The cost would be high, but the reward great. It would be interesting to compare the cost to the wars in Agahnistan. It might be the same as a few weeks of war...
Not "mm" I would think...more like 1-2 meters at least. Remember that perchlorates of the least of the problems. Also UV, solar wind, cosmic rays, dessication, cold, atmospheric pressure, etc.
Unfortunately Curiosity is not equipped with a 1 meter drill, alas.....the best it could hope for are organic compound scraps from dead microorganisms....of course this is pretty good if it happens....well actually REALLY good...
No it does not have this, and I don't think one will fly until there is firmer evidence for microbial life.
However it has a vastly imporved micro imager...in color no less. The test pictures from it are pretty spectacular (compared to Opportunity's):
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-384#4
But aren't perchlorates fairly toxic to life to begin with making life on the surface highly unlikely (there are other reasons also, of course,...). Subsurface is a different story...
When JPL's Curiousity safely lands (hopefully) in August, these questions will be put to rest.... If EDL is successful and the instruments check out, it will be an incredible tool, laser spectrometer, mass spectrometer, gas chromatagraph, etc. For a geologist, it is truly an interplanetary orgasmatron....
Actually this post is not has wacked as it would first appear. David Darling accuses Guillermo Gonzalez of letting his theological extremism color his scientific studies to make life appear unlikely outside of Earth.
Gonzalez, Guillermo; Brownlee, Donald; Ward, Peter (2001). "The Galactic Habitable Zone: Galactic Chemical Evolution". Icarus 152: 185–200. arXiv:astro-ph/0103165. Bibcode 2001Icar..152..185G. doi:10.1006/icar.2001.6617.
5 years. Already police states such as Massachusetts are considering GPS transponders in all cars, supposedly to levy a miles-traveled tax which is bad enough...
How about those tasty apex predators that bioaccumulate contaminants? I won't (on purpose anyway) be drinking seawater any time soon, but I might be eating tuna....
NASA is like my wife; no matter how well funded it is, it will always be broke.
It will also always starve out the real science (robotic missions) in favor of idiotic manned space flight which are basically engineering stunts, not science.
There should be two separate agencies, one for manned and the other for robotic missions so that the manned pork cannot starve out the unmmaned.
So we sacrifice one of the most successful and promising scientific project of this century, to fund something that should be privately funded all the while wasting 2.8B on the SLS/Orion Flying Pork (except I doubt it will ever fly).
I am sure that the enviroment will be cleaned up the day of the inspection and the employees will be threatened into saying happy things, but the condition will revert to a living hell afterwards. If Apple really cared about the workforce, they would manufacture in the US. Screw you Apple and you other slave masters if you think this will fool anyone.
This is just another attack on the highly successful robotic missions of JPL by the fly-boy, mannned-mission bureaucrats in Houston. Manned mission are expensive, pork-barrel stunts that have achieved almost nothing scientifically while the JPL robotic missions have been hugely successful (Voyage, Cassini, Opportunity, etc.) and, compared to manned missions, inexpensive. So guess where the cuts are to be? The robotic missions, of course. That is because NASA is run by ex-pilots / astronauts who think Star Wars was a documentary.
The Planetary Society was created to stop such bleeding of robotic mission to pay for cost-overruns of manned missions; I just re-upped my membership. Join is you want to stop this insanity.
Don't confuse manned missions with robotic missions. Manned missions are expensive, dangerous ego trips, not the highly-successful robotic missions are not.
I assume you are talking about manned missions to Mars; otherwise, you have not been following the recent discoveries on Mars. JPL (not their evil masters, NASA) is on the verge of some major discoveries about the origin of life and the pervasiveness of the life in the galaxy.
Personally I find Mars much more interesting and tangible. But it is not a matter of deep space versus Mars but rather manned missions versus robotic probes. Houston versus JPL. Waste & dead astronauts versus scientific blockbusters such as Voyager Cassini & Opportunity.
Manned mission have accomplished almost nothing compared to robotic missions and have wasted billions & killed astronauts. But NASA is run by pilots who trivialize science. Sure they will show up to take credit when there is a breakthrough but then stab the programs in the back.
Manned missions are truly idiotic especially at the expense of real science like robotic Mars missions. Unfortunately NASA is run by ex-pilots who think Star Wars was a documentary and don't give a damn about science...
Don't conflate Mars and the Moon missions. Mars is legit scientific research and may answer some of the riddles about the orgin of life. The moon program, such as it is, is manned-spaceflight pork that could be done a fraction of the cost & risk by robots.
How can he say this when he is letting the powers of darkness snuff out the Mars programs at Mars so the the monies can be wasted on manned-spaceflight pork?
I have heard that these joint missions would be launched on Russian rockets....the next time the Russians have a successful Mars mission will be the first so I can understand the reluctance, but it is still an idiotic move on NASA's part. We are on the verge of some exciting discoveries on Mars; it is just plain stupid to pull out the rug why still wasting billions on the manned space flight....
Romney, you have my vote; maybe you understand the need for science.
Slashdot Mirror
The cost would be high, but the reward great. It would be interesting to compare the cost to the wars in Agahnistan. It might be the same as a few weeks of war...
Not "mm" I would think...more like 1-2 meters at least. Remember that perchlorates of the least of the problems. Also UV, solar wind, cosmic rays, dessication, cold, atmospheric pressure, etc. Unfortunately Curiosity is not equipped with a 1 meter drill, alas.....the best it could hope for are organic compound scraps from dead microorganisms....of course this is pretty good if it happens....well actually REALLY good...
