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NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Lifts Off
Joost Schuur writes "At 11:18 PM EDT on Monday, Opportunity, the second of 2 NASA Mars Exploration Rovers took off aboard a Boeing Delta 2 Heavy rocket after several delays and begun its 305 million mile trip to the Red Planet, where it will join its sister vehicle Spirit, which launched June 10th. Spirit and Opportunity will land on opposite sides of Mars, travelling up to 40 meters a day, and use a series of instruments to search for water, including the Rock Abrasion Tool, which will grind into rocks to give scientists a peak inside. Things are going to get crowded next January in orbit, as both NASA missions join the European Mars Express mission also launched this month and the Japanese Nozomi probe, which would finally complete its troublesome 5 year journey. Those stuck on Earth can take advantage of the closest Mars opposition in 60,000 years and watch with a telescope, or follow the images provided by the International MarsWatch 2003 group."
Its good to see NASA responding well with some serious missions after the Atlantis disaster. After all the cutbacks during the Clinton era I really thought it might get to the point where they did nothing but put satellites into orbit.
What would really interest me however would be if they switched their attention from Mars to Venus. Most scientists agree that life on Mars is not feasable wheras Venus, which is closer to the sun, has a far more interesting chemical makeup. Although too hot for any carbon based lifeforms to be found, many scientists have thought that in Venus's rich ammonia lakes a Silicon based life could have emerged. Although these would be very basic forms of life (not as advanced a monkeys) discovering them would mean that we could no longer view ourselves as being at the center of the universe.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
3,551,645 names were submitted to the NASA site for launch on the two rovers. They have a nice picture of it with explanation here:
/. NASA and send the rovers off course ;)
http://www.planetary.org/rrgtm/dvd.html
Let's hope this doesn't
It's strangely comforting to know that my name will be up there forever (well at least until we colonise Mars and enshrine the little discs somewhere)!
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
How is the Deep Space Network (DSN) going to handle 7 spacecraft at Mars? It was tough enough with just 2 orbiters. Anyone in the know want to comment?
People are better than robots at exploring a planet. We need to put people on Mars. Mars Direct will get them there. All we need is the will to do it.
And before you go arguing how it will be so expensive, bear in mind that it would only be a 7% increase in NASA's budget for the next 10 years, and that would give us 5 manned missions.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The problem with RTGs is that they have to be send into space. And they contain a fair amount of highly radioactive plutonium. (Not Pu-239 with a halftime of several thousands of years, but Pu-238 with a halftime of several decades - very poisonous, and obviously more active because of it's shorter halflife)
:)
You don't really want to let them reenter the atmosphere and cover your city with radioactive dust. That is a problem. Maybe one can place the radioactive stuff into (nearly) unbreakable shells. Nasa et al. are already doing it, but a small risk remains.
Earth swing-bys are another reason of concern.
Before the launch of the Cassini mission, several groups tried to stop it - also because it had an earth-swingby on it's schedule. Fortunately, all went ok.
The other thing are the nuclear reactors they are planning to put on deep space missions. IMHO, they are muss less dangerous. Why? Sounds silly?
No. They have to be made critical and before that, they are far from being as radioactive as RTGs.
I once visited a science reactor and a staff member told me that they transport the *fresh* fuel rods by hand, only wearing gloves to protect themselves from the U-235 alpha emitter/fuel.
Of course several men at once are doing it, they are probaly very heavy
The burned rods are the stuff that is so dangerous. You could not even stand by them for more than a few seconds without being killed by their radiation.
Of course space agencies should only issue the "start the reactor"-command to a space probe if it is impossible that it gets on a collision course with earth. That would be the case if it e.g. is in orbit around saturn/jupiter.
The official site for the team that made all the science instruments is here: http://athena.cornell.edu
http://www.maasdigital.com/gallery.html