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Top Ten Discoveries of the Mars Rovers
eldavojohn writes "Space.com brings us the top ten discoveries of the Martian rovers that landed there in 2004. They were expected to last three months but, as Slashdot has covered time and time again, they have lasted over three years. From minor discoveries about the formation of Mars to images of atmospheric phenomena, to final and definitive proof of a Mars with water, these two robots have definitely reserved themselves a place in the history books. Pending a dust storm, they may not even be done with their mission yet."
That the best publicity comes from making moderately low predictions of success, then when you exceed them you look heroic.
Just how much did we spend on the Mars missions compared to research on solar energy or material science ? Or quantum computer research ? (I mean stuff with possible applications) Anyone know ? I bet a helluva lot more for Mars. The NSF's entire Computer science budget was only 600 million a few years ago. How does that compare ? What is the NIH annual budget ? Not trolling, just curious, to put it into perspective. I mean, are these missions basically run just to get funds to some congressperson's district ?
If credit is to be tossed around, anthropomorphizing devices such as these tends to ignore the 'real' people that harnessed imagination and creativity so that 'they' could scuttle around another world.
...don't answer that, thanks.
Why the childish urge to conjure up cute little clanking robots instead of simply patting a fellow human being on the back?
1. No LIFE!!! Stop wasting taxpayer money!!
Yes, lets stop pursuing scientific discoveries and focus our meager resources on invading countries under false pretenses as a proper imperial power should. Books and learning are for hippy surrender monkeys!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In recent years
....) 500 million
NIH: $28 billion
NSF $5.5 billion
NASA $16 billion
NSF Math and Physical sciences : 135 million in 2002
NSF CISE (Computer
Nasa's Spirit probe $820million
Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974[1] or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars
I assume that your view of archaeologists as well "Old crap from the past, stop wasting taxpayers' money". Or any other form of science that doesn't immidiately lead to direct rewards. It's our closest neighbor, in galactic distances this is like concluding that since there's noone standing on our doorstep and there's nothing interesting there, there's noone out there at all and so there's no point in leaving the house as it'd only be a waste of time and effort. Studying Mars is the second planet we get to study in any detail, any idea how much guesswork is made based on how things happened on earth? In most sciences you'd call a sample size of one "anecdotal", "spurious", "unreproducible" and "statistically insignificant". It's still the best we got, until we are able to study other planets. But I suppose that wouldn't be useful enough for you, it's science after all. Don't you have any desire for discovery or exploration?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Eh... how can we bother with learning anything about foreign cultures when even Space.com can't get the names of Martian landscape right.
"Marwth Vallis Regions"? Anyone else see what's wrong with that?
(Ok, yes, my computer naming convention at work is after the Welsh words for the planets, what's it to you?)
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Obits for Nerds. Robots that mattered.
Seriously, no band survives the greatest hits album.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
Dejah Thoris
OK, first of all, almost all of the taxes you've paid for the last 10 years have already been spent several times over so we can Spread Democracy and Freedom.
Secondly, NASA engineers managed to create machines that were able to accurately and consistently navigate the surface of Mars safely and efficiently almost entirely on their own.
If anything, I wish NASA got more taxpayer money.
AC
10 - Opportunity provides tantalizing glimpse of Victoria crater.
9 - Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater.
8 - First meteorite identified on another planet.
7 - Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink.
6 - Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras.
5 - Martian dust devils captured on film.
4 - First shot of Earth from distant planet.
3 - Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars.
2 - Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars.
1 - First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica.
Honestly, this has got to be one of the coolest things in a very long time for NASA. Not only has their multi-million project blown away the three-month lifespan, but the amount of data being recorded has got to be making those NASA scientists and the scientific community cream in their pants on a regular basis. We can learn with greater detail how planets and the galaxies are created, and begin to develop a very crude technical draft for mars colonization. The more data we take, the better the chances that, while probably not in our lifetime, soon enough the first stage of extraterrestrial colonization can be planned and executed. Great stuff!!!
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
Of course I want to discover. I am a scientist. But the public is unaware of the resources that NASA gets compared to other disciplines. As was pointed out above NSF Math and Physical Science get 135 million. That is tiny compared to just one of these NASA missions. Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?
