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One Year Until Phoenix Mars Mission Launch
pipcorona writes "The principal investigator of the Phoenix Mars Lander Mission released an article yesterday describing how the mission is progressing, talking about landing sites and informing the public that they are officially one year away from launch." From the article: "In parallel with the assembly of the spacecraft, our Payload Interoperability Testbed (PIT) in the Tucson Science Operations Center has been integrating engineering models of all the science instruments. Besides validating the integration procedures for the instruments, this facility will be used to verify that all our instruments work as a team-important since they were developed individually. In particular, the digging of soils and delivery of samples to instruments will be thoroughly tested."
Dear NASA,
We were pleased to learn about your upcoming Phoenix mission, and look forward to this opportunity to once again secretly study your technology from our invisible bunkers on the Martian surface. (Whatever you do, don't try to dig below 500m, retaliation will be swift and final.)
On your journey, please keep in mind that Mars uses the metric system. Any space probes detected using "Imperial" units (whose very name are an affront to the Martian Emperor, may he live forever) will be silently deflected by the planetary protection shields.
Yours truly,
Mars Department of Blue Planet Studies and Relations
P.S. Regarding any rumors you may have heard about invasion, don't worry, the chances of anything coming from here are a million to one...
I fear something terrible may have befallen K'Breel, or his gellsacs...
I dunno. I'm not sure if it's wise to plan such a launch a whole year in advance. How does anyone involved with the project know what they'll be doing in a year? If they're anything like me, they don't. Not only that, but August is a really bad month for launch dates. Most people are on vacation then. Shouldn't they schedule it for September, after the kids have gone back to school?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Oh come on, some of us know that the Martians are just going to shoot this one down too.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
for Dan Quayle.
Phoenixes... quayles... same difference.
Maybe, and remember, just maybe, this spending of money will produce as side effects a lot of new technologies.
And sometimes, again, just sometimes, things such as researches work as a chain of events in a way that we can't see the results until they are already upon us:
take for instance this to this this
And Ta-DA!! We have NASA's technology reducing poverty in the world! Isn't science marvelous!?
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Because of trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies, the mission name has been changed to Firebird. There are rumors that it may change again before launch.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particulary human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.
;-)
But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usuage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrowminded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.
If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner
Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognise other incentives apart from economical ones.
And the reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonise with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.
A species that doesn't colonise new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their adventurage spirit and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.
So, to to all the people saying we don't *need* space-exploration (human or otherwise); we don't *need* the pyramids neither, nor all those great buildings and artworks, nor any luxery, etc.
The only thing we 'need' is food and shelter.
Based on what we truelly 'need' thus, we should go back living like cavemen.
But ofcourse, we don't, and the reason is that we, as humans, look beyond our immediate needs and have (and should have) grander visions.
What you say is what I already indicated: economics (and also the ratio of costs/science output) is less good with human spacetravel then robotic ones. Contrary to some zealots, I do not dispute that.
But, as I have said, I do not think one should measure everything in terms of economic benefits. Even if you could send a hundred, or a thousand robots for the price of one human mission, it still would not change the fact that robots can't colonise planets, and augment the survival chances of the human race (and earths' ecology) through interplanetary spreading.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Reporter to director of NASA: "Do you think that the launch will proceed on schedule?" Director of NASA: "No. God no."
Why in the heck would we be launching a stationary lander when the Spirit and Opportunity have been roving the surface for over 2 years? Think of how crudy the rover missions would have been if they were stuck in one spot. We would have seen the inside of 1 ten foot crater and a rubble monoscape. Instead the rovers have climbed mountains, traversed huge craters, found exotic sedimentary deposits, and produced amazing panoramas. Mobility is invaluable. What are NASA planners thinking?
an ill wind that blows no good
NASA does something in every state, if not every congressional district.
(see also: Joint Strike Fighter, and -- lest the Europeans gloat -- anything made by Airbus)
You don't even need to go that far. What is the main benefit we get out of exploring space? Research. Plain and simple. I can't even imagine how far and wide space research has influenced technology today. Better understanding of flight mechanics and materials have improved the aerospace industry. The need to ensure the safety of astronauts has lead to new technology trickling down into the medical industry. New manufacturing processes. New scientific instruments. Velcro. TANG! Even if we learn absolutely nothing directly from this mission there is always going to be derivative technology from what we had to develop to get there. The benefits of research are innumerable.
