Don't kid yourself - NASA PAO isn't nearly well-enough organized to strategize about when to release stuff like this. The paper is being published this week, so that's what dictates the announcement schedule. And believe me, you never know exactly when your paper will get published, so trying to time such disparate announcements to coincide would be very difficult anyway.
>How can you tell that Beagle was high quality? Once it was >released, how was Beagle distinguishable from an equivalent >mass of bricks? How is it distinguishable from puting 30 >million pound notes in a bag and dropping it from Mars >Express?
As a planetary scientist, I am infuriated by the media and the public constantly acting as though failed missions (be they NASA, ESA, etc.) are no different than "putting [sic] 30 million pound notes in a bag and dropping it from Mars Express".
Only a small amount of the money that is spent is used for hardware. The vast majority of mission funds go into buying launch vehicles and most importantly, paying the salaries of the scientists, engineers, and programmers who bust their butts working overtime to make these missions happen. We are NOT sending gold bullion or banknotes into space. We are feeding and clothing and housing the families of working people who care about and believe deeply in space exploration. They spend that salary money in the world economy, of which we are all a part.
NO ONE appreciates what has been lost when a mission fails more than the mission personnel do, and it's NOT money.
Having searched for shergottite meteorite signatures using orbital data from Mars (no luck yet), and being a close colleague of many of the MER science team members, I can confirm that NO ONE on the MER team is suggesting anything about life on Mars or cross-contamination based on this week's (or any other week's) results.
Although one of the instrument teams (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer - APXS) is suggesting that Meridiani could be the source region of one class of Martian meteorites, their data (bulk chemistry) cannot actually tell us that. (It's also worth noting that the Meridiani plain is believed to be billions of years older than the rocks in this class of meteorites.) Those who were watching the press conference (the press release ignores this) heard that another instrument, the Mini-TES (Thermal Emission Spectrometer), determined that the mineralogy of Bounce is similar in some ways, but NOT identical, to the shergottite meteorite that the APXS team favors, although it IS different than the majority of the rock types observed from orbit.
The landing sites are not changeable at this point for a variety of reasons. First of all, they are successfully headed in the right directions now; to change the course of one significantly would be a risk that NASA is unlikely to take based on one scientist's un-peer-reviewed musings (and which may be explainable by other geologic phenomena such as relatively low albedo surfaces).
Secondly, in addition to scientific interest, the landing sites are constrained to meet a long list of engineering constraints, including but not limited to: wind speeds, slopes, roughness, dustiness, and most importantly in this case, latitude and elevation. Such constraints are met by a relatively small portion of the Martian surface. The rovers are solar powered and would not get enough sunlight if they were to land in the Hellas basin, which is farther south than the engineering constraints allow. The landing system on these spacecraft requires a certain air density as well, and Hellas is too low in elevation for a safe landing.
"...reduce manned space travel to next-to-nothing, and instead go mostly with comparatively low-cost, unmanned probes..."
The thing is, NASA is taking this exact approach in exploring Mars. But even this approach doesn't stop the conspiracy theorists. They just claim that the data from Mars (which they accept as real data) has been tampered with by NASA/scientists collecting the data.
There are (at least) two fundamental issues that prevent NASA or anyone else from addressing hoax claims:
1) You can NEVER prove a conspiracy theorist wrong, because you've made up all your evidence. They, on the other hand, are never obligated to provide any evidence (it's all been covered up, after all). Even when you do provide new data that refute the hoaxsters' claims (e.g., higher resolution photos of Mars), they just change their theory and accuse NASA of more cover-ups. There's nothing NASA or anyone can ever do about conspiracy theorists except to continue to point out to the general public that they are ultimately out to sell something (books, advertising time/products, etc.) and make money.
