper, Better (OT)

[WhyCause]

Speaking of historic events, I'd really like to see video footage of Kruzchev (sp?) banging his shoe on the table at the UN. Anyone know where such a thing could be found?

Not that it'll help much with getting a copy, but I've seen the shoe-banging footage on the History Channel. I think it was on one of the shows like "History Undercover" or "Sworn to Secrecy" (I seem to remember the announcer's voice narrating the scene, quite distinctive, that voice). You might keep an eye out for some of those shows (I tended to see only the late night ones), or see if it's listed on any of their orderable sets of videos.

Probes beat a manned mission anyday

[gad_zuki!]

There's a limit to how much experimental equipment you can shove onto a Mars probe.

Of course the price of one manned mission would equal hundreds if not thousands of probes which could cover many different parts of the planet with different objectives. A manned mission would be very limited in scope and certainly not worth the price.

Re:Probes beat a manned mission anyday

[Goonie]

A manned mission has a whole lot of capabilities that a robotic mission doesn't have - most importantly, the ability to make and act on simple decisions without spending 20 minutes going back to Earth. Even putting people in Mars orbit and having them control probes (not that that's a particularly sensible mission plan, by the way - if you're going to build a spacecraft to go all the way there and support a crew for a couple of years, landing it's not that much more difficult) would drastically multiply a mission's effectiveness.

Re:Probes beat a manned mission anyday

[Yazeran]

In some respects you'r right. If the goal for a manned mission was primarily to analyse a few random rocks on Mars, then yes, unmanned probes do this better.

On the other hand, if your goal with a manned Mars mission is to determine if life ever exsisted on Mars, then nothing beats sending a group of trained geologist up there to walk arround and choose which rocks might be good prospects for finding life. It is the same for terrestial exploration for gold and other minerals, you just cannot be sure if it is there by only using remote sensing or relying on natives to hand you a few rocks form the area. In order to evaluate if there is anything, you gotta have a geologist on site to investigate.

Similarly for a mission to mars, if you want to find exstinct life or mineral deposits, you gotta have a person with geological knowledge (either a true geologist (best option) or a geologically trained astronaut). Thay did both during the moon landings (several astronauts were trrained in geology, and one real geologist went up there in Apollo 17 a i recall).

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

What's the point?

[soybased]

Personally I think we should be colonizing the moon right now.

Once we've got a solid production/launch facility on the moon then we can start sending dumb little probes out to pick up rocks on mars.

I'm gonna be dissapointed if space ships arent commonplace by the time I'm old. Bah!

Check Out Total Recall Special Edition DVD

[olmuckyterrahawk]

The Total Recall special edition DVD has a track on it with a NASA JPL guy talking about the red planet. He concludes with a short squib on how they are planning to bring back rocks from Mars by 2014, I believe. This was the first I had heard of this.

We're All DOOMed

[denzo]

Little did the NASA scientists know that what appeared to be just Martian rocks would end up being dehydrated imps, cacodemons, mancubii, cyberdemons, and John Romero's severed head. Just add water, and then we'll have Hell on Earth.

Oh no...

[jd]

First it was feet and meters. Now it's ounces and grams...

This is a good idea, but...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

its a much better idea to bring back a near earth asteroid (NEA), or mine a near earth asteroid and bring back the good bits.

Why?:

a) NEA's are nearer
b) mining asteroids can turn a profit (Mars probably can't)
c) we can use ION drives to get there (like Deep Space 1 used), but they don't work to-from Mars due to the gravity of Mars
d) there's no chance that we catch the never-get-overs (the asteroids should be dead)
e) they contain useful stuff like water (steam is a fairly good rocket fuel in fact)
f) getting lots of stuff from NEAs to orbit is looking cheaper than getting it from the earth, therefore it may be possible to send people to Mars using the fuel collected from NEAs; in the meantime we can turn a profit boosting satellites into GEOsynchronous orbit and such like...
g) Basically Mars would be a white elephant right now. Cool as heck, but pointless.

Re:This is a good idea, but...

[styopa]

Sigh

Um, you completely missed the point. We are not going to Mars to check if it is economically viable for mining.

• We are going to Mars because that is the first step to becoming an interplanetary society.
• We are going to Mars because it is like the Earth and can tell us more about our planet, and other planets in general. The scientific data that could be gathered from Mars is quite large.
  