There's this one: http://www.allhatnocattle.net/Mars%20Rovers.jpg
"Phoenix", eh? They probably hope that it will rise from the ashes after atmospheric entry...
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
Yep the space program gave us TANG, anyone remember tang? Although that ones kind of lost in the 40,000 other drinks we have now. The space program has given us many many other things, Firefighter protection, smoke alarms, ear thermometers, Joystick controllers and on and on.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
"Some opponents of human space exploration set science as the major interest, and go on to say that much more science can be done by robots, *costs being equal*."
;-)
;-)"
;-) But, at the end, I think it's necessary to go ahead with human exploration, and that is so expensive that, aside from space-tourism, the real 'exploration' can only be done by space-agencies. I mean, no company is ever going to waste money for mere exploration; they only will do anything, if they can see a profit (which is what companies do). Thus, *they* only see the economic incentive; something we both seem to agree should not be the case. It's not logical to leave everything up to them, then.
And thus, it IS a matter of economics, because no one is seriously going to claim humans are less versatile and able to do in situ research then whatever robot we can create these days, if costs do not matter. Robots do not do a better job then humans; they only do a better job per buck that is being put in (exept for human-biological spaceresearch, of course). With this I agree, as I said.
The argument about 'let's do it when it becomes affordable' is, indeed, also very much heard, but I think this is a bit of false argument. I mean by that, that it can be used all of the time, for everything. For instance, let's imagine in a hundred years technology has become so cheap one can send humans to Mars for a tenth of the price of today. Well, then, if technology has become so cheap, it has become equally cheap for robotic missions, so it STILL will be 1000 times cheaper to send probes and robots then humans. and this will *always* be true: it will always be far more expensive to send humans then robots, nomatter how cheap things get. So, one no distinction for a treshold with this argument since the relative price-difference will always exist, and thus, it becomes rather arbitrary to decide what costs are worth it. I think it's worth the costs now, you may think it's not, but purely base on this 'argument' one can never reach a logical consensus, since the argument merely boils down to an opinion.
Thus, I leave that economic argument for what it is, and, as said earlier, I argue from other reasons beside the purely economical.
"After all, Columbus would not have been granted all the funding necessary for a huge research effort into creating shipbuilding technology; he was given a couple of standard-technology ships. "
Yes, but if they had made that huge research effort&funding, instead of 'waiting' for standard, more affordable ships (in analogy with what you claim), they could have discovered America 100 years sooner!
"Now, add to the mix that the massive investment of NASA credits into making expensive launchers is an economic deterrent for the development of cheaper launchers, and you can well conclude that supporting space exploration implies opposing existing space agencies...
Well, let's be honest; if it had been up to NASA, the spaceshuttle would never have been made in the first place. That expensive piece of 'launchvehicle' was the result of political compromise. And I'm not counter-arguing that politicians often squander huge amounts of money.
And, as said, if you argument that not only companies (or the economic viewpoint) should matter, then we're back at the starting point: it will always be cheaper to send probes than to send humans, and thus, always that much more science can be done by robots, costs being equal.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Of course you can't imagine it. Because it hasn't happened. Contrary to popular belief and decades of NASA propoganda - the technology transfer from space to other fields has been essentially nil.
Historically various providers of space rated components have been conservative in the extreme - they tend to use and reuse the same materials again and again. Partly because it's expensive and difficult to qualify new materials, partly because the costs of a mistake are so high. Overall, they (the space industry) wait until a new material has been thoroughly proven in another application before trying it themselves. (Kapton for example has been used for insulation (both electrical and thermal) since the mid 60's.)
Not really. Medical monitoring systems at use in a typical hospital are better than that used by the astronauts by orders of magnitude or more. The systems used by the medical industry are a seperate (and much more advanced) evolutionary path.
And generally ones not needed elsewhere because spacecraft need combinations of lightness, strength, and extreme enviroments not found anywhere else.
Both developed prior to and seperate from the space program.
Based on history to date - no, there won't be.