2) Until the public at large is willing to raise its collective level of intellect and actually THINK for a few minutes, this kind of drivel will continue. If the public rejects these tv programs, books, and hoaxsters by refusing to watch/buy/attend, a much stronger message will be sent than any NASA could provide.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't kid yourself - NASA PAO isn't nearly well-enough organized to strategize about when to release stuff like this. The paper is being published this week, so that's what dictates the announcement schedule. And believe me, you never know exactly when your paper will get published, so trying to time such disparate announcements to coincide would be very difficult anyway.
>How can you tell that Beagle was high quality? Once it was
>released, how was Beagle distinguishable from an equivalent
>mass of bricks? How is it distinguishable from puting 30
>million pound notes in a bag and dropping it from Mars
>Express?
As a planetary scientist, I am infuriated by the media and the public constantly acting as though failed missions (be they NASA, ESA, etc.) are no different than "putting [sic] 30 million pound notes in a bag and dropping it from Mars Express".
Only a small amount of the money that is spent is used for hardware. The vast majority of mission funds go into buying launch vehicles and most importantly, paying the salaries of the scientists, engineers, and programmers who bust their butts working overtime to make these missions happen. We are NOT sending gold bullion or banknotes into space. We are feeding and clothing and housing the families of working people who care about and believe deeply in space exploration. They spend that salary money in the world economy, of which we are all a part.
NO ONE appreciates what has been lost when a mission fails more than the mission personnel do, and it's NOT money.
Thank you! This is a very important point.
Having searched for shergottite meteorite signatures using orbital data from Mars (no luck yet), and being a close colleague of many of the MER science team members, I can confirm that NO ONE on the MER team is suggesting anything about life on Mars or cross-contamination based on this week's (or any other week's) results.
Although one of the instrument teams (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer - APXS) is suggesting that Meridiani could be the source region of one class of Martian meteorites, their data (bulk chemistry) cannot actually tell us that. (It's also worth noting that the Meridiani plain is believed to be billions of years older than the rocks in this class of meteorites.) Those who were watching the press conference (the press release ignores this) heard that another instrument, the Mini-TES (Thermal Emission Spectrometer), determined that the mineralogy of Bounce is similar in some ways, but NOT identical, to the shergottite meteorite that the APXS team favors, although it IS different than the majority of the rock types observed from orbit.
Being a Mars scientist, I can help out here.
The landing sites are not changeable at this point for a variety of reasons. First of all, they are successfully headed in the right directions now; to change the course of one significantly would be a risk that NASA is unlikely to take based on one scientist's un-peer-reviewed musings (and which may be explainable by other geologic phenomena such as relatively low albedo surfaces).
Secondly, in addition to scientific interest, the landing sites are constrained to meet a long list of engineering constraints, including but not limited to: wind speeds, slopes, roughness, dustiness, and most importantly in this case, latitude and elevation. Such constraints are met by a relatively small portion of the Martian surface. The rovers are solar powered and would not get enough sunlight if they were to land in the Hellas basin, which is farther south than the engineering constraints allow. The landing system on these spacecraft requires a certain air density as well, and Hellas is too low in elevation for a safe landing.
The thing is, NASA is taking this exact approach in exploring Mars. But even this approach doesn't stop the conspiracy theorists. They just claim that the data from Mars (which they accept as real data) has been tampered with by NASA/scientists collecting the data.
There are (at least) two fundamental issues that prevent NASA or anyone else from addressing hoax claims:
1) You can NEVER prove a conspiracy theorist wrong, because you've made up all your evidence. They, on the other hand, are never obligated to provide any evidence (it's all been covered up, after all). Even when you do provide new data that refute the hoaxsters' claims (e.g., higher resolution photos of Mars), they just change their theory and accuse NASA of more cover-ups. There's nothing NASA or anyone can ever do about conspiracy theorists except to continue to point out to the general public that they are ultimately out to sell something (books, advertising time/products, etc.) and make money.
2) Until the public at large is willing to raise its collective level of intellect and actually THINK for a few minutes, this kind of drivel will continue. If the public rejects these tv programs, books, and hoaxsters by refusing to watch/buy/attend, a much stronger message will be sent than any NASA could provide.