Phoenix Digs First Mars Soil Sample To Analyze

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly two weeks after its historic landing, the US Mars probe Phoenix has scooped up its first sample of Martian soil and begun analyzing it for water and organic compounds. The test dig made Sunday by the Phoenix Mars Lander's 8-foot-long robotic arm uncovered bits of bright specks in the soil believed to be ice or salt. Mission controllers will send instructions to the lander to dump the sample into one of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) ovens. The TEGA ovens, which are about an inch long and the diameter of a pencil lead, will heat up the soil samples and use a mass spectrometer to detect the gases that come off the samples, which will shed light on some of the materials in the soil, specifically those formed by the process of liquid water."

Comments

I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[Majik Sheff]

Perhaps some day in my lifetime we can get some feet on mars. God only knows it won't happen in the current climate.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[physman_wiu]

We have the technology to get there, but not really the drive. Why spend billions of dollars to get there to just find out that there is nothing there? That would be a big slap in the face to the space program. Sure I want to get there as much as the next guy, but from a politicians point of view there is no real need. Right now there are more important things to take care of (like teaching common sense in Washington.)
The only reason why we are pushing to go back to the moon is the Chinese. Same reason as we made it there last time. Just a different country.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[jamesh]

Perhaps some day in my lifetime we can get some feet on mars

A foot we can probably manage now. A whole astronaut is probably even possible with current technology, maybe we could even get one there alive!

Getting the astronaut home again though is the real problem...

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[maxume]

Getting the astronaut home is only a problem if you promise him that you are going to try.

I wouldn't do it, but I'm pretty sure that you could get someone willing to take a one way trip in exchange for their place in history.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[Lumpy]

We have the technology to get there, but not really the drive. Why spend billions of dollars to get there to just find out that there is nothing there? That would be a big slap in the face to the space program.

Yup you're right. The Apollo missions were a HUGE FAILURE and a giant slap in the face to NASA. Everyone was pissed that we did not find anything on the moon.

Sarcasm aside, Going to mars now is as difficult as it was to go to the moon in the 60's. Cripe we went from "whats a rocket?" to "I can see my house from here" to "hey the moon really isn't made of cheese! it tastes like dirt!" in an incredibly short time with NASA back then. we need to take the same "steps" like that to gear up to a mars mission.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[kannibal_klown]

What's the big deal? Our space program doesn't really get much in terms of funding, especially compared to other Government programs. There's a lot of pork to cut from our budget, and if politicians start focusing on something that's a small part of a federal budget then I think they should first focus on the big blunders that got some of them rich (like the "Bridge to Nowhere").

In any case, Politicians should not be dictating what we peruse with science. They are not qualified and would let personal beliefs and "the bottom line" cloud their judgement.

As far as Science is concerned, learning that something is not there is just as important as learning as something is there. We learn something, maybe it has little value or maybe a lot. But we learn something that may be important down the line.

Not everything has to be quantified in terms of "what do we get out of it." And nothing should be quantified in terms of "what do we (the politicians) get out of it."

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[physman_wiu]

Of course our space program doesn't get much funding. And I agree that our politicians shouldn't be the ones who pick where the fundings go. Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. The Human race by nature is not patient. The average person likes to see the immediate benefits with anything they do (whether it be starting a business, learning a language, or going to Mars.) The average person also doesn't understand the benefits that we get from the space program. They are not aware of the important role that space exploration plays in our everyday lives. "The most successful commercial space applications, like direct-to-home TV and satellite radio, have been successful not because theyâ(TM)re space-based, but because they provide a service that is better and/or less expensive than competing options." http://www.thespacereview.com/article/644/1 When people use services like Atm's or GPS they don't think about space. The average person is disconnected with the space program unlike politics that seemingly affect their lives more.

What we need is good education and marketing. We need to get people excited about space again. We need them to believe that there are benefits. lobiusmoop wrote:

Hope it finds Oil...'cause then an American manned mission to Mars would be guaranteed! This unfortunately is the case. We need a reason to go there, and right now oil seems to be the only reason.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[rbanffy]

"We have the technology to get there"

Erm... No.

