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Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#41

Post by worldsayshi »

theklub wrote: post #38
worldsayshi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach." - [Bruce Sterling]( http://boingboing.net/2004/01/08/sterling-ill-believe.html ) I don't see how people can believe in a long time prospect of Mars colonization as long as we shun deserts and polar regio…

Why would anyone waste their time trying to live in the Gobi desert? The point is to get humanity into space.

The fact that we don't choose to live in deserts shows that it's highly likely that living in deserts - and all the more in even less hospitable environments - is not sustainable given our current way of living.

Unless we can show that we can have a working ecosystem in the least hospitable environments here on earth we aren't going to be able to set one up 4 light minutes away on a desert planet without an atmosphere. We are going to send those colonizers to a slow death.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#42

Post by mkr-hn »

prawks wrote: post #21

It 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…

I saw a map of Mars landing sites, which I can't find anymore. The bulk were on a tiny sliver next to a mountain, and most landers were immobile. We've only had a good, constantly up to date map of Mars for a handful of years thanks to MRO. It takes time to plan new missions based on that data.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#43

Post by worldsayshi »

rwmj wrote: post #40
MichaelAO wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is pretty spot on. However, the whole point is to "back up the biosphere" in order to protect human consciousness from an earth shattering event (pun intended). At some point in the future, we're going to have to get off this planet.

That would be a useful outcome, but it's not a motivation for the people who have to live in what is in reality a freezing, extremely remote desert.

Then we will have to find ways to make it enjoyable, or give up the prospect all together.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#44

Post by GavinB »

worldsayshi wrote: post #35
MichaelAO wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! I thought this clip was cool - What Is The Business Model For Mars? Elon Musk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fS1FxBq64A

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach." - [Bruce Sterling]( http://boingboing.net/2004/01/08/sterling-ill-believe.html ) I don't see how people can believe in a long time prospect of Mars colonization as long as we shun deserts and polar regio…

There are entire cities in the Gobi desert. The population is one person per square km: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/236545/Gobi/47958/...

In the cities, you have to stay in a hotel because you're not allowed to pitch a tent: http://www.travelmarket.com/Gobi%20Desert/a-GOBI_DESERT/trav...

Colonies on Mars probably don't make economical sense currently, but the thing to keep in mind is that there are resources on Mars that no human or animal population is using. On Earth, it seems like anywhere you start digging you ruin someone's life.

With eventual terraforming of Mars, we don't have to worry about accidentally de-terraforming China and Mongolia. We would have a free hand to change the atmosphere, melt the poles, etc. But ultimately Sterling's point on terraforming is probably true. We'll probably beat desertification long before we have the ability to terraform Mars.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#45

Post by sdfadsfa »

htf wrote: post #36
natep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a start... * 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

Thanks, that's a good list. However, one would be hard pressed to convince people to voluntarily fund this to the tune of 20 billion dollars a year.

But we have no problem spending trillions of dollars on wars and on bailouts. Awesome. Stu_pid meets mor_on.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#46

Post by danielweber »

prawks wrote: post #21

It 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…

Mars has as much land area as Earth. So 1) we are nowhere near done searching it with robots, and 2) we will never search it completely with robots.

We really need to have humans on Mars to search for life.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#47

Post by danielweber »

worldsayshi wrote: post #32
rpm4321 wrote: post #23

Jesus, 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…

I don't see how it can be made feasible to return humans from Mars for a very long time. Think about the expenditure and infrastructure required to launch a vehicle to escape velocity on earth. Shipping that kind of equipment to Mars seems like a undertaking so many times larger than a few rovers. And I don't see how a one way trip would be politically/ethically possible. edit: This sounds negative. All things consid…

NASA's Mars Reference Mission [1] calls for landing an un-fueled return vehicle on Mars and then manufacturing fuel.

In-situ production or not, any sane humans-to-Mars mission is going to involve landing a bunch of equipment at the landing site ahead of time. The marsnauts are going to have very complete maps of their new home before they even launch from Earth.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Design_Reference_Mission_3...

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#48

Post by arscan »

prawks wrote: post #21

It 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…

The function of the rover isn't to drive around and map things. Its function to serve as a platform for a suite of scientific instruments to gather data. That suite of scientific instruments will be different for the next rover, adjusted based on what we now currently know (and didn't know the last time they chose instruments). So, yes, its "another" rover. But its what that rover is carrying that is different and interesting.

Having said that, I'm all for being a lot more ambitious, and sending people to Mars instead. But that's a different discussion.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#49

Post by natep »

brador wrote: post #12

Why does it take so long? I mean 8 years to send a V2? what's stopping them rolling it out in 1 year? I don't understand the reason for such an extended timescale.

Limited budget is certainly a big reason, and another is the lack of a pipeline. When Apple releases a new iPhone every other year, it's not like they started development on the next model only after the current one is released. Development is staggered so that there is always something at each stage of development.

As it says in the article, they will be leveraging proven technologies, but have not yet solicited proposals for instruments. This means they are still at the very beginning of the development process, and more money would only help so much. That's why the planetary.org post says that a higher budget would only move the launch date up 2 years. If they had started on a new rover 6 years ago with adequate funding, then we could be looking at a new rover in a year.

Re: Nasa to send new rover to Mars in 2020

#50

Post by danielweber »

worldsayshi wrote: post #35
MichaelAO wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! I thought this clip was cool - What Is The Business Model For Mars? Elon Musk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fS1FxBq64A

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach." - [Bruce Sterling]( http://boingboing.net/2004/01/08/sterling-ill-believe.html ) I don't see how people can believe in a long time prospect of Mars colonization as long as we shun deserts and polar regio…

Separate the marginal from the average.

Most people will not choose to go to Mars. This is not a problem for settling Mars. Settling always happens via a very small fraction of the originating population.

The people who will settle Mars will do it because they want to settle Mars.

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