Phoenix Site |
Phoenix Site |
Jan 22 2005, 01:21 PM
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Rover Driver Group: Members Posts: 1015 Joined: 4-March 04 Member No.: 47 |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Aug 29 2005, 05:26 PM
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#2
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Guests |
Yeah -- it was actually sloppy language on my part; I was referring to the originaly planned mission of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Lander (after they stripped it of its REAL initial mission of being the landing platform for an MER rover. As a stationary lander, its ability to study the phenomena of Meridiani would of course have been pathetically limited, and the additional data its MECA package would have obtained would not remotely have been an adequate exchange for that loss.
But, regarding Phoenix: inspection of the Martian ice -- as soon as possible -- is a very important goal in the overall program, and one that simply cannot be done with MSL because of the limitations on its landing latitudes. We need to know more about the potential that the ice may have as a domicile for extant Martian microbes -- and we need to know more about Mars' climate cycles, both over periods of just a few years and over its 150,000-year long obliquity cycles (as ice is repeatedly deposited and then removed again from various latitudes). This mission is the perfect way to do that relatively cheaply and quickly. Any time you're tempted to gripe about it, just remember what I said earlier: this is the very FIRST biological space mission to another world since Viking. If it finds complex organic compounds in the ice, it is going to get extremely interesting extremely fast. |
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Aug 29 2005, 08:43 PM
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#3
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Aug 29 2005, 05:26 PM) Yeah -- it was actually sloppy language on my part; I was referring to the originaly planned mission of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Lander (after they stripped it of its REAL initial mission of being the landing platform for an MER rover. As a stationary lander, its ability to study the phenomena of Meridiani would of course have been pathetically limited, and the additional data its MECA package would have obtained would not remotely have been an adequate exchange for that loss. Yes, but it had Marie Curie, with a properly-set-up and brush-equiped APXS, had it landed where Oppy did, it could have done a lot of science. Not as much as an MER, but it definitely wouldn't have been the waste you describe. -------------------- |
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