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

Let me be the first to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoyven MAVEN!

Wow

[Konster]

Wow, what a boring science mission.

I say we attack them instead and keep the planet for ourselves.

Obligatory

[eclectro]

Yes, but are they looking for oil?

measurement

[freakdiablo]

Can we keep the same units of measurement this time? (That was a Mars mission right?)

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.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news NASA has just issued a press release stating that the proposed $485M mission is already over budget.

What about digging too?

[houbou]

I mean, I may not know much about space exploration, although I find the topic fun and interesting, but as they are planning this mission, which in effect is the studying of Mars atmosphere and weather, why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone and study Mars' crust or at least, something more like a few hundred feet into the ground itself?

Whatever equipment they send, have a missile or something that can impact or dig into the soil, be launched from space directly onto Mars soil. The resulting hole that would be from could receive the visit from a drone, who could take samples and make various analyses. After all, the surface soil samples they've been doing, it's all nice and dandy, but the real story, I believe should be what's underneath it all.

That way, they get data from the air and they get a sample of what Mars is made of down below. We may end up finding more resources available to help with towards a real man space exploration, as there may be resources awaiting to be utilized.

Depending on cost, etc.., they may even be able to have key locations targetted for drilling and just have a drone in each location dropped.

Gives a better perspective, might see some variations in what is found, depending on location..

Re:What about digging too?

[Konster]

The Brits did something like that a few years ago...impromptu mission to study Mars surface via high energy impact. Beagle 2 was the name of the impact device.

Re:What about digging too?

[Kjella]

Well, an impact doesn't get you very far. Even the best bunker-buster bombs do only 20 feet of reinforced concrete, not sure how far they'd get in Mars soil but probably not that much further if it's mountains and they're not designed to expel things to the surface. Oh yeah and it'd weigh 4-5000 pounds. As you'd have to wait for a drone to get nearby (we're not that accurate and the drones not that fast) you'll probably get as much out of studying "new" meteor craters, if you only have a brush to take away any residue collected on the surface.

What would be interesting is a drilling operation, but getting a drilling rig that could reach any real depths down there wouldn't exactly be an add-on task. One thing is the drill itself but in general a drilling rig requires some sort of cooling fluid and large amounts of power, both are very rare on Mars. The Rovers actually consume very little power, I don't remember the figure but it's not much. Just making a solar panel farm to power any sort of drilling would probably be an entire mission all by itself.

However, just like oil companies we wouldn't want to drill where there's nothing interesting, so the real answer is probably reflection seismology. Drop a bunch of cheap redundant geophones, make the impact, record all the seismic data through some local wireless grid and send it to a C&C central that'll broadcast it back to earth. It shouldn't be that hard to make a "Mars Glider" instead of lander that'll drop the sensors and the impact can be pretty much anything. If it takes out some of the geophones that's acceptable too.

Re:Maven? Really?

[HasselhoffThePaladin]

Try working in the DoD itself. You're presented with the full-retard breadth of bad acronyms on the daily. But when I try and be creative and come up with something like SADIST or SMEGMA, my boss just tells me to go back to my desk.

A challange to NASA

[linzeal]

Have us engineering students, engineers and insane rocket enthusiasts/investors design a mission to mars using live animals to test as many technologies as possible before you even think of sending a human mission. We US engineers are either bored building endless varieties of consumer crap or worrying what are we will be asked to build in a war with Russia and Iran. I vote C, a moused mission to mars. Think of the merchandising!

Re:A challange to NASA

[FleaPlus]

Have us engineering students, engineers and insane rocket enthusiasts/investors design a mission to mars using live animals to test as many technologies as possible before you even think of sending a human mission. We US engineers are either bored building endless varieties of consumer crap or worrying what are we will be asked to build in a war with Russia and Iran. I vote C, a moused mission to mars. Think of the merchandising!

Actually, the Mars Gravity Biosatellite, a collaboration between MIT and Georgia Tech, is working on something analogous to what you describe. They aren't planning on actually sending it to Mars though, just Earth orbit:

The Mars Gravity Biosatellite will carry a small population of mice to low Earth orbit aboard a spinning spacecraft creating "artificial gravity" equivalent to that on the Martian surface. The five-week mission will conduct the first in-depth study of how mammals adapt to a reduced-gravity environment. Groundbreaking data from this mission and its successors will be essential in determining future possibilities for human space exploration.

Where's the Kaboom?

[Matt_R]

There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom.

Re:A challange to NASA - OBLIG

[Foobar of Borg]

Think of the merchandising!

MAVEN - the toilet paper!
MAVEN - the action figure!
MAVEN - the breakfast cereal!
MAVEN - the flame thrower! (the kids love this one)

Re:Sometimes it seems...

[flewp]

CATCHIER:

Catchy Acronyms That Can Help Increase Economic Resources.

Yeah, I'm bored, and have spent too much time playing !acro on IRC.