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Phoenix Mars Polar Lander Website Launched
ciph3r writes "The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander mission has just launched their public website. '[The] mission is to land in the northern polar region of Mars (about 70 N latitude) in May 2008 and to expose the upper few feet of surface material using a robotic arm to find the ice that was discovered by the Odyssey mission in 2002. The history of this ice and its interaction with the martian atmosphere will be studied throughout the 3-month primary mission. This ice-rich soil may be one of the few habitable environments on Mars where a biological system can survive.'"
It looks like they took the Twirl filter to the Firefox logo in Photoshop.
Does anyone know why the "o" in the Phoenix logo is the symbol for male? Also, what does the year 2007 have to do with anything?
I hope they are taking some precautions to reduce the terestrial contamination of regions of Mars where we expect there is the posibility of sustaining life. Because if we land something where there is frozen water, we could very well seed it with micro-organisms from Earth.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I was wondering when they were going to send (another) spacecraft to Mars. I mean our current one(s) have been there for only 11 months.
The European Mars Express probe has a radar boom that was meant to do really accurate measuring of the subsurface ice. This sounds like the sort of knowledge that would be really useful to have in deciding exactly where to aim the Phoenix mission.
But they delayed unfolding the radar boom on Mars Express after some analysis showed that the forces released in springing it open might be enough to mess up the whole spacecraft.
First it was meant to happen in April 2004, then delayed till June I think. After that I can't find any furthur information. Anyone know what the score with that is?
Let's hope it doesn't mysteriously disappear like the last one we tried sending.
Yeah, there is a guy in Colorado that can help them setup that sort of thing. Maybe control the lights on the landing craft.
This is part of the Mars Scout Program, which is a really neat idea. Basically, every four years, NASA sends out a request for proposals, that basically says "You've got $N amount of money. Draw up a mission you can do for that price that'll give us some useful science." It's a cheap way of getting specific science results, as opposed to billion-dollar class megaprobes. The Phoenix won because it reused existing hardware, the Mars Polar Lander. Because of that, their mission became cheaper, so they could do more stuff within the price tag. The runner up, a Mars Airplane, is something I'd like to have seen- hopefully they pick it for the 2011 Mars Scout.
After being sued by the company which makes the Phoenix BIOS, getting heckled by the Firebird project, and not being able to afford to take out an ad in the New York times proclaiming itself FireFox, has settled upon CowPoop.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Actually, here's the story. The Mars Polar Lander program produced two articles. One was launched in '98, and crashed. The other was scheduled to be launched in '01, but after the crash was shelved. This Phoenix mission basically stuck new instruments on the old frame, fixed the problem on the old one, and used it. It's a very ingenious solution.
Lets get this straight...
I'm not sure whether you personally are advocating this approach, but I have seen plenty of other posts here that do specifically support the idea, and even a few volunteers. To you and all of those others, I ask have you lost your ever loving minds?
You are talking about sacrificing a human life in exchange for a few months of scientific data. Heres a news flash for you, the whole of mars for the rest of its natural existence, and for that matter the whole of the sterile solar planetary system, isn't worth the cost of one human life. If it was a choice between seeing it all turned to rubble and saving a single person, I would not hesitate for a heartbeat to push the button and consign the dust to the solar winds.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
I have plenty of mod points here, but I felt it was more constructive to reply rather than modding this post into oblivion...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.