The whole Apollo program was made in about 10 years, and in the 38 years since we landed on the moon all things electronic have improved with such incredible speed, going to Mars soon should be a piece of cake right? No. Is it because the GHz processors we have are too weak? No. It's because after that huge effort, and a few more missions until people lost interest, the program basicly shut down. Nobody was looking to invent technology to go even further, nobody was looking for rockets to go longer than geosynch orbit, nothing. We can wait another 50 years but that technology won't invent itself. I say the sooner the better, that way it will be cheaper in 50 years because it's been designed, tested and improved. While I don't think Bush is serious and is only using this as a distraction, I think we'd be able if we were willing.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Decepticons!
I am hoping that I get email from you, so I can discuss science. Just what is your field of specialization ?
You're level of meanness is a real detriment to Slashdot, where people try to have serious discussions about science and technology.
I've worked as the director of a condensed matter lab for many years at a large well known institution. My field could use some more money, and I must admit I resent so much of it going to NASA. If your not in a scientific field, it might not be obvious to you how much corruption there is regarding the allocation of funds. Condensed matter physics has many more applications in my eyes then Mars probes.
Oh and btw, I AM a women and I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.
Keep in mind that as part of NASA R&D a lot of useful technology gets developed along the way. NASA is very into developing better solar panels and high-tech materials, for example. It's very difficult to measure how much is spent on things that wind up having applications here on Earth compared to those that don't, though.
The other thing, though, is that private industry is somewhat better at funding things with obvious applications than it is at funding things whose primary goal is pure science, because it's a lot easier to get investors to part with their money when there's a chance that they'll get it back some day. So it makes some amount of sense for government to be spending money on pure science, since that's research that simply wouldn't get done otherwise, especially for large things like space exploration which are just out of the reach of the universities that do other pure research.
You can't forget the top research spender, DARPA.
Required extended mission, obviously - rovers did not land near the site.
9 - Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater.
Same as above - you may need to travel for a long time to get to the interesting site.
8 - First meteorite identified on another planet.
Required extended mission - you need to find the meteorite.
7 - Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink.
May not require an extended mission.
6 - Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras.
Most definitely requires an extended mission, and likely to require far more than that to know those eras in detail. Earth geology is not dead yet even though people study rocks for thousands of years.
5 - Martian dust devils captured on film.
Requires an extended mission, unless the dust devil pays you a visit just when and where you landed.
4 - First shot of Earth from distant planet.
Depends on the landing site and the rotation of Mars.
3 - Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars.
Likely requires an extended mission, unless those clouds are common and can be always seen.
2 - Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars.
Most definitely requires an extended mission. It will later take thousands of probes spread over the whole planet, and several years, to create the precise, correct thermal profile that the settlers will require.
1 - First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica.
May or may not require an extended mission depending on where the samples were collected.
You know, saying "I'm not trolling" doesn't make it so. Of course your post was entirely insightful, and this is definitely the first time somebody's posted "why don't we spend this money on [foo] instead" to a space story on slashdot.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Your credibility is low.
Mars is not our nearest neighbour. Venus is, and by a fair way too.
A scientist should know this.
This business of "our nearest neighbour" has been spun by the pro-space
lobby to good effect. The fact is that probes sent to Venus are far cheaper.
For a start, they go Sun-ward and enjoy a good gravity-assist.
What? You don't like the weather on Venus? That doesn't justify the "nearest neighbour" myth.
If you need a good way to stick a CD to your dashboard, sandwich it between Legos.
1 26468357EDN0000P1502L0M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/001/2N
Do a blow up on the circular object on the panel, left and down from center.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
'I AM a women'
uh huh
'I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.'
Likely. Are you implying that there is some sort of association between the two?
Sorry but you aren't a female, you aren't a 'insert race here', you aren't a 'insert nationality here', you are an individual. You neither get to stand taller due to the achievements of nor spin the failures of other individuals simply because they happen to share a group designator with you.
The thing I personally find most amusing, is that the only valid use of gender as a designator is to classify sex objects. And yet, those who want to be identified first by their gender don't seem to want their sex used to identify them as sex objects notwithstanding the entire biological purpose of having genders and the natural reproductive instincts associated with them.
