NASA pins hopes on Mars

Sun-Sentinel ^ | 29 Dec 2003 | Michael Cabbage Space Editor

[demlosers]

CAPE CANAVERAL -- The first of two NASA robot geologists will make a death-defying plunge to the surface of Mars on Saturday to begin one of the most ambitious science missions ever attempted.

Dubbed Spirit, the Mars Exploration Rover has traveled more than 300 million miles on a looping six-month journey since its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on June 10. But the final 21 minutes of that trip -- the time it takes to separate from a spacecraft above the Red Planet and land in Mars' Gusev Crater below -- likely will determine the mission's success or failure.

To get there, Spirit will make a fiery 80-mile dive through Mars' atmosphere, drop from the height of a four-story building surrounded by air bags and bounce a mile or more through potentially lethal boulders and rocks. A wind gust at the wrong moment could spell doom.

[demlosers]

[farmfriend]

space ping.

[Izzy Dunne]

My hat's off to everyone with the guts to attempt this - it's unbelievable how many different things have to work exactly right for it to get there without damage.

[RightWhale]

a looping six-month journey

AKA a Hohmann transfer orbit. Fuelwise the cheapest but not the fastest way to get there.

[John H K]

Frankly I'd be pleasantly suprised if more than 50% of the various lander missions involving this bouncing ball stuff end up working.

That Mars missions fail doesn't surprise me, that ANY of them work I consider remarkable.

[inquest]

"Spirit"? Not like, "Spirit of '69", or "Spirit of Pasadena", or "Spirit of Bodaciousness" - just...Spirit. Okay...

Well, just hope this thing performs.

[RightWhale]

that ANY of them work I consider remarkable

Well. You're right about that. The ones that work, e.g., the Mars Global Surveyor, have returned more data than we know what to do with. Mars seems to be a much more interesting planet than anyone, or myself anyway, thought.

[RiflemanSharpe]

They need to be careful. The Mars Defense Forces claimed another victory over the invading alien space probes a few days ago.

[JustAnAmerican]

(sigh), if not for the "Science is bad, giveaways are good" crowd, we would have been on our way to Alpha Centaury by now. Hopefully the space program won't get side tracked again.

[Friend of thunder]

we would have been on our way to Alpha Centaury by now

Now that would be a long trip.

[Tallguy]

Who was that ditzy congresswoman that asked in an open hearing if the Mars Sojourner "could drive over to where the astronauts planted the flag?" If anybody should have been laughed out of Congress...

[RightWhale]

She is on the committee that sets NASA's budget and goals.

[TheCrusader]

Once we get to Mars it will greatly improve our life here on earth. tee hee

[Joe Boucher]

GREAT, and how much is this going to cost us?????

[RightWhale]

how much is this going to cost

Next to nothing compared to other gov't expenditures that actually do next to nothing.

[mikegi]

Frankly I'd be pleasantly suprised if more than 50% of the various lander missions involving this bouncing ball stuff end up working.

I was wondering about the same thing. How many "bouncing ball" Mars landings have actually worked? Could it be that the Pathfinder mission just got "lucky"? I did see in the article that we've learned from past mistakes and have the lander sending back status during descent. If things go wrong then we'll have a better idea of what happened, instead of WAGs like in the other Mars failures. At $200 million per craft it would be worth it to spend $1M each to have continuous communication.

[JustAnAmerican]

"Now that would be a long trip".

I would be one of the first to volunteer for Suspended Animation for just such a project, assuming of course the "Suspended" part actually worked :) All kidding aside, there have been designs as early as the 1950's that would have gotten us to Alpha Centaury, and had we invested the time and money since then we would more then likely have manned/unmanned spaceflight with light drives or even FTL drives by now.A great source of information is

Spaceship Propulsion

[theFIRMbss]

>a Hohmann transfer orbit. Fuelwise the cheapest but not the fastest way to get there.

Have you ever done
the math and checked the results
for a one-g flight

(acceleration
and deceleration) there?
I sure wish we had

something that could put
out one-g for a few days...
The solar system

would shrink to a nice
big playground and we could go
anywhere in it...

[RightWhale]

had we invested the time and money since then we would more then likely have manned/unmanned spaceflight with light drives or even FTL drives by now

The drawback is that these require new concepts in physics. Is it possible there isn't a physicist who wouldn't want to upset physics with such discoveries? Just mentioning that to point out that the problem isn't time and money.