Mars rover

[mom'sfolly]

The Mars rover took about 9 months to get to Mars. It is analyzing a variety of things; atmosphere, searching for water and organics, measuring radiation, making mineralogical surveys.

Mars has a huge volcanic history, probably has water in the form of ice in deep craters and at the poles, and thin atmosphere. Mars has the highest mountain in the solar system. Of all the planets in the solar system it is the most similar to Earth. This makes it especially interesting to scientists. It may give insight into how life developed on Earth, on the development of Earth's atmosphere, and it may offer other insights.

Mars is the most logical planet to explore, with Venus being too hot and and the atmosphere too thick and Mercury being a very small, hot rock. The next further out planets are gas planets, and then you have Neptune, and Uranus which are cold and dark. There are several planetary moons that are probably worth exploring, but they are much further away and much colder.

Mars is likely to have may have diamonds, depending on how much carbon is available. It is extremely unlikely to have oil, which is the product of large amounts of decayed organics (living things).

Mars is the most obvious planet if colonization ever happens. Before this could be a possibility, much has to be learned. Water would be critical. Without water, any colonization would be impossible. With water, you can make oxygen for habitats and for growing food, and for drinking.

By the way, all this information is so readily available that I'm paraphrasing my son's SECOND grade planet project....except for the stuff directly about Curiosity.

 

[Q9]

The Mars rover took about 9 months to get to Mars. It is analyzing a variety of things; atmosphere, searching for water and organics, measuring radiation, making mineralogical surveys.

Mars has a huge volcanic history, probably has water in the form of ice in deep craters and at the poles, and thin atmosphere. Mars has the highest mountain in the solar system. Of all the planets in the solar system it is the most similar to Earth. This makes it especially interesting to scientists. It may give insight into how life developed on Earth, on the development of Earth's atmosphere, and it may offer other insights.

Mars is the most logical planet to explore, with Venus being too hot and and the atmosphere too thick and Mercury being a very small, hot rock. The next further out planets are gas planets, and then you have Neptune, and Uranus which are cold and dark. There are several planetary moons that are probably worth exploring, but they are much further away and much colder.

Mars is likely to have may have diamonds, depending on how much carbon is available. It is extremely unlikely to have oil, which is the product of large amounts of decayed organics (living things).

Mars is the most obvious planet if colonization ever happens. Before this could be a possibility, much has to be learned. Water would be critical. Without water, any colonization would be impossible. With water, you can make oxygen for habitats and for growing food, and for drinking.

By the way, all this information is so readily available that I'm paraphrasing my son's SECOND grade planet project....except for the stuff directly about Curiosity.

Ha, this reminds me so much of myself when I was that age, only smarter. I was obsessed with space in general and Mars in particular. Neil Armstrong was like a superhero to me back then. I couldn't wait for "the future," when we could go to other planets to explore them, and build space colonies, and all that other stuff. Your son sounds like a smart kid - I suspect he'll end up with an impressive collection of books if he's as into that stuff as I was.

Geez, I'm depressing myself now. I miss being optimistic.

One thing I've heard is that that oil may or may not be entirely organic. What do you think of the possibility of non-organic oil on other worlds?

 

[Matthew3590]

 

[ivan3]

My kind of electric vehicle: http://www.inl.gov/research/mars-science-laboratory/

 

[Q9]

Even funnier: I'm pretty sure I've actually heard them say things like that in documentaries. That's what happens when you get a bunch of geeks together (not that I'm one to talk).

 

[cupman]

 

[TallChickMagnet]

Thank you for posting that. It was not over welming, and it gave some good info....

