Curiosity: Monday's survival odds.

[Zeebadee]

This has benefits you cannot possibly imagine.

You're attempting a change in the scope of the discussion. I'm not against NASA or most of it's research, I'm just voicing an objection to re-running the same missions over and over again.

Should Curiosity land safely and perform as expected, no doubt we will hear words like "possibilities", "indications", "evidence of", "could mean", etc. All the same words we've heard for every mission since 1976.

On the other hand, should life be detected on Mars, why should we be surprised? What would we do about it anyway?

[minorwork]

You're attempting a change in the scope of the discussion. I'm not against NASA or most of it's research, I'm just voicing an objection to re-running the same missions over and over again.

Should Curiosity land safely and perform as expected, no doubt we will hear words like "possibilities", "indications", "evidence of", "could mean", etc. All the same words we've heard for every mission since 1976.

On the other hand, should life be detected on Mars, why should we be surprised? What would we do about it anyway?

Pet Martians? How do you test for life? Life needs defined so it can be figured out how to test for it.

Also we need some incentive to replenish a supply of Plutonium 238.



Curiosity hold 8 pounds and it will take 5 years to make enough for another similar mission. If Plutonium 238 production is not restarted -- the last production of it occured 50 years ago -- then there will be no missions beyond Mars. Plutonium Production May Avert Spacecraft Fuel Shortage | Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft | Space.com

[sulh-i-kul]

Volconvo being the latest Yankee forum to which I contributed, I came back to thank US taxpayers on this very special day (well, if you define days as lasting into the middle of the night for those on the Atlantic cost). This is not my normal MO as I loathe US taxpayers and avoid US products when it's not too challenging (there's a few monopolies which are hard to avoid). But there's a few things the USA still does right and a particularly cool one is spacecrafts.

I was greeted with this message: "sulh-i-kul, you haven't posted in a while. Find a topic that interests you and start debating again today!" I didn't intend to debate but I really have to correct some misconceptions:
-this is not the 1970s and there's a much higher than 65% chance MSL will land safely and if not, it will "hit" Mars
-MSL is not a duplicate of previous missions and carries instruments the likes of which have never been used on Mars
-missions beyond Mars don't need plutonium. Plutonium is very handy (though not absolutely necessary) for missions beyond *Jupiter*. Solar-powered robotic spaceraft have gone beyond the orbit of Jupiter but doing useful work there would be challenging.

You may not realize this but NASA has had a very good track record of late and performs so much better than other agencies (even when you take its relatively large budget into account) that it's effectively the world's space agency. It works with other space agencies on various sprojects but not much could happen beyond Mars and especially beyond Jupiter without NASA. And even on Mars, NASA does most of the work.
So thanks for funding progress!

I notice many of you justifiably like Sagan. If you're into TV programs about the solar system, one of his disciples made this awesome series: Wonders of the Solar System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Angry Citizen]

Volconvo being the latest Yankee forum to which I contributed, I came back to thank US taxpayers on this very special day (well, if you define days as lasting into the middle of the night for those on the Atlantic cost). This is not my normal MO as I loathe US taxpayers and avoid US products when it's not too challenging (there's a few monopolies which are hard to avoid). But there's a few things the USA still does right and a particularly cool one is spacecrafts.

Thanks.. I guess..?

[sulh-i-kul]

:-)

[Yarn]

Curiosity's landing software includes 500,000 lines of code. Modern simulators are extremely advanced, meaning the thoroughness of virtual testing is unprecedented, and, since virtual testing is at the end of the day the only sort feasible when it comes to figuring out what novel parameters will result in a successful landing, this is extremely important.

The Curiosity will be the heaviest mandmade object to ever land on Mars. Its aerobrake steering is new. The final part of the Descent stage, namely the sky crane, isn't something we have done before. So in some respects this will be novel, but it will also be the smartest and best pre-tested lander in history.

The heatshield aerobraking followed by supersonic parachute followed by the firing off of retro rockets is what we have almost always done, and hence we have considerable experience with how to make that work.

However, in 2008, Phoenix's parachute fired 7 seconds late. We aren't perfect, and errors of that sort are still possible.

Curiosity is not designed to detect life, however, it brings us one step closer to that. If we found life on Mars, then we would have a sample size of 2 rather than 1 by which to determine probable frequency with which life occurs in the Universe. By studying Martian life, we could learn more about what characteristics of life on Earth at the cellular scale were inevitable, and what aspects were driven by chance. Per instance, would life on Mars have DNA with ACGT or would its genetic machinery be different than ours.

If life on Mars and Earth were the same in ways that seemed implausible for two separate trees of evolution, this would strongly support the theory of panspermia.

Knowing more about Mars could help us plan for manned missions-albeit those seem unlikely to happen soon.

As technology continues to get better across the board, even though our will to climb has waned since the Cold War ended, the same summits are getting ever closer.

NASA's ion engines are enabling controlled exploration of deeper space than ever before. It is also enabling more rapid and efficient exploration of nearer space. New Horizon's is setting out to Pluto and Charo. Meanwhile DAWN is continuing to analyze Vesta, and will set out for Ceres later on: thus visiting both of the largest asteroids in the Asteroid belt with the same spacecraft in one mission.

[Yarn]

She just touched down, first images coming in now!

[sulh-i-kul]

Touchdown!

Thanks again folks!

[The Decider]

Touchdown!

Thanks again folks!

First pictures of the wheel and ground.... Great!

[minorwork]

There goes $20. Was worth that and much more. Congrats to staff.

[The Decider]

If only John F. Kennedy were alive to see this triumph.

[Zeebadee]

Great news! Now we'll be able to verify that the photos we paid for in 1976 are indeed accurate.