We have no experience of long-duration space flight outside Earth's magnetic field. The longest (and only) manned flights outside it have been to the Moon and lasted only a couple days. We are talking about multi-year flight with little protection from cosmic radiation. We need to properly shield the spaceship or they will be cooked before they get there.

Even if we ignored that, we still need to build a spaceship that can carry astronauts to Mars and back, and that is not a trivial task. It has to be big enough to carry crew, supplies and spare parts for the redundant system. We are talking about something the size of the IIS, with a big engine attached to it. Even if we don't use solar panels and go nuclear (in violation of several annoying treaties), the spaceship required would be quite big.

There is also the question of the Mars landing. We have never landed anything there that's bigger than my desk. We are talking about a powered landing of several habitats, supply-storage facilities and fuel manufacturing facilities and the solar or nuclear power required to power them.

After the landing, we will also have to shield astronauts from cosmic radiation, since Mars have no magnetic field to speak of. They will have to be protected on the ground for the duration of the stay.

As for coming back, we will have to conduct a launch of a reusable, probably single-stage-to-orbit (as we want to cut down complexity as much as we can), vehicle. We never did that, but Mars has a more forgiving gravity than the Earth and we may already have the proper technology for that.

After that, the vehicle I just described must dock with the return vehicle (which may of may not be the same vehicle they arrived in) to return to Earth. They may carry additional Mars-made fuel in the lift-off vehicle if the weight budget allows and maybe use its engine to assist the return craft own engines.

As much as I would like to see it done next year, I know there is a lot of homework to be done before we can take someone to Mars and back.

It's hugely complicated.

Let's get back to the Moon first, make sure we have the technology to survive there for long periods and then venture on to Mars. A dozen dead astronauts won't help.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[rbanffy]

"Sarcasm aside, Going to mars now is as difficult as it was to go to the moon in the 60's"

I think it's much, much harder. In the 60s we had, basically, to build reliable rockets and spacecrafts for a week-long trip. In order to go to Mars, we need to build spaceships that go farther, faster and last longer. A LEM would not be able to get back to space if it stayed on the Moon for more than a month. We have never landed anything bigger than my desk in anything remotely like Mars. Those are really messy problems.

We could, probably, do it. But let's not say it'e easy. It's damn hard.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[quanticle]

Going to the moon was extremely difficult too. Remember, before the creation of NASA, the US had never launched anything into space, nor had we ever attempted to attain escape velocity. To go from zero, as it were, to craft capable of taking humans safely to orbital, and then escape velocity was a huge achievement.

By comparison, much of the prototype work for the Mars trip has already been done. We already know how to get to escape velocity, we've worked out the orbital mechanics, and we even know the basics of landing. Hell, the Viking landers figured all that out in the '70s. The big obstacle now is to make a life-support system capable of sustaining human life for the three month voyage. True, its no easy task, but I don't think it's more difficult than building a space program from scratch.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[CowboyNealOption]

Why spend billions of dollars to get there to just find out that there is nothing there?

But then WE will be there. I looked at the cost of the recent mars lander; we are throwing away more than one lander every two days in Iraq.

Re:I wonder what kind of flyer miles I'll get?

[Gavagai80]

Actually, half the spacecraft we sent to mars become craters -- not an acceptable risk level for a human mission. Also we've never sent anything to mars which returned to earth. Taking off again from a gravity well makes it twice as difficult as a one way trip. Plus there's the fact that a year of living supplies makes for a very large spacecraft, which then needs much more propellant too.

Re:Why a lander?

[Overkill Nbuta]

The main reason is while wheels are nice they take up so much weight and room on the probe that there is much much less scientific gear you can carry.

Re:Why a lander?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to worry about it lasting too long and getting boring. It will be encased in the polar ice cap when winter rolls around.