Mars landing

[Roadhawg]

Cool NASA site http://eyes.nasa.gov/

[HewenttoJared]

There is already some pretty tantalizing evidence of life there. This is an exciting time to be alive!

[Roadhawg]

I'm hoping they find something, if we're all there is then the universe is screwed.

[OKCisOK4me]

I'm hoping they find something, if we're all there is then the universe is screwed.

The universe is too massive to assume that if there is no life on mars that there is no life elsewhere.

[MikeOKC]

The universe is too massive to assume that if there is no life on mars that there is no life elsewhere.

Absolutely. To me, it's not "is there life out there?" but "how much" life is out there? There could be billions, trillions(!) of inhabited planets in the infinite universe(s!).

I agree with you that it's not far fetched at all to think about other life and civilizations in the universe, it's far-fetched to think otherwise!

By the way, I'm staying up to watch the big mars landing for the 'Curiosity' mission. The actual landing is scheduled for 12:31 early Monday morning. If all goes well, it's being called the greatest technological achievement since the moon landings. Watch "Seven Minutes of Terror" a quick 5-minute look at the mission that will blow you away:



Mission Home Page:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

You and me both Mike...I'm more excited about Curiosity than I have been about anything in a long time.

I hope it goes well!

[Bunty]

Really. After all the negative controversy and bad news this summer that has people sad or polarized, we need the awesome success of this space mission to make us feel proud and united over something again as a nation.

[HewenttoJared]

http://mblogs.discovermagazine.com/b...here-to-watch/

Sponsored G+ hangout tonight with SETI and NASA feeds and lots of neat guests.

[Ginkasa]

There is already some pretty tantalizing evidence of life there. This is an exciting time to be alive!

Just to clarify for everyone here, the mission isn't to find current life on Mars. Its pretty clear there is not life on Mars (this isn't the first rover to land on the planet). The mission is to determine if Mars could have in the past been able to support life. Even then, "life" in this instance isn't large organisms such as ourselves, but microbes. And, again, the mission isn't necessarily to find evidence of actual life (life being, in this case, microbes) but whether those microbes could have potentially existed.

[HewenttoJared]

You're right about the mission, but there are actually some features, atmospheric and chemical, that would be much more easily explained by soil microorganisms than any other sources. It's not at all proof of life, but to say that it is "clear there is no life" is an overstatement.

[Roadhawg]

Maybe Martians are invisible? j/k

[ljbab728]

I'm watching the live feed from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and it's very interesting. Not quite as exciting as when I watched the first manned moon landing live but it's fun. For a while they were all passing around a jar of what looked like nuts and eating some. I'm not sure if that's some kind of tradition but seemed a little unusual.

[ljbab728]

It looks successful and it's on the ground on Mars and transmitting images.

[HewenttoJared]

Dusty!

[venture]

Time to get some manned space missions going again. Enough with the rovers. :-P

[ljbab728]

Time to get some manned space missions going again. Enough with the rovers. :-P

Yes, I think Mars would appreciate a little global warming. LOL

[HewenttoJared]

[HewenttoJared]

Shot of the parachute from the orbiter. Pretty cool.

[Roadhawg]

That is cool

[mugofbeer]

Time to get some manned space missions going again. Enough with the rovers. :-P

They said again on the Science Channel show about the Rover landing that the manned mission to Mars is a one-way trip.

[ljbab728]

They said again on the Science Channel show about the Rover landing that the manned mission to Mars is a one-way trip.

What I've heard is that we don't have the current technology for a return trip. We won't be sending people to Mars with no possiblity of returning.

[venture]

I wonder if NASA would entertain at least sending humans to Mars to orbit and send more probes/rovers down from there and then return back. Considering most are on the ISS for what...just over 12 months? Shouldn't be too hard to extend that to 2 years to allow 1 year of transit time back and forth and another year of exploration time in orbit. Of course food supply and all is going to be a bit thing. Then there is getting use to gravity again. I could see something where there is an intermediate stop at the Moon to allow them to get some gravity exposure initially and then prepare to come back to Earth.

Then we could use the Moon-Mars round trip setup to have an exclusive craft to go back and forth. This way the side effects of re-entry aren't having to be dealt with and we could probably build the ship out larger then. Then move to a more reusable shuttle craft from Earth to the Moon (not the stupid capsules again) to have a constant flow of traffic back and forth.

Ahh...such a dreamer I know.

[Roadhawg]

I was watching a show last night narrated by William Shatner about how they are planning the Mars mission and picking out the people to go and what problems they will face. It was pretty interesting.

[SoonerDave]

What I've heard is that we don't have the current technology for a return trip. We won't be sending people to Mars with no possiblity of returning.

Well, if you think about what went in to sending a manned mission to the Moon four decades ago, and realize that was just to support three men on a four-day trip...extrapolate that and it gets to the mind-boggling.

In real terms, you could probably conjure up (possibly several) systems that would allow for a return trip. The problem is the expense - mind-boggling expense - to make it happen. Whatever system you choose, you obviously have to conceive of a return-trip system every bit as comprehensive and complex as the one going out - engines, fuel, monitoring, the works.

That's where we really lost the plot with the shuttle. Conceptually, that kind of vehicle (IMHO, of course) is precisely what you need to simplify the design of a manned, long-range for one of two reasons: Either design the shuttle itself as the long-range vehicle, or use it as the vehicle to lift components of the deep space vehicle into low earth orbit to assemble it...doing that eliminates one of the biggest fuel load issues - getting the thing off the ground.

Watching all the JPL streaming and reading a bit about all the systems they were orchestrating to pull off this landing...something like 500K lines of code in the software, and it appears to have gone off just about as close to flawlessly as you could even being to predict or hope...makes my little efforts in working software over the last couple of decades seem pretty pathetic by comparison

[RadicalModerate]

RH: Maybe Martians are invisible? j/k

I hope that the probe doesn't land too close to one of those canals and tip over into it.
That could interfere with the electronics.
On the other hand, it could be a serendipitous opportunity to study the Martian Canal Creatures and wonder why so many Martian Land Dwellers disposed of their old Schwinns and skateboards by dumping them into the waterways.
Not to mention learning something about the links between Mars and Venice (Italy, Not California). j/k

For The Record:
I love NASA
I love The Space Program
I love The Idea of The Entire Project
I love All Opposition to Stopping Funding for NASA
I love The Fact that I once got to shake the hand of An Original Mercury Program Astronaut.

No Joke.
(of course I also love NPR and PBS . . . which flies in the face of reason. =) <<<<----Joke