• We are going to Mars because it is cool. NASA needs something big to turn the heads of the population. They need public support.
  

Why should we NOT go to a NEA?

• Space mining at this point in time is unrealistic. From designing the equiptment to do the mining, to transporting the material. It is extremely expensive, and not profitable at this point in time. If it was I gaurentee that companies would be seriously looking into it.
  
• Fly-bys of random NEA's are useful, but not nearly as useful as information from/on planets.
  
• The public could care less about flying next to a random non-comet rock. In fact, it might even hurt NASA's image doing things that the public might consider a "waste" of public money.
  

There is a huge push for Mars because the public is interested in it, and the Government is interested in it. In general they are not interested in NEAs. Successful big missions to Mars will provide NASA with the support it needs to do more minor missions like fly-bys of NEAs.

Re:This is a good idea, but...

[kwashiorkor]

I think he made some extremely valid points. At least with the promise of research into the extraction of materials from NEAs, you could attract far more private sector capital.

You see, the first step towards becoming an interplanetary society (don't hold your breath btw) is ... [drumroll] ... economics. Quite simply, we won't go into space unless space can make us money.

Sure, I agree that going to Mars would be incredibly cool. Putting a person on another planet would be an unbelievable achievement, however it is not a prudent thing to do. Face it, we are ruled by prudent capitalists not free spending humanitarians.

You say that "Space mining at this point is unrealistic" and go on to explore that statement. However I would say that "Manned Mars missions are unrealistic" for the same reasons you state about NEA exploration. The difference is that with the NEA exploration, the promise of return on investment is much higher than on a manned Mars mission.

Re:This is a good idea, but...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Going to Mars is not necessary or sufficient to become an interplanetary sociey.

Mars is more like the moon than earth. The atmosphere is less than 1% of the earths, that's practically a vacuum. The radiation levels on the surface are high, the problems of growing stuff under domes are extreme. Mars has a quite large escape velocity (about 3km/s). Mars lacks continuous solar energy available off-planet. That's probably very, very important for technological societies.

NEAs are closer than Mars, have better distribution of materials than Mars, have a clearer path to self sufficiency than Mars, are accessible to robot probes with much lower thrust levels than Mars; and allows for exporting materials back to Earth at much lower cost than Mars.

Mars does not have any higher lifeforms, and does not seem to have any lower lifeforms either.

Even phobos is a better bet than Mars in the short term.

Space mining is NOT at all unrealistic. Space mining is able to make possible safe, manned travel to Mars; and cheaper access to space from the earth- space tourism can be achieved more cheaply using space resources. Space mining IS being very seriously looked at by companies.

Whether America has woken up to this is largely irrelevant I guess. The markets have far more money than government. You also seemed to have missed the fact that NASA does not exactly a monopoly on space right now.

Still, I am not anti Mars at all. We should go to Mars, but we need to go to NEAs first to get the materials we need to do that.

Re:This is a good idea, but...

[Fenris2001]

Going to Mars is not necessary or sufficient to become an interplanetary sociey.

This statement could not be more wrong. Mars is the only other place in the solar system that can support a truly interplanetary society. Why? Simple: We can live on Mars much more easily than any NEO or asteriod.

Mars is more like the moon than earth. The atmosphere is less than 1% of the earths, that's practically a vacuum.

Not true. Mars does indeed have a tenuous atmosphere, but that's not anything like a vacuum. The Martian atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dixoide, with a little nitrogen and argon. Why are these important? Life as we know it is based on carbon chemistry, which uses all of the above, plus water. Now, water on Mars isn't easy to come by - but it's a bit easier to find than on a Near Earth Object. Systems have been designed that can extract water from the Martian atmosphere fairly easily - but it's extremely likely that we'd find liquid water in the form of brines or geothermal pools within reach of a drilling rig.

The radiation levels on the surface are high, the problems of growing stuff under domes are extreme.

The radiation levels on Mars are far lower than those on any Near Earth Object. Additionally, constructing underground vaults on Mars would filter radiation down to terrestrial levels. We have grown crops on Earth under domes for years - transporting the dome to Mars is the hardest part.

Mars has a quite large escape velocity (about 3km/s). Mars lacks continuous solar energy available off-planet.

