Mars landing

Discovery Canada is playing it right now.

A quote from a scientist on the TV:

"An obvious question is, 'what if 1 of the 12 engines fails'. And the answer to that is 'the other 11 will take you straight to the crash site."

hahaha...gotta love engineer humor.

They just mentioned its a 15 minute radio delay....so its actually going through the atmosphere right now...crazy
 
oh shit...its happening right now! fucker is flying through the atmosphere...

Any bets on crash/success?
 
Not yet. They are waiting 20 minutes for the dust to settle before deploying the solar panels (which will power all the instruments).
 
wait up the guy just said humans will be touching water on mars for the first time this trip. i tho\ught the Phoenix shuttle was all robotic no humans.
 
its got a shovel on board to dig up the ice which will be then analyzed on board the lander to determine if any organic material is present (which as far as we know, is the key to life).
 
It's so invigorating to watch the nerds at NASA. It's a definitely a turn-on. Anywho, I watched the whole thing and it was simply amazing. I can't wait to see the pictures.
 
ha, they may be the nasa nerds, but its pretty crazy to think of what they just did. They build and programmed a robot, then flew it and landed it on a completely different planet, where no humans have ever actually gone or seen firsthand. I would love to be able to work on stuff like that for a job.
 
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wow..so good that it was successful, the pictures look amazing
 
Word...I wasn't involved with the project and even I was excited/nervous watching the guys on TV. Imagine having that as an end goal for a project at work....wow!
 
i hate to crash the "woo-hoo we made it to mars" party

but is anyone else confused on why we insist on spending money on this endeavor? I mean aren't there better things to give to the America people than sending some machinery to mars? (err.. it's not so much giving as it's spending the people's money for them)

to put things in perspective

we've spent $319 Billion over the last 10 years, and for all i know, we've helped build an international space station and sent some measuring devices to mars -- one of which blew up because we can't give up the empirical measurement system.

according to the guys over at www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=64907 they seem to have come to the consensus that we have a budget of less than $10 Billion a year on cancer (NASA's budget was $16.8 Billion)

I can recognize that it is a pretty significant feat to send something to another planet in our solar system, but i'd rather we focus on more adult matters. Going to mars (for me at least) is something for elementary school playgrounds, and isn't something that i see as beneficial to ANY American right now.
 
I'm taking aerospace engineering at the moment.. Starting to work on some UAV's. Nowhere near the level of NASA stuff, but the lecturers keep showing us examples like this to keep us inspired.. It's pretty cool shit
 
I agree partially with the statement because I too have vented anger in the amount of money budgetted to NASA vs the ammount budgeted to more humanitarian needs. Its honestly a joke when you think about how many hungry/dehydrated people there are on this planet that we are not attending too. But that whole issue is a matter of political boundries and politics...something that is a completely different ballgame to the actually science.

Since the money is already out there and the ship was on its why, we might as well hope for the best so it doesnt end up as a multi-mill/billion dollar fuck up. The scientists aren't always the ones to hate on, they are just getting paid to do a government funded job. Maybe the governments priorities are a more appropriate place to vent anger in your regards.

Politics aside, the technology involved is fucking cool to learn about!
 
Thats what they want to find out. They landed past missions near the equator which they then deemed to be devoid of life so they decided to land near the poles this time since they detected the presence of water there which has the potential to support life. They want to test the composition of the ice/soil to see if any organic material (lifes building blocks as far as we know) are present.

Should be interesting if they find bacteria or something there!
 
Absolutely, i mean there is nothing cooler than the things kids dream up. I kinda feel like NASA is our 'big mark' of civilization. Pyramids, stone henge, interplanetary travel, it's just hard not to like it.

I just do wish we'd snap to a bit of reality about a lot of things.
 
The new scout series of NASA mars missions is actually a competition amoung the scientific community which aims at producing high quality, low-cost missions to mars. Which I guess is a step in the right direction (spending less on space stuff while still achieving the same results). By doing this, it frees up money for other things. Unfortunately though, it all likely goes to the WAR effort right now...
 
Most people don't realize how hugely affected NASA is by politics. We basically stopped going to the moon with the Apollo missions because Nixon did not want to follow up on a program started by Kennedy. Granted that the program also cost enormous amounts to keep running, but still, if they wanted to, they could have easily continued it.
 
