Mars surveyor made it!

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Maybe a bit on the late side, but isn't it great that at least the mars surveyor made it to mars. Too bad for the beagle, it probably failed to deploy the airbags. Maybe It should have undergone some crashdummy tests. :D But i feel sorry for us Europeans, it would have been nice if the beagle survived. Nevertheless, the mars surveyor is taking some real nice pictures there. There is also this site that shows very, and i mean very detailed maps of possible landing sites, check it out:

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/mer2003/topsites/final/

And dont be surprised to come across jpeg files of photo strips on mars that have a resolution of about 500*18000 :p
Anyway, it interests me greatly as a geology student, and planetary geology sure is way cool ;)

[Tokelil]

Do you by any chance a good link to the pictures it takes?

I use http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html to get the latest news on the mars missions.

[chicubs]

NASA is back! *patriotic blood rushes through head*....too many of the tax dollars go to waste, though, in NASA. I mean half the things freakin crash....you have to wonder: Is it worth all of those lives?

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Do you by any chance a good link to the pictures it takes?

I use http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html to get the latest news on the mars missions.

Yep, here it is:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

very nice indeed

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

NASA is back! *patriotic blood rushes through head*....too many of the tax dollars go to waste, though, in NASA. I mean half the things freakin crash....you have to wonder: Is it worth all of those lives?

I dont agree with you, it's not a waste and its a third of the mars missions that fail, not a half. Moreover, who dies? No one, right? There is no one on board! I think that the success of these missions greatly improve our understanding of the universe and the origin and the evolution of mars, including whether there was once life there. Much is to be dicovered and analysed, just look at the volcanoes that exist on mars, the apparent abuncance of hematite on the marsian surface (= oxidised iron which confirms the fact that once there must have been water), the mineralogy of the marsian surface, and the large gullies that exist on mars.

[Heigar]

I dont agree with you, it's not a waste and its a third of the mars missions that fail, not a half. Moreover, who dies? No one, right? There is no one on board! I think that the success of these missions greatly improve our understanding of the universe and the origin and the evolution of mars, including whether there was once life there. Much is to be dicovered and analysed, just look at the volcanoes that exist on mars, the apparent abuncance of hematite on the marsian surface (= oxidised iron which confirms the fact that once there must have been water), the mineralogy of the marsian surface, and the large gullies that exist on mars.
I have to agree any kind of space exploration is phenominal , do you ever wonder what is out there no matter what it costs ?I surely do, Take a look at the sky on some clear night and think to yourself ,so many stars what else is out there even if it is in our own galaxy.Man the possibilities are pretty much endless to the point of mind boggling.I give a lot of praise to nasa to beable to do stuff like this,if nobody did this where would we be?probably back were columbus thought the earth was flat.Even with the telescopes watching the meteors hitting Jupiter was fascinating,and to think every one of those meteors could have destroyed the earth was just unreal.Way to go nasa I'm behind you 100% with your space exploration ,keep it up who knows where we will end up!

[Qaz]

probably back were columbus thought the earth was flat.
Don't think that Columbus thought that world was flat anymore (yeah, you propably didn't mean that literally), since he was trying to reach India. What comes to that, if space exploring is vain or not, all scientific research have seemed useless - at first.

[matty28carter]

apparinatly beagle 2 could have landed in a big crator right in the middle of its landing zone, 1 they kind of "missed" :rolleyes:. gotta laugh really haven't you.

[chicubs]

I dont agree with you, it's not a waste and its a third of the mars missions that fail, not a half. Moreover, who dies? No one, right? There is no one on board! I think that the success of these missions greatly improve our understanding of the universe and the origin and the evolution of mars, including whether there was once life there. Much is to be dicovered and analysed, just look at the volcanoes that exist on mars, the apparent abuncance of hematite on the marsian surface (= oxidised iron which confirms the fact that once there must have been water), the mineralogy of the marsian surface, and the large gullies that exist on mars.

i was talking about space travel in general....and i can think of a thousand ways billions of dollars can be spent to improve the us...honestly all I see is soil on mars. Whopdidoo!

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

i was talking about space travel in general....and i can think of a thousand ways billions of dollars can be spent to improve the us...honestly all I see is soil on mars. Whopdidoo!

I see the problem. Obviously i, as a student studying geology, this kind of research is what i live for. What a rock means to a geologist, means nothing to, say a lawyer. :D

[drewkeller]

i thought this was a pretty eloquent answer to a similar question
http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/books/library_smithsonian_020603.html

The International Space Station is late and over budget, why should we spend money on space exploration over research into deadly diseases?

We shouldn’t. If you have only one dollar, and want to give it to either cancer research or space exploration, pick cancer research. But it’s not an "either or" choice. In truth, the United States is an extremely wealthy nation, and it generates more than enough money to do both. If our society really wanted to, we could provide a decent standard of housing, education, and medical care for everyone, and still have plenty left over for space exploration. The fact that we don’t has to do with politics and cultural factors, not the cost of the space station. Shutting down NASA tomorrow wouldn’t cure a single disease or solve a single social problem. If it did, I’d be for it.

[Todd The Kiwi]

i thought this was a pretty eloquent answer to a similar question
http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/books/library_smithsonian_020603.html

The International Space Station is late and over budget, why should we spend money on space exploration over research into deadly diseases?

We shouldn’t. If you have only one dollar, and want to give it to either cancer research or space exploration, pick cancer research. But it’s not an "either or" choice. In truth, the United States is an extremely wealthy nation, and it generates more than enough money to do both. If our society really wanted to, we could provide a decent standard of housing, education, and medical care for everyone, and still have plenty left over for space exploration. The fact that we don’t has to do with politics and cultural factors, not the cost of the space station. Shutting down NASA tomorrow wouldn’t cure a single disease or solve a single social problem. If it did, I’d be for it.


amen ! to that man i donate to child cancer and wispa (stop hurting animals etc...) unfortunatly i only have so much time and money so i can't give much of either but everything is relative if i could i would :D

[Hanzo]

I believe the space exploration, beside the human curiosity to find what is out there (are we alone ? ) has a hidden target. What if you find a rare substance out there that's light as paper but solid as steel? And I'm just giving a simple example. I could be taking the wrong side, but still I think space exploration is very cool and I'm very happy for the guys at NASA.

They got eyes of the whole world when the spacecraft crashed, but now as the space travel went "routine" all the success is not as ventilated as the failures.

[Qaz]

i thought this was a pretty eloquent answer to a similar question
http://www.space.com/spacelibrary/books/library_smithsonian_020603.html

The fact that we don’t has to do with politics and cultural factors, not the cost of the space station. Shutting down NASA tomorrow wouldn’t cure a single disease or solve a single social problem. If it did, I’d be for it.

This reminds about thing I heard in TV a while ago.Here in Finland one city was building something, doesn't really matter what it was. Construction yard rented some of the tools. So they paid something like 500 euros for a single hammer, which they, in the end, didn't even get to keep.

[blackspawn]

Just saw on the news here on my country that *supposedly* Bush's Cabinet and Nasa are going to announce missions to the moon and plans to build there a permanent base of operation... Don't know if this is indeed true but if it is what happens to all those ppl that bought land on the moon? are they going to sell it to the US government??? :confused:

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

They might just put hotels there for space tourists to get their money back :D. Na, colonising the moon, it probably will never happen. I dont see the advantage for space exploration in it.