Large compared to what? Earth (at 11.2km/s)? Remember also that the escape velocity of an object does not by itself determine the delta-v than a spacecraft must perform to match orbits. The Martian atmosphere is more than sufficient for aerocapture maneuvers, which reduces propulsion requirements, and thus spacecraft mass. Your argument for solar energy is specious, because for any sort of industrial operation, a power source more compact than solar is needed. Nuclear reactors in the form of radiothermal isotope generators are far better.

We should go to Mars, but we need to go to NEAs first to get the materials we need to do that.

No, we don't. In fact, we could go to Mars with nothing better than the technology that took us to the Moon. We need to go to NEOs for various reasons, including mining, but we will not stay there for a long while. In fact, Mars makes a much more attractive location for launching missions to the Belt and beyond, due to it's lower gravity.

NEOs represent a source of raw materials beyond count, but only on Mars will it be possible to have a growing society. If I seem a bit fanatical, it's because I am: I once thought as you do, but for the reasons above and a few others, I have become convinced otherwise.

Re:This is a good idea, but...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

>Mars is the only other place in the solar system that can support a truly interplanetary society.

Been reading Zubrin by any chance? The facts don't support this contention. Mars is pretty hostile, and lacks native power sources.

> Not true. Mars does indeed have a tenuous atmosphere, but that's not anything like a vacuum.

The pressure is negligable for most purposes. In fact the suits needed to survive it are full body pressure suits; very much the same as used on the moon.

> The radiation levels on Mars are far lower than those on any Near Earth Object.

True, but irrelevant. The radiation at a NEA will kill you in 10 years. The radiation on Mars will kill you in 30 years. You need around 1 m of shielding at Mars. It's physically easier to shield at the NEA due to lack of gravity though. True, you need more mass, about 1.5m, but mass is plentiful at NEAs and easy to position in zero-g. On Mars it weighs something.

> We have grown crops on Earth under domes for years - transporting the dome to Mars is the hardest part.

Not comparable. Greenhouses don't have to hold an atmosphere. Actually the problems are pretty similar in both NEA and Mars; except the sunlight at Mars is much less easy to control than that at NEAs. The evidence from Biosphere II show that just building an airtight dome cuts the sunlight significantly. And then you are at mars, so you are further away from the Sun as well. In fact domes are not a good shape for a pressure vessel; on earth only spheres or cylinders capped with spheres are permitted as there is a significant explosion risk from other shapes. Mars and NEAs would probably need cylindrical or spherical shapes to live in.

Mars has a quite large escape velocity (about 3km/s). Mars lacks continuous solar energy available off-planet.

>Large compared to what? Earth (at 11.2km/s)? Remember also that the escape velocity of an object does not by itself determine the delta-v than a spacecraft must perform to match orbits.

Yes, but that 3km/s is needed to escape it, ontop of any other delta-v. Mars is 3km/s further away. Not only that but that 3km/s requires high thust engines. Higher thrust costs more.

>Your argument for solar energy is specious, because for any sort of industrial operation, a power source more compact than solar is needed.

I don't know of ANY process that requires small power sources; industrial and farming sources require CHEAP energy; especially for crops. The evidence I have is that crops will grow poorly if at all on Mars unless you use nuclear power for grow lamps. However that requires extraordinarily high power levels (1kw per m^2 of field). Even a small field needs a power station. At a NEO, you just need thick windows.

A 30m wide parabola made of silver foil can give you more than 1 megawatt of heat, or 50% of that as electric power. Contrary to some peoples beliefs, solar ovens and solar power stations are trivial to build, particular in space. Smelting metal from certain ores is trivial using solar power; on Mars you've got big problems.

There is nothing that NEOs don't have, with the exception of gravity but that's pretty trivial to emulate with rotation. And we have no idea right now what effects 1/3 earth gravity has on peoples bodies; but it could well damage them. People at NEOs can be given a full gravity.

Space Mai Tai

[rufusdufus]

Many of the problems you list can be solved by space based technology. Pollution free energy production in space ala http://www.powersatcorp.com. Crops grown in space could have a huge impact on world hunger.

You think these things are outlandish? Well consider what Christopher Columbus would have thought if you had told him that in the future, people would chop down trees, send them across the pacific ocean to china where they would make toothpicks with little unbrellas on them, ship them back across the ocean so drunks could throw them away after they tossed back a mai tai!

