Site for next Mars mission debated (NASA's Phoenix Mars lander)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/1/07 | Alicia Chang - ap

[NormsRevenge]

LOS ANGELES - Scientists are scrambling to find an alternative landing site for a long-armed robot set to launch this summer on a mission to dig into Mars' icy north pole to search for signs of primitive life.

The original landing spot was nixed after images beamed back by the eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter unexpectedly showed scores of bus-sized boulders littered over old crater rims on flat plains.

The gigantic rocks pose a danger to NASA's Phoenix Mars lander, which unlike the rolling twin rovers, will be stationary, mission principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona said during a news teleconference Thursday.

Scientists scouring images of the Martian arctic have narrowed options down to three possible candidates for where the spacecraft can safely touch down. They have until March to choose a destination.

The three sites are clustered around the north pole, which is believed to have a huge amount of ice just below the surface. A site dubbed Green Valley is located within a shallow valley and looks the most secure, Smith said.

"This is the first mission to actually reach down and get a handful of icy soil and analyze it," Smith said.

The Phoenix lander, scheduled to launch in August and reach the Red Planet in 2008, is the first mission of the unmanned Mars Scout program, a low-cost effort to study the Red Planet. The project's cost is capped at $386 million, but difficulties in finding a landing site and other issues have led to an extra $31 million in overrun costs.

The probe, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., has a robotic arm that can drill trenches as deep as 3 feet to search for water-ice beneath the surface. The spacecraft will test the chemistry of the soil and ice. Scientists hope it will yield clues to the geologic history of water and determine whether microbes existed in the ice.

The Phoenix mission rose from the ashes of a previous failed Mars mission. The lander was built to fly as part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor program.

The program was scrapped after the mysterious disappearance of the Mars Polar Lander in 1999. An investigative board determined the Polar Lander prematurely shut off its engine during a landing attempt near the planet's south pole, causing it to tumble about 130 feet to its death.

[NormsRevenge]

On the Net:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov

Phoenix Mars page: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu

[C210N]

I insist that NASA make sure there is NO CO2 on any spacecraft we send to Mars. We don't want to add to our warming of Mars anymore than we've already done!

[NormsRevenge]

See the Phoenix Mars Lander image gallery Here.

[FairOpinion]

ping

[KevinDavis]

[Arcy]

Is it really necessary to spend billions more on going to a dirt planet for the sake of saying, we've been there? How about a tax break? What purpose does it serve to spend all that money on a trip to Mars, or space for that matter? What have we (the American people) gained from NASA going to space in the last 15 years, huh?

[GitmoSailor]

Thanks for a super Post w/pics.

[BlazingArizona]

I can envision just a single observation that wold make it all worthwhile: if we could drill an ice core sample from one of the Martian polar caps and correlate it to ice cores taken on Earth. This would tell us once and for all whether or not climate change throughout history have been driven by the sun.

If those cores were to match, we would never have to speak to liberals again for the rest of our lives.

[1L]

They should let Sheila Jackson Lee pick the site. She'll probably pick one near where the Apollo 13 astronauts landed.

[Arcy]

I don't need to know what's on the Mars polar cap or to drill down in to it. The evidence and consensus among real scientists, the ones who aren't politically motivated, is that global warming is a "cyclical event". I'm also unaware of any meteorological personality who has ever suggested that it was anything but cyclical.

The term 'global warming' presumes that warming is taking place globally. Tell that to Alaskans this year; tell that to Phoenix, AZ. this year; the fact of the matter is that global warming is not taking place.

This nonsense called "global warming", is AlGores attempt to "play on our fears". But, it won't work with me, I have no fear of 'global warming'. I already know how the story ends.

[jmcenanly]

I can envision just a single observation that wold make it all worthwhile: if we could drill an ice core sample from one of the Martian polar caps and correlate it to ice cores taken on Earth. This would tell us once and for all whether or not climate change throughout history have been driven by the sun. If those cores were to match, we would never have to speak to liberals again for the rest of our lives.

I agree for matching ice cores being proof of Sun-driven planetary warming, however, I do not think that would shut them up.

[nuke rocketeer]

NASA spends ~$22 billion. 2005 tax revenues were ~$2.2 trillion. NASA spends about 1% of tax revenues. Assume 100 million taxpayers. Enjoy your $22 tax cut.

Any money you consider wasted by NASA, and they do waste a lot like any othr government agency, it pales in consideration to what the welfare agencies and DoD wastes.

[Arcy]

a little + a little = a lot

[BlazingArizona]

I don't need to know what's on the Mars polar cap or to drill down in to it.

The only definitive way to prove our point would be to compare the fossil evidence of climate change on Earth - and there is lots of it - with similar records from a place that has no ecological connection with Earth.

Scientists love cycles, and keep looking for them everywhere they can. It has already been established that climate changes are not cyclical, in the sense that no regular intervals have been established. Rather, we might think of the Sun as a huge candle flame that flickers on a centuries-lomg scale. If we can find non-terrestrial climate records that match our ice ages and tropical interludes, the point is proven.