Or are they still stuck on "We must make a final, irrefutable conclusion on whether life has or has not existed on Mars prior to introducing organisms to the planet"? Am I the only one who thinks that the search is kind of, well, silly at this point? How much of the surface have they covered with rovers? I'd imagine it would take much longer, and a much more exhaustive search to come to any sort of definitive conclusion.
Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
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Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#22By 2020 I'd kind of hope we're sending mostly-autonomous humanoid robots. Wouldn't that really inspire people's imagination? And they could start building the infrastructure for a colony.
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#23Mars is certainly critically important, but the solar system is a massive place, and with such limited budgets why wouldn't you spend at least a chunk of your resources on explorations that have the potential of finding life in our solar system? We've known about these options for decades, and yet each mission gets scrapped at the last minute. I don't get NASA's priorities sometimes.
Also, in that time frame Elon Musk, China, and even NASA have bounced around various plans for getting humans to Mars. I'm usually an advocate for robotic exploration, but for the deep digging you will probably have to do to find something interesting, it may be better to have boots on the ground (for example exploring for microbial life or fossils below the surface.) It really seems like we're at the beginning of a Mars space race anyway, and this rover will inevitably be cancelled 5-10 years from now in order to focus on beating the Chinese there.
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
With what money?
With its annual budget of $18.724 billion maybe? Seriously, where does that money go?
* Operating their current missions http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html
* Designing and building future missions http://www.nasa.gov/missions/future/index.html
* Public outreach/education
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
With what money?
With its annual budget of $18.724 billion maybe? Seriously, where does that money go?
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
With what money?
With its annual budget of $18.724 billion maybe? Seriously, where does that money go?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
It costs a lot to engineer and operate things that work in space.
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#27Doesn't Elon Musk want to have people walking around on Mars by 2020?
What Is The Business Model For Mars? Elon Musk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fS1FxBq64A
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#28Jesus, I'm all for sending out as many missions as Congress will pay for, but another Mars rover? Can't they throw a little bit of money towards sending a melt-bot to Europa or Enceladus, or a boat-bot to Titan already? It'll be 2015 before we even know what Ceres really looks like. Mars is certainly critically important, but the solar system is a massive place, and with such limited budgets why wouldn't you spend at…
> In April 2011, ESA stated that it seemed unlikely that a joint US–European mission will happen in the early 2020s given NASA's budget, so ESA is investigating the possibility of proceeding with a European-led mission.[3] The ESA-led mission is called the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) and will be based on the JGO design. Selection of JUICE for the L1 launch slot of ESA's Cosmic Vision science programme was announced on May 2, 2012.[4]
It always comes down to budget. There's only so much you can do with $n billion, and NASA gets less money each year.
Billionaires and governments are free to declare that they'll do it faster and cheaper, but NASA has a head start on science and engineering. It's easier to believe NASA's timetables and budgets because it has the experience.
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#29Anyone think it will be possible to crowd-fund a private rover by then?
Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020
#30It is naive to ask why another? I was under the impression that Curiosity was supposed to be like the rover to end all Martian rovers. What else do they need? It seems like there must be something else to do aside from.... rove. Maybe not manned exploration, but something to push things further towards that? Or are they still stuck on "We must make a final, irrefutable conclusion on whether life has or has not existe…
Oh, right about 0%. And that was with rovers not properly equipped to find microscopic life.