Pet martian rocks?

[dimer0]

Pet martian rocks would be cool. Bring one back, paint a clown face on it, and use it as a paperweight.

Re:Pet martian rocks?

[soulsteal]

Pet martian rocks would be cool. Bring one back, paint a clown face on it, and use it as a paperweight

Which is fine and dandy until the Martian clown rocks start eating the children.... For God's sake, won't someone please think of the children???

A new Survivor special ?

[wdavies]

Think of the ad revenue!

Winton

Re:A new Survivor special ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A new Survivor special?

DAMN! You beat me to that one!

Alien bacteria could kill us all!

[Agent Smart]

Hasn't anyone thought of that? Self-inficted germicide by techno-arrogant humans?

That'll teach us.

Very misleading article

[mkasei]

NASA would love to do a Mars sample return. However in reality no such mission is going to happen anytime soon. Last October NASA outlined its long term plan for Mars exploration with a sample return slated to start in 2014. However recently it became known that the October plan is now more or less dead. The only Mars mission not touched at this time is the 2003 twin rover mission (MER 2003). The 2005 orbiter mission is still a tentative go, however everything after that is up in the air.

NASA's budget is being used to pay for the ballooning space station cost overruns which means other programs get the axe. The space station is at least 4 billion over budget. NASA's budget is about 14 billion. Do the Math. The Bush administration has told NASA to get the station budget under control. So NASA has to cut a lot of programs including Mars. Look to the Europeans to potentially do a Mars sample return first with some NASA participation.

Useful Link: A Year of Mars News: It was the worst of times; it was the best of times.

Look at the economics

[Iron Sun]

An average space probe nowadays costs about $350 million, and we can do it right now. NASA has firm plans to launch one or two Mars probes every two years, with the design of the 2003 and 2005 missions already well under way.

Manned space flight , in comparison, is still hideously expensive. The final cost of the ISS will run into the many tens of billions of dollars in order to keep 6-7 people in low Earth orbit. A permanent Lunar base capable of supporting a similar sized research crew would be comparable in cost, at the very least. As for Lunar production/launch facilities, check back in a few decades.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to take a Lunar holiday one day. But putting everything on hold until that remote possibility becomes a reality would hinder the very real and immediate science we can do for comparatively little right now.

No Mars Colony

[vbprgrmr]

I agree. I see the troubles we have with our Antartic research posts and notice there is no real effort to 'colonize' Antartica. Also, even as brave as mountain climbers are in scaling Everest and K-2, they don't stay in the 'death zone' too long.

So I don't see any Mars Colony soon, since the conditions are worst than Antartica and our mountain summits. Also, since there seems to be nothing of value on Mars, there is no reason to do it, unlike the pioneers who colonized the Americas.

It is unfortunate that Mars is nothing like what the early Science Fiction writers had fantasized, a sparce but liveable planet. It's too dead and unhabitable for our current technology. Long Live Earth!

What on Earth are you talking about?

[Iron Sun]

mining asteroids can turn a profit (Mars probably can't)

1) The discussion is about returning 500g of samples for scientific purposes, not stripmining other planets for profit.

2) Who says mining asteroids would be profitable? It would cost at least billions of dollars to undertake such a mining mission to a NEA. We are still capable of mining ores here on Earth much more cheaply, and we aren't going to run out any time in the next few decades.

we can use ION drives to get there (like Deep Space 1 used), but they don't work to-from Mars due to the gravity of Mars

Guess you better tell NASA that. There are several exploratory design concepts that would utilize ion engines to get probes to and from Mars. You would need a complementary conventional engine to leave Mars orbit, but you would still make overall weight savings by using ion engines for the cruise phase.

(steam is a fairly good rocket fuel in fact)

Actually, it's a fairly crap rocket fuel as H2O. It's cheap and plentiful, which is why some concepts bother with it at all.

getting lots of stuff from NEAs to orbit is looking cheaper than getting it from the earth, therefore it may be possible to send people to Mars using the fuel collected from NEAs; in the meantime we can turn a profit boosting satellites into GEOsynchronous orbit and such like...

Its 'cheaper' in terms of fuel expenditure. In the real world of today, however, you would have to factor in the many billions of dollars that setting up your NEA fuel depot would cost. One day it will be the way to go, but your argument is like saying that we shouldn't spend millions on developing better silicon chip lithography because one day quantum computing will be much better.