Which is why seeing the sucess of private ventures (thanks in part to the Xprize) is so refreshing. More potential and healthly competition arise between companies instead of biased monopolistic politcal money pits like NASA :P
 
I was just looking though NASA's site..holy shit, there's so many things you can learn from just the website.. my dad works for Lockheed so he kinda knows what's up as far as this stuff goes..he told me they're building the next-generation Hubble as we speak. I mean if the Hubble was built that long ago and provides what it does now..just imagine what the "updated version" of that would be..fucking crazy to think about space. Reallly makes me want to get some sort of career in that field. It's really insane to think about the philosophy aspect of it too.

 
The theories are the super interesting part. Its THE cutting edge which is rad to learn about.
 
my grandpa was a pretty big guy at NASA and in his career he proved that life could exist in space.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E0D81631F936A25753C1A960958260

he passed away years ago but everytime shit like this comes up i really wish i could talk to him about it because he was always fascinated by mars and was extremely confident in finding proof of life there. i have like the capsules he sent like insects and shit in and stuff. he used to tell stories of how the astronauts are all idiots and would eff up his experiments haha
 
dumb.

seeing how earth is going to ignite into one big ball of flame where the fuck else are we gonna ski..

obviously at mars.
 
what are you talking about? 'NASA's money' is tax payer money-- if we decide the money should stop world hunger it stops world hunger and NASA gets no research money.
 
Calling the space program a childish or immature project is completely short-sighted. The bottom line is that Earth is becoming increasingly over-populated and in the coming centuries space may hold the answer. I know some idiot is gonna reply to this and say that i'm retarded for saying that we will have space colonies--- but i'm not suggesting that at all---- just that through space exploration there has been unintended discoveries that HAVE practical apps.

In addition, the future of national security lies in space--- being able to protect our communication lines and defend from missile attacks.

Also, to delve into the philosophical realm, exploration is something inherent in humans. I believe that space exploration transcends dollar amounts and nations as something of importance to the human race.
 
I completely agree with you on this, and hopefully no one thinks anyone is retarded for thinking about space colonies being completely unreal. Think about it-how long did everyone think landing on the moon was completely impossible, and only a foolish dream? Then suddenly, 12 years after we first reached space, we walked on it. Space is where the future lies, not that there isn't anything new and interesting on earth to explore, it's just that people always want big discoveries. Space offers that. And it does offer the interesting idea that someday we might inhabit multiple planets.
 
Hey man, America's future depends on space travel and here is why:

-Science and technology are the greatest engines of economic growth.

-Medical researchers used an advanced image-processing software first used by hubble telescope to assist in early detection of breast cancer.

-We are running out of energy(fossil fuel) here on earth. the moon contains Helium-3 which could be used as a cleaner, more efficient fuel for nuclear fusion.

-more efficient solar panels could be developed in space

-Technology used to monitor astronaut health in space that has been used by doctors to help treat people in remote regions across the globe.

-Microspheres developed on space shuttle have been used by industry to clean up major oil spills.

-Development of digital implantable hearing aid technology that has restored hearing to over 60,000 people.

-Development of newer and better products in zero-gravity environment

etc....

So...space exploration continues to give us innovation and discovery. The thing that makes space so special is that it is a totally different environment then we live in. by conducting experiments in this type of setting can change a lot.

Space is the final frontier after all. :)
 
I totally agree with that. So much technology we have today descended from early space programs, and most people don't realise this. Things like our knowledge of transistors and microchips were accellerated hugely by space research. Also, the first CAD systems were designed by NASA, and are now an integral part of every engineering field.

I think that the money put into NASA can be seen as a long term investment for the future of several scientific fields. I'm sure there are other less important budget cuts that the government could make to stop world hunger.
 
If any of you care or have the time, I recommend you read "The Universe Next Door" by Marcus Chown. Esp the third section it is all about the fore front of science and includes a section about how many scientists are sure life came from extraterrestrial bacteria which is being proven as quiet abundant in our solar system. It is a realy good read.

Also if you are in the NS thinkers cult, read the section about physics it is mind blowing! Answers every question about relativity, the many worlds theory and time travel and extra dimensions and stuff. Honestly please read it over the summer it's really good.
 
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