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I agree with you Phil. I was trying to get in touch with my friend and left him a message on Sunday. I'm sure he's really busy getting things ready for Opportunity, so I haven't heard back from him yet.

I agree with your observation of the drop off. That was the "ravine" that I noted too.

The real issue to me is "what in the heck is a ravine doing on Mars?"

Ravines are supposed to be carved out by water. This Gusev Crater target was choice. They've managed to put the lander right in the middle of some kind of lake bed. I didn't believe them when they said "lake bed" because I always envisioned Mars as a failed planet (no water).

This place makes me think that water could be a few feet under the soil.

Certainly, that photo of the rocks unveiling the darker colored soil under them (in the air bag skid mark) didn't dissuade the idea that moisture exists in the under soil.

Here's comments on the atmospheric pressure on Mars (earlier in the thread I incorrectly stated 70-80 mmHg from memory). I was incorrect. I was 7 mmHg!

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Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of Earth's), but it varies greatly with altitude from almost 9 millibars in the deepest basins to about 1 millibar at the top of Olympus Mons. But it is thick enough to support very strong winds and vast dust storms that on occasion engulf the entire planet for months. Mars' thin atmosphere produces a greenhouse effect but it is only enough to raise the surface temperature by 5 degrees (K); much less than what we see on Venus and Earth.

This will never happen in our life times, but I often wondered what it would be like if we had the developed capability of mining or relocating Europa (Jupiter's moon) to an orbit between Earth and Mars, and see what would happen if all of the ice melted to form an ocean. From there introduce, algae that would convert any CO2 to O2 and eventually provide enough water vapor and oxygen formation for a sustainable atmosphere. Another thing would be to mine sections of Europa, transport them to Mars, and let the ice melt, sublimate, etc. enough to increase the atmospheric pressure of Mars, and then figure out a way to produce/convert oxygen out of the abundant iron oxide or electrolysis of the transported ice. Again, never will happen in the next 200-300 years,

Meanwhile on earth, a war on terror continues....