Basically Mars would be a white elephant right now. Cool as heck, but pointless.

There is exploration and research that many people would like to see undertaken right now, rather than wait for Buck Rogers to do it for us when we are all old and grey.

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[Graymalkin]

What the fuck are you smoking. Mining an NEA isn't going to cost a billion dollars because you don't mine it conventionally. You send up a ship with a powerful little rocket that shoots an anchor into the rock and buries itself, you let the rotation of the asteroid wrap itself up. Then you pull the anchor counter to the rotation of the asteroid to negate its spin. Wrap it up in a giant mylar bad and concuss it into fragments or break it up with a lightweight solar mirror. H2) mined from such an asteroid makes good rocket fuel since you can break it up with electricity from solar panels and recombine it kablamo style for an appriciable delta-v. You also don't need to get much from Earth to a NEA but you can land alot back on Earth or the Moon fairly cheaply. You can also leave the fuel in its separates state for use of a Mars mission, maybe even slingshot it around a body into Mars orbit for later use by explorers. Geez dude.

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[Iron Sun]

What the fuck are you smoking.

Your argument. Watch:

So all you have to do is perform a complicated set of maneuvers, utilising technology that currently does not exist, to utilise asteroidal resources that we currently have very little knowledge of. Piece of piss. Don't know why we aren't all living on the Moon right now.

The most advanced asteroid/comet space probe under development at the moment is the ESA/NASA Rosetta probe to be launched in 2003. It is going to cost in the neigborhood of $400 million. It will rendezvous with a comet, observe it for a year, and then launch a tiny lander to gather data from the surface. Listen carefully:

Designing it is pushing the current boundaries of our technological expertise.

The proposal you outline is so far in advance of our current capabilities that it is laughable. It's like saying that if we want to lower costs of getting to orbit, we "just" need to build a space elevator. To do what you want would require pathfinder missions to test the bleeding edge technologies, sccout missions to ensure that there are usable resources on the target NEA...billions of dollars doesn't begin to describe the level of investment required to do what you describe.

While you're at it, why don't you tell us how we could easily and cheaply cure all known disease by developing nanotechnology? Or solve greenhouse gas emissions by building fusion reactors? These things may happen one day, but they aren't going to come cheap.

Come back down to Earth and live in the here and now. If we could do these things in the budget you are thinking of, then we'd already be doing them.

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[Graymalkin]

Uh...spectrography works wonders when figuring out what something is made of. In fact that is where the whole asteroid naming convention FUCKING COMES FORM. Jesus get it through your fucking skull. Carbon is very useful for building lots of things as is iron and silicon. Energy in space is abundant especially if you start turning your raw silicon into brand spanking new solar panels and use carbon for making electrically conductive polymers. One of the reasons we're not doing stuff which is very feasible is there've been no pathfinder missions because of the politics involved in space travel. No one lives on the fucking Moon because it isn't politically viable to do so. Voters for the most part know dick about anything yet tell people whether or not they can spend money on Project X which they have absolutely no understanding of. Imagine if the budget for Vietnam was instead handed over to NASA? You'd be flying to work on a fucking jet pack. Instead a a political paradigm shift went from beating the USSR to the Moon which we did to fighting a bunch of natives in jungle covered hills and mountains. You'll notice how there were lots of projects scrapped after Apollo 11 because it accomplished its political mission and folks decided to use the money to kill people. We're a pretty advanced group of people dispite the occasional genetic miscreant like yourself. It's a shame you're so obtuse because you might have had a halfway decent argument to counter my extrapolation of the previous poster's comments which you decided to bash. Instead you throw big numbers around like I'm talking Star Trek pseudo-physics. Underclass engineering students learn the mechanics of taking shit apart in zero gravity. The cookie stand is not part of the food court, it isn't like we're talking quantum physics here.

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

It is not the case that it would cost billions to get to NEA and back. A mining mission can be done for initially about $200 million, about the same cost as DS1. We're not talking hundreds of tonnes returned, we're talking tonnes. But the mining vehicles would be very reusable, and can make a new trip per year or so, with a few hundred kilograms of refueling requirements each trip.

This is not most people's idea of space mining, but I think that having asteroid material returned to the ISS would give it a purpose.

