NASA Announces Next Mars Mission

Grant Henninger writes "Today, NASA announced their final selection for the Mars Scout 2013 mission: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN. MAVEN will provide the first direct measurements ever taken to address key scientific questions about Mars's evolution by measuring characteristics of its atmospheric gases, upper atmosphere, solar wind, and ionosphere. The mission, estimated to cost $485M, is scheduled for launch in late 2013."

Comments

Re:Maven? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... MAVEN? Does that mean anything? People who write acronyms contain so much fail.

maven â"noun
an expert or connoisseur.

Re:Money well wasted....again

[meringuoid]

Why the hell don't we spend that $458 million on developing something useful like...i dunno...a battery the size of a suitcase that can recharge in 1 hour and power a car for 250 mile at 70mph?

Let's be really generous here and say you have the greenest car on earth and can get 50mpg at 70mph. That's 5 gallons of fuel, or 22 litres. That's already a respectable size for a suitcase. So if the most efficient car around running on hydrocarbon fuel can only just achieve your specifications, batteries haven't a prayer. I wish you luck with your research and development, but I don't think $458 million is going to achieve the order of magnitude improvement you seek.

Or a hydroxy generating system that can power a home generator?

Not sure what you mean by this, but if you mean what I think you mean then that's a perpetual motion machine. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, then burning the gas to produce water again, can never give a net output of energy.

Or a solar panel that is cheap enough for the average home owner to install and power their entire home?

You may be surprised to learn that quite a lot of NASA's funding goes on photovoltaics research. Making them lighter and more efficient. They find it very useful for powering their spacecraft.