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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."
*Sigh*. If you're going to use Slashdot to pimp your pointless tech blog, please at least make sure your information is up-to-date.
Latest news: dirt seems to be stuck, possibly too cakey to enter test chamber. Engineers are working on a solution.
Now where's *my* ten million site visits?
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.
Physics is imagination in a straight jacket. ~John Moffat
Last I checked liquid water is called ice
perhaps you should check again.
"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.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Rather than complain about stale stories, link to newer ones. You may even get modpoints for it. Anyhow, here's the best update I've found so far:
http://planetary.org/blog/article/00001501
They are having problems getting the soil to go through the screen. Although one of the pod doors (insert HAL jokes) didn't open all the way, the soil appears to have reached the screen based on the images. They dumped an extra-large load to compensate for the jammed door. The problem is that the sensors did not detect any soil going through the screen. They are now trying to figure out if its the nature of the soil (clumpy?) or an instrument problem.
If its an instrument failure, fortunately they have 7 other "ovens" to try. Redundancy is nice.
Table-ized A.I.