In particular it may be possible to get some or all of the fuel for the mining probes from the asteroidal material in LEO. If that can be done then we can look at turning a (very modest) profit.

The point is economic. The sooner we start on commercial exploitation of space, the sooner we get to go. In order to go, we need to show profit. If profit can be show, then investment follows. Investment leads to greater volumes, and greater volumes leads to much, much lower price.

>Its 'cheaper' in terms of fuel expenditure. In the real world of today, however, you would have to factor in the many billions of
>dollars that setting up your NEA fuel depot would cost. One day it will be the way to go, but your argument is like saying that we
>shouldn't spend millions on developing better silicon chip lithography because one day quantum computing will be much better.

No. Quantum computing doesn't scale right now. This does. It's more like saying, hey why don't we fund silicon chips because silicon chips are cheaper than discrete!

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[Iron Sun]

A mining mission can be done for initially about $200 million, about the same cost as DS1.

Oh, really? Quote your source. If you're talking about tonnes of material (more on that in a moment), what sort of delta vee are you looking at? Even with ion engines you wouldn't be able to nudge that sort of mass into LEO inside of a century with the payload that could be launched with current boosters.

As for finding asteroids that weigh tons, how do you propose to do that? The only way we have to detect rocks that size at the moment is when they hit our atmosphere (and, shortly thereafter, the Earth). Any asteroid that we can track (and thus rendezvous with) doesn't weigh "hundreds of tonnes", it weighs millions or billions of tons.

The point is economic. I want the commercial exploitation of space as much as you, but I'd rather focus on what we can realistically achieve in the forseeable future.

NASA would dearly love to get their hands on that amount of pristine asteroidal material. If it could be done for $200 million, they'd be doing it already. Guaranteed. Or are you more clever than the people at JPL that make unscheduled landings on asteroids or nurse clapped-out technology testers into cometary flybys? Despite the occasional cockups, NASA gets pretty good value for money from its space probes.

Your figures are patently unbelievable, and we will not see the sort of mission you discuss for several decades to come. Live with it.

Re:What on Earth are you talking about?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

>If you're talking about tonnes of material (more on that in a moment), what sort of delta vee are you
>looking at?

I don't have any particular target, but about 3 km/s sounds about right for a lunar capture and/or aerobraking. That's easily done with Hall effect thrusters, although you'd probably need more than several thrusters as they wear out. Fortunately they don't weigh much.

>NASA would dearly love to get their hands on that amount of pristine asteroidal material. If it could be done for $200 million,
>they'd be doing it already.

I don't think that is the case. Don't forget they've only just done their first mission with ion drives. This requires ion drives.

>As for finding asteroids that weigh tons, how do you propose to do that? The only way we have to detect rocks that size at the
>moment is when they hit our atmosphere (and, shortly thereafter, the Earth). Any asteroid that we can track (and thus rendezvous
>with) doesn't weigh "hundreds of tonnes", it weighs millions or billions of tons.

Dunno. Look for a NEAr miss? Chip a bit off a bigger one with explosives?

Bad mindset

[ZigMonty]

IMHO NASA is having trouble because they are sticking with a 60s/70s mentality that just doesn't work anymore. Running the space shuttle and re-supplying the ISS isn't what NASA should be doing. NASA needs to hand some of that stuff over to the commercial sector. Then they could use the lowest bidder for launches. Ariane 5 cheaper than the shuttle? Then USE it. Stop making every thing home made, use off the shelf components. Making everything made sense when they were the only ones making space components but now there are competing products.

NASA should be focusing on things that the private sector can't do, like expensive R&D, non profitable science missions, going to mars, etc. They need to stop competing with private companies and start working with them. NASA has something like $13.6 billion a year to play with. The reason they only have a couple of hundred million left over for mars missions is that they are currently building a white elephant in low earth orbit.

NASA has screwed up priorities. Here is what I would like to see them doing:

• Help fund private missions that look promising.
• Do R&D on new propulsion, launch mthods, etc. Think long term. Asteroid mining is something that will probably be important in the future so do more NEAR style missions.
• Lead operations to go to Mars and other interesting places. Design and fund them while relying on other companies to build everything and launch them.

NASA needs to approach space the way the NSF approaches science, grants etc.