>The whole Apollo program was made in
>about 10 years, and in the 38 years
>since we landed on the moon all things
>electronic have improved with such
>incredible speed, going to Mars soon
>should be a piece of cake right? No. Is
>it because the GHz processors we have
>are too weak? No
A billion times more processor power has no effect because the PROCESSOR POWER IN 1969 was PLENTY ENOUGH. The hard job of landing men on the moon had nearly nothing to do with computers and faster computers don't solve any relevant problems. The hard problems to solve were structural design and propulsion, not algorithms. Propulsion technology- at least propulsion technology useful for manned lunar missions - hasn't advanced one iota since the mid-60's.
To the contrary, all that essentially infinite computer power has brought is C++ or other, more inappropriate languages and associated junk programming - THAT MAKE IT HARDER. In fact, I predict that the biggest issue on return to the moon and even return to capsule Earth-orbital missions will be the flight software - too much to test correctly and innumerable bugs caused by modern "computer science" approaches. Having 6k of RAM and implementing the firmware *on a loom* was sufficiently limiting to prevent the worst of the current bloatware approach to programming. Virtually every current space project of which I am aware has had massive problems with the flight software and database, and it's coincident with trying to use inappropriate programming techniques made possible by faster computers.
Brett
We spend a LOT more on applied research. NASA is the only one with a rover on Mars but there are many, many people at government labs, universitoies and corporations doing helthcare related work. One interesting study would be to compare NASA's budget to the amount of money we spend in the US in movie tickets, TV reality shows or on new ring tones for cell phones. Actually we as a nation spent more on the ring tones then on mars. Think of all the poor starving kids in Africa that could have been fed if not for the money wasted on ring tones. Actually none of the money NASA spent goes to Mars. All of it goes to pay people who live here on Earth a salary. The money is not "gone", just redistributed.
10 - O crater .../ \... volcanic ...*... meteor ...//... dust devils
9 -
8 -
7 - ~~~ stink
6 - A..B..C three eras
5 -
4 - [ . ] Earth from mars
3 - o@o clouds
2 - ~!~ atmospheric profile
1 - H2O water history
I think the 2 neatests things from a spectator's viewpoint were the dust devil movies and the spherical blueberries. Burn's Cliff was also cool.
Table-ized A.I.
...should be to hunt down and kill whoever laid out that page for space.com.
Putting the article text in a six line scroll box while 95% of the page is ads or blank should be an offense punishable by being skinned alive.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
>The huge increases in computation power
>are extremely useful in running
>simulations, in engineering, fluid
>dynamics, etc, which may help us
>advance the propulsion technology.
>Moreover, landing men on Mars won't be
>as easy as the Moon, as the landing is
>considerably trickier (thanks to
>gravity and atmosphere), for which
>things like flight computers would
>certainly be useful.
I am fully aware of that, I do it for a living. However, the simulation capability was sufficiently good at the time of Apollo. Better is only vaguely better and doesn't greatly increase the probability of success and doesn't decrease the cost at all. In fact, developing the simulations is a continual problem and over-reliance on simulation (vs. test and flight experience) tends to increase the risk. The cost tends to be higher (to monumentally higher) and the schedule is almost always limited by slow software development. I run simulations every day of the same level of complexity, or higher, that ran perfectly well on computers extant in 1970. In fact a lot of the code was written in the late 60's and is still in use. "Improved" versions in "modern" languages require 8-processor DEC Alphas TO DO EXACTLY THE SAME CALCULATIONs, but with persistent and apparently unresolvable bugs. It doesn't *have* to be that way, of course, but the fact is that in practice that has happened time and again.
>Are you are aware of the quality the Space Shuttle Onboard Systems team produces?
Yes, because the process discipline used is not in line with "modern" standards, thankfully. If they had to redevelop it today, in 2007 (not 1980) there is no reason to believe that it could be done in any reasonable amount of time or with any reasonable chance of success. And once again, increased software sophistication IS NOT REQUIRED. A few minor operational irritations could be avoided but the Apollo system was quite obviously sufficient, and "improving" it would almost certainly entail all sorts of unnecessary bloat like autonomous failure detection, etc, that was handled with a guy flipping a toggle switch back in 1969.
Brett