The title of this thread is misleading. The discovery is that the researches have detected the *first* atmosphere around an extrasolar planet. This is indeed big news. The planet is Jupiter size and revolves around a sun like star about 150 light years away. Congrats to the researchers.
NASA would love to do a Mars sample return. However in reality no such mission is going to happen anytime soon. Last October NASA outlined its long term plan for Mars exploration with a sample return slated to start in 2014. However recently it became known that the October plan is now more or less dead. The only Mars mission not touched at this time is the 2003 twin rover mission (MER 2003). The 2005 orbiter mission is still a tentative go, however everything after that is up in the air.
NASA's budget is being used to pay for the ballooning space station cost overruns which means other programs get the axe. The space station is at least 4 billion over budget. NASA's budget is about 14 billion. Do the Math. The Bush administration has told NASA to get the station budget under control. So NASA has to cut a lot of programs including Mars. Look to the Europeans to potentially do a Mars sample return first with some NASA participation.
While the idea is great, don't expect a launch anytime soon. They don't have the money yet to buy a launch and the spacecraft isn't even built. Good hype for them though having it posted here.
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The title of this thread is misleading. The discovery is that the researches have detected the *first* atmosphere around an extrasolar planet. This is indeed big news. The planet is Jupiter size and revolves around a sun like star about 150 light years away. Congrats to the researchers.
NASA would love to do a Mars sample return. However in reality no such mission is going to happen anytime soon. Last October NASA outlined its long term plan for Mars exploration with a sample return slated to start in 2014. However recently it became known that the October plan is now more or less dead. The only Mars mission not touched at this time is the 2003 twin rover mission (MER 2003). The 2005 orbiter mission is still a tentative go, however everything after that is up in the air.
NASA's budget is being used to pay for the ballooning space station cost overruns which means other programs get the axe. The space station is at least 4 billion over budget. NASA's budget is about 14 billion. Do the Math. The Bush administration has told NASA to get the station budget under control. So NASA has to cut a lot of programs including Mars. Look to the Europeans to potentially do a Mars sample return first with some NASA participation.
Useful Link: A Year of Mars News: It was the worst of times; it was the best of times.
A replay of the launch is available from SpaceRef's home page.
While the idea is great, don't expect a launch anytime soon. They don't have the money yet to buy a launch and the spacecraft isn't even built. Good hype for them though having it posted here.
I am curtious as to which Alteon products you decided yo use. Can you be specific? For people interested in load balancing this could be enlightning.
I will be posting more Cameron pictures from the conference this week and perhaps the transcript of his speech. Stay tuned.
Marc Boucher