Another thing, try to make some money out of space. Put advertising on the side of spacecraft, etc. Install HDTV cameras everywhere. Strap IMAX cameras to the side of the shuttle and get some fantastic footage that could help make space interesting again.

Right now if you do a word association test with someone on the street and say "NASA" and they will probably say something about the recent Mars probe losses. We need to get that back to being "Cool!!"

War in Space!

[Anonymous Coward]

War in Space would clearly be the best choice.

Only problem is that as it stands, Earth would lose.

DND amplification?

[StrawberryFrog]

From the article, which you read, right?

It would be nice to leave it unsterilized. We could then do things like amplify the DNA

IANAB (I am not a biologist, but while it is reasonable to assume that et life would use the same (ie only known workable) chemistry of carbon, it is unlikely that exactly the same molecules, ie DNA would be used, in the same way. If Martian life used DNA in the same way as earthly life instead of some other possible encoding mechanism, it would be a very very strong indicator that the two shared a common ancestor. Likely? I don't know.

But anyway, mars is barren So these guys are coutning thier chickens way before they are hatched.

Bill Gates makes Mars Rocks possible.

[deathcow]

I consult with Microsoft, and Bill Gates has discussed this project. Bill is willing to donate $10 billion dollars to this cause. Here's the scoop. Bill will donate $10 billion towards retrieval of as much rock as possible, under the condition he gets 95% of the rock with the remaining 5% distributed under NASA control.

Reuters attributes Mr. Gates wishes to a long standing competition with Larry Ellison of Oracle. Ellison in 1998 purchased the bones of Stalin from the state of Russia for $60 million dollars under the condition they were petrified via harsh ionization by direct extended storage on the outside of the Mir space station. The bones spent about 18 months in space with direct exposure to solar radiation. Ellison took posession of these rock hard space petrified bones of Stalin in early 2000 and has since used them as the stones for his private sauna.

In the best American spirit of oneupmanship, Gates and Ellison have both agreed that sending a multibillion dollar space probe round trip to Mars, to retrieve rocks for your sauna, is extreme. The only thing more bizarre is Ellisons planned comeback.

Apollo without the Astronauts?

[DjDanny]

So, they're going to setup a studio with RED rocks in it this time, and wheel a robot around it?
Let's hope they learnt from the mistakes in the faked Apollo photographs!
(maybe a blast crater would be good this time, and maybe shining a spotlight directly at the subject of the photo kinda gives the game away a bit!)

*I'm* obtuse?

[Iron Sun]

Whoo! Sturm und drang! Try not to resort to ad hominem attacks on my genetics if you want your arguments to be taken seriously. Let's try again:

One of the reasons we're not doing stuff which is very feasible

Feasible according to whom? I'll say it again: Current and projected space probes are pushing the envelope of what is currently technically possible.. Let's dissect your 'feasible' technologies:

You talk about using a mirror to break up the asteroid. The largest space mirror deployed to date (with only partial success) was a Russian one less than 20 meters acoss. To break up an asteroid several kilometers across would require a REALLY BIG mirror, orders of magnitude larger than the biggest space structures launched to date. The Russians had difficulty stopping their small mirror from rippling, and accurately pointing and focusing one kilometers across, as your mirror would need to be, is something that will require heaps of practice and lots of money to perfect.

You want to stop the asteroid's rotation using a cable attached to an anchor. The longest cable deployment in space to date was a NASA/Italian experiment on the space shuttle that broke. There are further tests in the works, but a cable long enough and strong enough to halt an asteroid is a LONG way off.

Spectroscopy gives us some details about surface composition, but that is a long way from giving us all the information we would need to exploit those resources. Carbon is very useful for building lots of things, but if you have to free it from mineral complexes then it adds several levels of complexity to the space-based engineering. Given that the largest materials processing facility launched to date would fit in a filing cabinet, and cost tens of millions of dollars, I don't think we'll be seeing space smelters by christmas.

I also noticed a subtle shift in your emphasis between posts. Quote from your first:

Mining an NEA isn't going to cost a billion dollars because you don't mine it conventionally.

So it will cost less than a billion dollars? Cheap at half the price, especially in light of all the technology development I've outlined. By your second post, your argument has become:

One of the reasons we're not doing stuff which is very feasible is there've been no pathfinder missions because of the politics involved in space travel.

