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Phoenix Mars Lander Hits Halfway Point
It doesn't come easy writes "There is a nice write-up over at Space.com about Phoenix, NASA's next Mars lander. The article includes a few more details about the steps NASA is taking to ensure a successful mission." The Phoenix project was first given the green light earlier this year and hopes to benefit from some hard lessons learned on earlier projects.
NASA's next Mars lander, the Phoenix mission, will head for the northern arctic region of the red planet in 2007, not only ready to dig for subsurface water ice but also probe for habitats of present day life. Are they really expecting to find habitats of present day life? If so, what are the chances of such life actually surviving to this day?
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It's hit it's halfway point? It hasn't even launched yet! The headline is rather deceptive. Lot of thinks can happen, particularly with a President spending us into poverty and certain to be replaced in a couple of years.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Yes! Science must be made as sterile and boring as possible in order to prevent its contamination by the lesser peoples of the Earth! The human sense of wonder is an irrelevant illusion and does nothing to further the cause of collecting as much non-soundwave data as possible, then rendering it in the least exciting way that can be achieved by modern technology!
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
... then I say we call it GIR...
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simple reason: energy. You must've noticed this the last time you filled up, but it costs a bundle to haul stuff around even on wheels with electric motors.
On mars, the price is in W/m^2 of daytime solar input. And this solar input is significantly less (or significantly more variable) than on the equatorial band... so you might as well spare energy for the instruments.
Plus of course the actual total mission weight requirements imposed by the choice of launch vehicle and trajectory...