 

[chickened]

Mars is a LOT like earth, or rather, it started off that way. First it was a spinning ball of magma that slowly cooled and developed a crust, which led to plates that shift around and form fissures and volcanoes. Since the core spins, it emits an electromagnetic shell around the planet. (the magnetosphere). Unfortunately for Mars, it's smaller than the Earth, which means it has less gravity so over time a lot of it's lighter gasses escaped into space. Also, since it's so small, it's core cooled off and became solid, which means its magnetosphere (which is caused by an internal dynamo from magma swirling around under the planet's crust) has mostly dissipated. Bad news for Mars, since the magnetosphere helps to deflect the solar wind. Because of that, Mars, which once had all the same gasses as Earth, and even water, got it mostly blown off of the surface. It still has an atmosphere, and it even has ice (you can see its polar caps grow and shrink like ours does).
Venus is not as good an option to explore as Mars, because for one thing, it's covered in sulfuric clouds that would eat into any equipment we send in, it's hot enough on the surface to melt lead, and pictures we take of it would just show clouds. Not that we shouldn't explore it at some point, but with the technology we have now, Mars is a much better option.
As for why bother exploring Mars, because knowledge is NEVER wasted. You would not believe how much technology that helps us every day is because NASA was working on something, and it turned out to have multiple applications.
How about LED's, that emit a lot of light but very little heat, which saves you money? Just about every city in the USA has stoplights made with LEDs now because they save so much money, and they last so much longer than the old lights.

How about fast reading thermometers, which can be used on infants and incapacitated patients without getting shoved into orifices that nobody really wants them shoved into.

Heart pumps? Artificial limbs? Ice free wings for airplanes so you don't risk crashing when traveling in the winter? Firefighting equipment so firefighters have a better chance of rescuing people without coming to harm? How about something you might use every day, like memory foam, or water purification? Ever eat freeze dried food?
All of these inventions are a by-product of NASA space exploration, so I really think the LESS THAN 1% of our government funding going to a program that makes things easier for the people here on earth is a PITTANCE. Consider this, The total cost of the New Horizons mission to Pluto was $650 million, and that costs less than a THIRD of the price of a single B-2 bomber.
People argue that the money was "wasted", that it's "taking away from the people here on earth". Ridiculous. The money, as was pointed out earlier, was SPENT here on earth. It not only gave jobs to people directly, but indirectly. Private businesses made money because of NASA interacting with them. Not only that, but the by-products, the inventions that are made because of NASA's research, end up being used by Americans. So, how is this "wasteful"?

Most of the things you cited were of military funding origins including NASA. All rocket technology was from military application. James Dolittle was appointed to NASA (military hero).

You all can thank President Reagan for most of the advances as they were tied to the "starwars" funding and the DOD.

Incidentally most advances were from experiments in orbit of Earth not going to Mars.

With our telescopes we have determined that the sun is fission not fusion (?) and that the explosions on the sun come from the core of the sun. OPB did a good documentary on this.

Eisenhower (author of the MIC was a proponent of Nasa.

 

[Gryphon]

Of COURSE all of those things came about from when NASA was focusing on getting us into orbit, we weren't even able to think about going to Mars at that point. I'm not sure where you're going with the telescope thing...I didn't say that the ONLY way we got any technology was through NASA, only that quite a few things that we take for granted today came about through experimentation either directly or indirectly from NASA.

Full disclosure here, I have a friend who works for NASA, although that wouldn't make me pro-NASA if I really thought they were a horrible thing.

 

[chickened]

Of COURSE all of those things came about from when NASA was focusing on getting us into orbit, we weren't even able to think about going to Mars at that point. I'm not sure where you're going with the telescope thing...I didn't say that the ONLY way we got any technology was through NASA, only that quite a few things that we take for granted today came about through experimentation either directly or indirectly from NASA.
Full disclosure here, I have a friend who works for NASA, although that wouldn't make me pro-NASA if I really thought they were a horrible thing.

My main point was that NASA costs money to operate and employs relatively few people compared to say the military and in the economic times we are experiencing I feel going to Mars was a waste of money (not that other agencies are not wasting money) it just seems pointless when other agencies could spend that money here... like they would not just give it back to the people anyhow.

I think more advances would be done in space travel if it were privatized actually.

Our race to space was a deterrent used against the Russians during the Cold War also.

My grandfather worked for Boeing and built the navigation and electronics for the space buggy and said it was a waste of money when they left it on the moon.