No it does not have this, and I don't think one will fly until there is firmer evidence for microbial life. However it has a vastly imporved micro imager...in color no less. The test pictures from it are pretty spectacular (compared to Opportunity's): http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-384#4
But aren't perchlorates fairly toxic to life to begin with making life on the surface highly unlikely (there are other reasons also, of course,...). Subsurface is a different story...
When JPL's Curiousity safely lands (hopefully) in August, these questions will be put to rest.... If EDL is successful and the instruments check out, it will be an incredible tool, laser spectrometer, mass spectrometer, gas chromatagraph, etc. For a geologist, it is truly an interplanetary orgasmatron....
Actually this post is not has wacked as it would first appear. David Darling accuses Guillermo Gonzalez of letting his theological extremism color his scientific studies to make life appear unlikely outside of Earth. Gonzalez, Guillermo; Brownlee, Donald; Ward, Peter (2001). "The Galactic Habitable Zone: Galactic Chemical Evolution". Icarus 152: 185–200. arXiv:astro-ph/0103165. Bibcode 2001Icar..152..185G. doi:10.1006/icar.2001.6617.
5 years. Already police states such as Massachusetts are considering GPS transponders in all cars, supposedly to levy a miles-traveled tax which is bad enough...
Have no fear; these chips will mandatory for ALL of us soon. To protect us you see. I plan to enjoy my last few years before that....
NASA has plenty of money but it is being funneled to the Pork in Houston to be squandered on manned spaceflights while real science flounders....
How about those tasty apex predators that bioaccumulate contaminants? I won't (on purpose anyway) be drinking seawater any time soon, but I might be eating tuna....
Have no fear, I am sure it will be run as well as other government ventures such a your local Registry of Motor Vehicles....
Izzat so? Well why don't you try doing business with Nigerians. Better yet, why don't take a nice vacation there...
There are two other potential new sources that were missed in this article: Greenland and deep-sea muds around vents.
Here is the top of the central peak in Tycho: http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/articles/tycho-central-peak-spectacular Maybe it is a round monolith ;^)
NASA is like my wife; no matter how well funded it is, it will always be broke. It will also always starve out the real science (robotic missions) in favor of idiotic manned space flight which are basically engineering stunts, not science. There should be two separate agencies, one for manned and the other for robotic missions so that the manned pork cannot starve out the unmmaned.
So we sacrifice one of the most successful and promising scientific project of this century, to fund something that should be privately funded all the while wasting 2.8B on the SLS/Orion Flying Pork (except I doubt it will ever fly).
I am sure that the enviroment will be cleaned up the day of the inspection and the employees will be threatened into saying happy things, but the condition will revert to a living hell afterwards. If Apple really cared about the workforce, they would manufacture in the US. Screw you Apple and you other slave masters if you think this will fool anyone.
This is just another attack on the highly successful robotic missions of JPL by the fly-boy, mannned-mission bureaucrats in Houston. Manned mission are expensive, pork-barrel stunts that have achieved almost nothing scientifically while the JPL robotic missions have been hugely successful (Voyage, Cassini, Opportunity, etc.) and, compared to manned missions, inexpensive. So guess where the cuts are to be? The robotic missions, of course. That is because NASA is run by ex-pilots / astronauts who think Star Wars was a documentary. The Planetary Society was created to stop such bleeding of robotic mission to pay for cost-overruns of manned missions; I just re-upped my membership. Join is you want to stop this insanity.
Don't confuse manned missions with robotic missions. Manned missions are expensive, dangerous ego trips, not the highly-successful robotic missions are not. I assume you are talking about manned missions to Mars; otherwise, you have not been following the recent discoveries on Mars. JPL (not their evil masters, NASA) is on the verge of some major discoveries about the origin of life and the pervasiveness of the life in the galaxy.
Personally I find Mars much more interesting and tangible. But it is not a matter of deep space versus Mars but rather manned missions versus robotic probes. Houston versus JPL. Waste & dead astronauts versus scientific blockbusters such as Voyager Cassini & Opportunity. Manned mission have accomplished almost nothing compared to robotic missions and have wasted billions & killed astronauts. But NASA is run by pilots who trivialize science. Sure they will show up to take credit when there is a breakthrough but then stab the programs in the back.
ME: If there was OIL on mars...
this /thread
There is on Titan or at least ethane and natural gas.
Manned missions are truly idiotic especially at the expense of real science like robotic Mars missions. Unfortunately NASA is run by ex-pilots who think Star Wars was a documentary and don't give a damn about science...
Don't conflate Mars and the Moon missions. Mars is legit scientific research and may answer some of the riddles about the orgin of life. The moon program, such as it is, is manned-spaceflight pork that could be done a fraction of the cost & risk by robots.
How can he say this when he is letting the powers of darkness snuff out the Mars programs at Mars so the the monies can be wasted on manned-spaceflight pork?
I have heard that these joint missions would be launched on Russian rockets....the next time the Russians have a successful Mars mission will be the first so I can understand the reluctance, but it is still an idiotic move on NASA's part. We are on the verge of some exciting discoveries on Mars; it is just plain stupid to pull out the rug why still wasting billions on the manned space flight.... Romney, you have my vote; maybe you understand the need for science.