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Mars Odyssey Completes Aerobraking
Cally writes: "Space.com reports that
Mars Odyssey has
completed aerobraking and is ready to begin its
main science mission. As the spacecraft has already produced exciting results before the start of the science mission proper, interesting data on the quantities of water in the Martian crust may be expected soon - not to mention that Odyssey provides another datapoint in the study of Gamma Ray bursts."
.. the prior story about preliminary findings. This is not redundant: It is something that has mostly been ignored by official NASA press releases but has still made it into the mainstream media. I really hope that the failure of NASA to mention that they already have detected "large desposits of hydrogen" close to the surface means that they're waiting to confirm their findings, not that there's some dark conspiracy postponing any serious trips to Mars by decades in favor of sinking money into NMD, ISS and the Shuttle instead.
Initially, it was to show the Commies who was boss. These days it's to justify a massive budget. I'm not looking to be a troll, but we need to look at this realistically. On the other hand, without NASA, we wouldn't have space food. Come on guys, space food!
Which would you rather do, set up a colony for the first time a few months away or a few years away? At least with Mars, if something goes horribly horribly wrong, they'll only be a few days or months away, as opposed to lightyears.
Some have suggested that we colonize a small part of the sea as a training ground.
I am split on the problems with contaminating other planets with bacteria and Earth-based life.
I don't seriously worry about destroying the possible chance of life evolving in a billion years time (not sure how serious the above poster is either), but I *do* worry about contaminating planets and moons before we have the ability to do a detailed examination.
That said.. I'd rather send people there than have it sit in pristine condition. Pretty, but useless.
I'm still sad we don't have a moon base. Oh well, back to Space 1999 reruns...
I mean, you could probably come up with a method of generating some mechanical energy in the process of aerobraking, but it seems to me that we're dealing with a mechanical energy which wouldn't do you a whole lot of good in space -- after all, fuel isn't the problem, it's a lack of something to push against.
So, am I missing something here, or did you just post that link to look smart?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Actually, your idea that newly evolved intelligent life will be there in a few billion years is probably a bit off.
As mentioned in the Odyssey mission objectives, "Mars today is far too cold with an atmosphere that is far too thin to support liquid water on the surface." Not an outright elimination of the possibility of intelligent life, but at least of intelligent life as we know it. The atmosphere is just way too thin, and things may only get worse on the surface from further bleed off without some form of intervention. I think the common view is that if there was higher (i.e., many cellular) life on mars, it was probably when back when the planet was warmer and wetter. Anything that might be left is likely barely eking out an existence in special environments.
And, in the few billion years you propose for intelligent life to evolve, the sun will have expanded to a red giant, and the surface of Mars will likely be nice and toasty. A bit too toasty perhaps for, again, life as we know it.
Finally, there's plenty of scientific value in studying Mars whether there's life there or not. The life issue is perhaps the most media friendly, and the one that most captures the pop cultural interest, but there's lots of other stuff to learn from that red rock.
-Wombat
They have their own tap off JPL's isolation router. Coming into our isolation router are quite a few REALLY fat pipes.
--Carlos V.