Political will == expenditure. Now you're saying we can achieve these things if we throw "the budget for Vietnam" at it. It would take us part of the way, but that was not your original point.

I do believe the things you are talking about will one day be possible, but the thread was about what we should be spending our limited resources on NOW. Talking about how we shouldn't waste our time on pissant little probes until we are all living at L5 adds nothing to the debate on effective use of current resources.

Re:*I'm* obtuse?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I think you are looking at the problems and the failures and ignoring the successes completely. Sanity lies somewhere inbetween.

- the cable didn't snap, it burnt through due to high current flows. These current flows do not exist at asteroids (no magnetic field)

- I don't agree that that his way of despinning an asteroid is necessarily a good one, but I think that there are other techniques that will work, particularly with small asteroids that you can drag back whole (there's more small asteroids than big ones anyway).

- ripples in mirrors degrade their efficiency, they don't stop them working.

- return missions from small (meter size) asteroids are much cheaper than returns from Mars, and we get more stuff back.

Re:*I'm* obtuse?

[Iron Sun]

I think you are looking at the problems and the failures and ignoring the successes completely. Sanity lies somewhere inbetween.

No, I'm not. NASA's successes are extraordinary, but they are not miracle workers. You do them a disservice by demanding that they achieve the currently impossible. I've said this several times, but here it goes again: If NASA could do what you describe within their budgetary constraints, they would already be doing it. Or do they lack your imagination? They come up with so many innovative concepts for probes, such as Deep Impact, do you think that they can't see the benefits in a $200 million asteroid return?

the cable didn't snap, it burnt through due to high current flows.

Fair enough, you got me there. The point I was trying to make was that describing a potential technology is very different from putting it into practice. I could just as easily have questioned his plan to wrap the rock in Mylar.

ripples in mirrors degrade their efficiency, they don't stop them working.

Degrades them to the point of uselessness, perhaps. Recent investigations have called into question whether inflatable mirrors would be ripple-free enough to use as space telescopes or antennas. The problem would be orders of magnitude worse for a mirror kilometers across. Again, if we could construct that sort of structure right now without blowing out the national debt, we would probably already be planning to do it.

Re:*I'm* obtuse?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

>Recent investigations have called into question whether inflatable mirrors would
>be ripple-free enough to use as space telescopes or antennas.

Irrelevant. We are talking about solar ovens. Space telescopes and antennas have to be accurate to a fraction of a wavelength. Solar ovens do not.

I take it you've never built a solar oven? You should try it, it's not hard...

new ways to pointlessly waste your money.

[Anonymous Coward]

go NASA. waste that money.

oh look, it's a rock. how much did it cost? I have rocks in my back yard I'll sell you for 1/100 of that.

Levin at NASA already found life on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

They already found life on Mars with Viking 1 and Viking 2 Landers with Labeled Release life detection experiment 1 and 2.

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/viking_li fe _010728.html

http://www.biospherics.com/mars/index.html

http://iceworld.twbbs.org/mirror/9planet/index-2 .h tml

Or more to the point:
http://www.disclosureproject.org/npcwebcast.htm

we already got tektites

[guest12]

tektites of martian origin have already been collected and analysed. of course the long journey may have changed the characterisitics in some manner. do a search on 'tektites' on search engines.

Re: Andromeda Strain

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "WildFire" Project was discovered to be a front for a project to "find" a biologic weapon against which the enemy (coldwar variety) had no defense.. then develop a vaccine for our side.

The Authur Hill character was just upset where his funding was really coming from.

As for it "originating from earth" I think you got that from reading Michael's book.. in it he discussed the feasible proposition that life might
adapt to extremes in the stratosphere, even a pure vacuum environment, and hitch a ride on some small dust particle.

The organism turned out to be dependent on plastics similar in content to the organic compounds in Carbonaceous Chondrites, and subject to a very a very narrow PH range.

Short-sighted (Was:Misleading Article Title)

[Gorak]

Right. Because Congress, in their infinite wisdom (*cough*) knows exactly what would benefit science and the people most.

D'you think perhaps that with a little pressure and interest from the public (that's you, by the way), Congress might actually start paying NASA enough to *do* some cool things, instead of just dreaming about it?

Nostalgia

[Rick the Red]

If NASA's gonna bring back anything, I want to see them to bring back manned moon missions.