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ExoLance: Shooting Darts At Mars To Find Life
astroengine (1577233) writes To find life on Mars, some scientists believe you might want to look underground for microbes that may be hiding from the harsh radiation that bathes the red planet's surface. Various NASA rovers have scraped away a few inches at a time, but the real paydirt may lie a meter or two below the surface. That's too deep for existing instruments, so a team of space enthusiasts has launched a more ambitious idea: dropping arrow-like probes from the Martian atmosphere to pierce the soil like bunker-busting bug catchers. The "ExoLance" project aims to drop ground-penetrating devices, each of which would carry a small chemical sampling test to find signs of life. "One of the benefits of doing this mission is that there is less engineering," said Chris Carberry, executive director of Explore Mars, a non-profit space advocacy group pushing the idea. "With penetrators we can engineer them to get what we want, and send it back to an orbiter. We can theoretically check out more than one site at a time. We could drop five or six, which increases the chances of finding something."
They will be performing a test run in the Mojave desert to see if their design stands any chance of working.
Well as long as they don't spontaneously exhibit signs of evolving into living organisms I don't see what else could go wrong.
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I can see this tech also being used on Europa (and bombing doesn't count as "landing").
Too deep? They should send some of that magical asteroid mining equipment we supposedly have. It's so easy if you listen to the nerds on here.
Just for clarification, the Russians and the US have launched penetrator missions before for Mars. They were unsuccessful. (The russians failed to achieve orbit insertion, IIRC and the US ones failed on impact).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_2
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=MARS96D
It would be nice to see in the article where the enthusiasts intend on dropping their probes. With Mars's landmass being equivalent to the Earth's, that's a lot of ground to cover. It's my understanding that the poles are more likely to harbor life from trapped H2O and CO2 and by their location should receive less solar radiation.
And if they interpret this as an attack?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Obligatory project Thor link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
Impact dart, have rovers examine the ejecta and the crater? No need to launch anything back...
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The Russian probe Mars 96 was going to try something like this. It carried an RTG powered penetrator alongside the main probe, which was intended to drop from orbit and survive impact, while driving itself deep into the ground.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_96
It would have been a pretty cool mission if it hadn't failed on launch and crashed back to Earth.
Dropping darts onto the denizens of another planet could result in starting an interplanetary war with a highly advanced race of microscopic life forms. Is satisfying mere "scientific curiosity" really worth the risk?
For you slashdotters, the two return codes of the experiment:
0: "There is no life here".
1: "There used to be life here, too bad I crashed into it".
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I think anyone looking for life on Mars should read The Gaia Hypothesis. It was written by an inventor hired by NASA to build devices to discover life on Mars. He researched how life works and realized it (life in general) must control the atmosphere in order to survive for billions of years. The exotic bacteria living in the Antarctic or in Yellowstone Hot Springs still depend on free oxygen and other volatiles created, and maintained over hundreds of thousands of years, by other forms of life. It's a purely scientific proposal, not spiritual or New Agey or anything. Just a new, probably correct way, to understand how life works together to maintain itself.
Expect a communique shortly from K'breel, speaker for the council, condemning this aggression from the blue planet.
To find life on Earth, some Omicronians believe you might want to look "kick the ant pile" and see if get a reaction. The "ExoLance" project aims to drop ground-penetrating devices, each of which would carry cameras to watch the ensuing panic for signs of life. "One of the benefits of doing this mission is that there is less engineering," said Lrrr, Omincron Supreme Leader. "With penetrators we can engineer them to get what we want, and send it back to an orbiter. We can theoretically check out more than one site at a time. We could drop five or six megaton... errr... measurement packages which would increases the chances of finding something."
They will be performing a test run in the Mojave desert to the metaphorical feet are large enough for the ant pile.
Let's hope it's K'breel and not Heinlein's martians. Those suckers almost completely vaporized Fifth planet out of aesthetic necessity - all that's left is a small ring of rubble.
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nuclear powered backhoe.
Just start digging.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That was already tried by JPL/NASA, but the penetrators failed.
In the decades past, it was viewed as harmless...even cute when the little golf-cart like robots crawled across the surface doing their little experiments. But then in 2025, Earth attacked. It was without warning or provocation that the vicious spikes penetrated the community, and this action would not go without swift and formidable retribution. So the ships were fueled and armed, and a vast armada launched into the sky and made their way to seek...not revenge, but justice. The Earthlings, with their antiquated detection systems, didn't even notice the approaching fleet with weapons ready to unleash hell.
But alas, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog, and no justice was served that day or any other.
Apologies to Douglas Adams.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
so a team of space enthusiasts has launched a more ambitious idea
I don't think that word means what you think it does.
All the effort to find evidence of live on our closest planet, but scientest are saying they can find an earth like world with no problem (or at least close to it). Why don't they apply those techniques locally. They should try them on Pluto and be able to tell us all about it before the spacefraft arrives there next year.
Did anyone else cringe reading the summary? "...rovers have scraped away a few inches at a time, but the real paydirt may lie a meter or two below the surface"
If it's not in furlongs, the unit is meaningless to me.
Did they think of this plan while they were at a pub?
It's a bicycle
It could be worse than that even.
The last time I saw a ground piercing spike delivered from space (ok, on the telly), these damned predators came out. What if they accidentally fail and rain back down on Earth?
Arnie's getting on, I don't know if he'd be up to it these days.
We. Would. Be. Screwed.
Who really cares if they find microbes beneath the surface of Mars? It's pretty obvious by now that if there ever was life on Mars, it never flourished. NASA has such a hard on for this.
Right now, resources would be better spent working to exploit space resources, terraforming and advancing transport technology.
Good news! We found evidence of life on Mars!
Bad news... it'll take 3 years for the relief ships to get there to help the survivors.
Kane is pleased.
Draper Labs designed a "buster bunker" bomb, maybe 20 years ago now? It was made of solid steel, designed to penetrate bunkers and blow up at the right depth. Steve Finberg, one of the managers of MIT's Ham Radio Swap Fest, was instrumental in the electronics design for the instrument package in the test unit and was quite proud of it: show up at the next swap fest and ask him!
If someone pierces my roof, I do not think I would react well, just saying...