Mars Rover Ready for Risky Descent into Crater

Riding with Robots writes "After months of scoping out the terrain, the robotic geologist Opportunity is ready to drive down into Victoria Crater on the Meridiani Plains of Mars. Mission managers acknowledge the hardy rover may never come back out, but say they think the potential for discovery is worth it. 'The rover has operated more than 12 times longer than its originally intended 90 days. The scientific allure is the chance to examine and investigate the compositions and textures of exposed materials in the crater's depths for clues about ancient, wet environments. As the rover travels farther down the slope, it will be able to examine increasingly older rocks in the exposed walls of the crater. '"

Comments

These missions seem pre-scripted

[pln2bz]

I'd like to preface this by saying that I think that the guys at NASA are very intelligent and certainly well-meaning. However, their missions are becoming increasingly scripted. They increasingly presuppose their findings before even embarking upon the mission, as if the future holds absolutely no unexpected findings. I realize that nobody likes to feel like they are surrounded by things they don't understand. We all want to feel like we are masters of our own universe, and you have to have a purpose before people will consider putting money to it. But where does this confidence come from that they know that all of these formations are caused by water? Every week that goes by, our probes and telescopes bring more unexpected observations. Our theories of the universe are constantly changing. Objects that we thought were completely different increasingly appear to have similar characteristics. Many enigmas remain regarding fundamental questions about things like comets, the Sun and even the fundamental building blocks of the universe. As far as I can tell, nobody's ever even observed an impact occur on any planet. At some point in time, their speculation hardened into consensus without ever thinking to validate it. Many of the craters we observe in the universe have highly unusual features that don't appear to strictly correlate with physical impacts.

My point is that the overall predictive track record and the large number of unsubstantiated consensuses within astrophysics today do not support the notion that we should be able to accurately predict our findings on Mars at this point in time. Our findings there have raised more questions than answers. We need to swallow our pride and get on with trying to be objective about these missions, or we risk creating an expectation within the public that science is a pre-scripted story. We need to allow for the possibility to be surprised, even on the big picture questions, or we run a risk of squandering the little time we have left on that planet with those rovers.

Re:These missions seem pre-scripted

[pln2bz]

We use our experience on Earth to form a hypothesis about similar features on another planet.

But weather systems on other planets are not anything like our own. Many of the geological features we see on Mars cannot be explained by fluid or lava flow. Dust devils on Mars have lightning bolts at their cores, and I've seen pictures of Martian dust storms that demonstrate pretty clearly that there is vertical filamentation all along the edges of these dust storms.

Mars is not like Earth. Instead of basing our analysis of Martian geology and Martian weather on Earth's geology and weather, shouldn't we be developing geologic and weather model that works for *all* planets, and that can explain both Earth and Mars and all of the other planets? How does Earth's weather system, for instance, help us to understand the unusual rotational velocities of cloud cover on Uranus? I don't think you can make a good case that it does, and I think the same argument can be made of attempts to perform the same reasoning for less conspicuous items on Mars.

We form a hypothesis but we can't support or deny it until we observe evidence. If the evidence supports then it looks like we knew it all along. If the evidence denies then it raises more questions.

I get the sense though that some theories are being favored. The water on Mars theory is definitely favored over any other logical explanations of our findings there, right or wrong. Much of the evidence that's cited as pointing to water can also indicate other things.

Consensus is built with mathematical models. Probes and telescopes are used to validate our hyptheses. Again, if observational evidence does support a hypothesis then more questions are raised and new ones are formed. As for not correlating with physical impacts (I'm not entirely sure what you are referencing here) there are craters formed by volcanoes and probably some caused by exploding meteors (meteorites).

I'll excerpt from another posting in this same thread:

The Deep Impact Mission demonstrated *two* flashes of light. Why is that? It's a *very* important question.

Why do craters sometimes appear to be the result of rilles, and rilles sometimes appear to be actually chains of craters? These are supposed to be two *completely* different processes -- one from fluid or lava flow and one from collisions. Why do they appear to be related in many situations?

Why do many asteroid craters have flat bottoms? I understand that there are theories regarding this (melted bottoms), but have we observed flat bottomed craters from our own nuclear explosion tests? No, I don't think so ...

Why do many craters have central peaks? Oftentimes, if not always, the stratigraphy of the land surrounding the crater is preserved within these central peak. Isn't that a bit unusual?

Why do the Aristarchus and Tycho craters on the Moon lack deposits? From what I understand, it's been known for many decades that the rays of Tycho have no discernible depth. The material surrounding Aristarchus is not material at all. It's actually channels.

We have hypotheses. Yes we want water to be found on Mars and it shouldn't be unexpected. There is an incredible amount of water in the universe and it would be foolish to only expect to find it on Earth or the moons of Jupiter.

Mars was a molten ball of magma that eventually began to cool. Why would anyone not expect that sometime between being a molten ball of magma and its current state as a presumably cold, dead world that there wasn't flowing water on it?

I have problems with astrophysicists' theories of how planets formed, but that's a whole different story.

I have a hypothetical situation: What if everything NASA is seeing is the result of electrical activity instead of water, and NASA sends people to Mars in search of water, life and national prestige, only to have them subjected to intense transient electrical storms in various forms? What if these people then died due to persistent equipment failures?

Re:These missions seem pre-scripted

[pln2bz]

That makes sense. Those are very good points.

The thing is, though, their interpreations of the data will now define the next mission there. If they repeatedly insist on skewing their interprations towards one single preferable finding, they can quite possibly end up with an eventual human mission to Mars that will be a complete catastrophe. At some point in time, they need to start getting serious about ruling out *all* interpretations of the observations. The idea that Mars is being terraformed by electrical activity -- as was hinted by the unexpected observation of lightning bolts at the cores of dust devils, martian dust storms that appear to consist of these electrical dust devils, numerous rilles that cannot have been generated by fluids or lava flows, crater chains that blend into rilles and rilles peppered with craters, and simple laboratory experiments that can replicate surface features there quite simply (including the Martian spiders and Martian blueberries) -- all of this stuff needs to be refuted and ruled out before we send people there. We can agree on that, right?

Those arguments are being ignored. Nobody is refuting them. They are valid arguments. Nobody's ever explained why they are not. And I think it's a very dangerous game. Underestimating electrical activity could have serious ramifications. It would be a real fiasco to have to send up a second mission to investigate why the first failed. Would the public even pay for it? It has to be perfect on the first try. That means ruling everything out.

If people think Electric Universe Theory is absurd, then it must be demonstrated to be so as far as Martian geology is concerned *before* we send people to Mars because they're alleging that they're seeing a *lot* of activity there. When peoples' lives will be on the line, can we afford to just ignore the alleged danger?

Re:Impacts...

[pln2bz]

I think I'm with you guys for a very long time now. This is really too good to be true. None of you guys have read what EU Theory states. You have no clue. And you're so sure that you're right. I have to be here when things start to fall apart for all of you. It's going to be a spectacle. The thing is, it's an unusual situation because the evidence already exists to convince all of you. But when you don't read it, you become quite impenetrable! It's one of the most interesting problems I've ever encountered in my entire life.

The thing is, I'm going on the record here. Most of you guys refuse to do so. The story would be so much better if we could correctly attribute all of the players involved. That would definitely make it a lot easier to tell the story later.

Make no mistake about it though: *Everything* you say here will be picked apart in the future. If you're going to crack jokes, make sure they are at least funny first. People will be reading these jokes, and interpreting them through the context of arrogance. It might not be as funny to those people as you think it is to me. We don't know yet what's going to result from this hubris.