[X] My Assistant

[GregM]

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[djellison]

There's a comprimise to be made between physical progress, and stop offs to do science. Sadly - as time goes on, those stop offs have to grow. A good mossbauer spec is now a 4 day exercise for instance.

However - I still think that the science has to be done and done properly. Everything needs context.

When they got to endurance crater - they didnt just do IDD work at the top, and the bottom, and interpolate between...they stopped all the way down doing rat hole after rat hole to read a history of the rocks infront of them - otherwise it would be like reading a history of the 20th Century as "Wright brothers built plane, Concorde was scrapped" - quite a bit happened in between

The same should still be true now imho - corners should not be cut simply to reach an arbritrary goal. Once we've 'done' this region properly - then we move on, as we did across the floor of Gusev getting to West Spur - it took only 60 sols of driving. The floor of gusev had been well characerised, they knew what it was all about - so foot to the floor and find something new at the hills.

To do the same at the Columbia hills now would be wrong. We've not characterised the whole lot yet - there's still more to be done. Once it's done though - I agree, the conecpt of a goal and a target date might be usefull to get across to something new. It depends, however, on what there is on 'the other side' of Husband Hill - that's the killed. we just dont know what we're going to find in the Ultreya region. To stand where we are now and specify a date for a distant target would be wrong, we dont know what targets there are between here and there. We knew it was all the same from Bonneville to Cahokia. Ditto Endurance to Vostok. Those were foot-to-the-floor situations. This isnt, as we dont know what lies ahead....


yet


Doug

[Marcel]

I personally think, that the fact that the crafts can rove, doesn't mean that we have to drive like crazy before they die. The only reason for that would be to feed us with nice and new views. But this isn't the scope of the mission, which (as you said Doug) is a scientific one. What's these rocks made of, how can we place them in a geological context, does the constituents of the rocks and soil components follow a certain patern that is logical with respect to the images and the landforms we see ? And what did water do in this world ? That's what it's all about. Therefore, I am completely happy with the way the team did the research and it should be like this until the end (whatever and whenever that might be).

The fact that time is running out (we don't know how much is left) doesn't mean that "hurry" is needed. Nor does it mean that the scope of the project should change at all.

[Phillip]

Just for clarification: I am not proposing that the mission be turned into one long photo opportunity. I advocate gathering hard science. The question is, what do we allocate the precious remaining scientific investigative resources to?

I went to the Athena web site and looked up some old materials on why Gusev was selected as a landing site and found this:

"Some scientists believe that on an earlier, wetter Mars some craters may have served as beds for ancient lakes. An extremely interesting feature of the Gusev Crater is the large channel that enters it from the south. This may have been a source of water that produced a large lake within the crater."

Since the Gusev site was selected because it may have once been a lake, I am simply saying, the principle (not sole!) focus of our remaining time and mobility should be allocated to accomplishing that original goal and searching for evidence of the lake (in the best scientific manner possible) rather than cataloguing the volcanic materials that appear to have covered the lake.

[Marcel]

Just for clarification:  I am not proposing that the mission be turned into one long photo opportunity. 

I didn't say you said that ! I am saying that i do not want to go into "sprint" mode and ingnore everything we're passing. Besides: maybe even using the Moesbauer more frequent in the coming months would be wise, because soon the decay will make integrations too long to wait for....

[djellison]

searching for evidence of the lake (in the best scientific manner possible) rather than cataloguing the volcanic materials that appear to have covered the lake.

That's what we're doing in the hills - seing the evidence of the water. To be honest - going back down onto the crater floor ( where there is no evidence of water at all ) and toward Home Plate may be scientifically less rich than the hills.

Doug

[Phillip]

That is an interesting point that with respect to the Mossbauer, we have to "use it or lose it" as the wait will soon become too long to remain viable! I had not considered that and it does indeed make sense, however frustrating it may be to impatient me. I am just hopeful that we will find some wonderful "lake front" bedrock on the southern slopes that will make us all happy.