ESA Press Efforts, Moved posts Options

[tedstryk]

Just a reminder that the press briefing is tomorrow (November 30, 2005) at 10:00 am ET / 7:00 am PT and will be shown live on NASA TV:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/nov/H...s_Briefing.html

Some major discoveries will be announced, including:

Titan has an atmosphere
The Hellas and Argyre basins on Mars are of impact origin.
Mars has large volcanos in the Tharsis region.
Mars has two moons.

[ElkGroveDan]

Some major discoveries will be announced, including:

Titan has an atmosphere
The Hellas and Argyre basins on Mars are of impact origin.
Mars has large volcanos in the Tharsis region.
Mars has two moons.

Mars has mass.

[helvick]

Mars has mass.

and despite previous evidence to the contrary ESA actually has an orbiter around Mars.

[tedstryk]

They have also found that Mars is in solar orbit.

[tfisher]

They have also found that Mars is in solar orbit.

Why such negative humor towards them? Admittedly, Helvick's reply is funny, given the paucity of data they release. But to imply the ESA doesn't accomplish real science at Mars seems unfair and overboard.

[JonClarke]

Why such negative humor towards them?  Admittedly, Helvick's reply is funny, given the paucity of data they release.  But to imply the ESA doesn't accomplish real science at Mars seems unfair and overboard.

Quite unsuitable comments, IMHO. Mars Express has been a fantastic mission and made lots of major discoveries which have led to an impressive portfolio of publications, with many more to come.

Jon

[Decepticon]

You Guys are fricken Hilarious!

[Guest_paulanderson_*]

Quite unsuitable comments, IMHO.  Mars Express has been a fantastic mission and made lots of major discoveries which have led to an impressive portfolio of publications, with many more to come.

Jon

I agree. I have as good a sense of humour as anyone, but Mars Express has contributed a lot of good scientific data (uniquely and only from ME in some cases), including the methane confirmation, the fields of volcanic cones in the northern hemisphere which may be relatively young geologically, the "glacier" crater, more evidence for past water flows and MARSIS, to name a few offhand. I'm sure Jon could add to this. Some of their findings relate to "traces of water" as noted in the ESA's press release; in whatever form that takes it is interesting and important. They might be slower in releasing information, but it is usually worth the wait I think. Ok, time for my evening coffee now...

[jamescanvin]

Quite unsuitable comments, IMHO.  Mars Express has been a fantastic mission and made lots of major discoveries which have led to an impressive portfolio of publications, with many more to come.

Jon

The joke is about ESA's habit of making confirmations of already pretty well established things sound like major discoveries in thier press releases! Not wanting to speak for the jokers, but I'm sure they all agree with your above statement. Mars Express has been a wonderful mission but there PR office is a joke.

Well I thourght it was funny

James

[tedstryk]

Why such negative humor towards them?  Admittedly, Helvick's reply is funny, given the paucity of data they release.  But to imply the ESA doesn't accomplish real science at Mars seems unfair and overboard.

They accomplish great science. But their press releases, such as the one claiming the discovery of ice at the martian poles, are a hoot, and, on a sad side, a real distraction from the great science Mars Express is doing.

[The Messenger]

They accomplish great science.  But their press releases, such as the one claiming the discovery of ice at the martian poles, are a hoot, and, on a sad side, a real distraction from the great science Mars Express is doing.

There is ice on the Martian Poles???

Nobody ever tells me anything.

Seriously, the ESA is a day or two late on everything - Including providing the most trivial evidence from Huygens - radar profiles, things like that.

Still - They have been billing this as a major announcement for weeks now - So I am going out on a limb and making a prediction:

They have analysed the degeneracies in the Martian gravity mapping from different altitudes, bumped it up against the odd-ball observations from Titan, and concluded Newtonian physics are only good to the first order...

[edstrick]

"Why such negative humor towards them? "

Because they announce rediscoveries or discovery-extensions without proper credit toward people who've been working and publishing on that subject for years. A case in point was last springs widely trumpetd announcement of the discovery of few million year old ice-rafted flood deposits at the equator originating from Cerberus Fossae.

While they had new and better data, and an interesting new interpretation that extends suggestions made earlier, for example in an abstract at the 2002 (I think) Lunar and Planetary Science Conference... they didn't credit ANY of the previous work in their announcements and subsequente massive press coverage.

I won't say it's dishonest or unethical, but I will put a word to it: "Sleazy".

[JonClarke]

Given the significance of these results from both MARSIS and OMEGA, the "jokes" comments about the press copnference posted earlier are revealed for what they are - silly and inane.

Jon

[deglr6328]

oh jeez, lighten up people.

[dvandorn]

Given the significance of these results from both MARSIS and OMEGA, the "jokes" comments about the press copnference posted earlier are revealed for what they are - silly and inane.

Jon

I disagree. The manner in which ESA decided to release this information showed a lack of respect for the average world citizen who has an interest in the information.

This forum wouldn't serve your purposes very well, Jon, if it was nearly impossible to read. The ESA press conference was nearly impossible to hear or see for American viewers -- and the fault for that rests squarely with ESA.

ESA's attitude *seems* to be, "If you're not a properly accredited scientist, you have no interest in or use for this information, so we're not going to spend any effort making the information available to you."

And I disagree *strongly* with that attitude.

The results are wonderful -- the means by which ESA chose to present those results to the American viewers was lame. The content of the results does not change that.

-the other Doug