Congratulations the entire human race for this amazing achievement!
Congratulations especially to NASA for making this achievement possible!
There is a lot of exchange here in this forum and elsewhere in and out of the internet on the practical and economic justifiability of this project. I am not very aware of the fiscal and administrative strategy of the US government (afterall, this is a US funded project), so what I say here are broadstrokes. First, scientific endeavors, especially exploration of new frontiers (whether in medicine, geo-engineering, nanotechnology, astronomy, etc.) are always justified. I refuse to engage in the "but the military gets a higher budget" argument, knowing fully well the logical falsity it raises, but on a practical side, a country that spends that much on warfare should have the decency and intelligence enough to fund noble endeavors that have positive contribution to humanity. Like all fields of nkowledge, science is a system which builds on previous knowledge, and this is the most basic justification for the Curiosity mission. It has the technology ten times more that what earlier Mars missions had combined, and has the capacity and potential to achieve greater discoveries and refinements of previous ones, particularly on issues like extra terrestrial life, ancient life, cosmic physics (not to mention, the mission itself was an engineering feat!), geology, etc.; and about discoveries...
... this is the most important reason and which alone could justify the entire operation even if it cost 10 folds more. Scientific discoveries often come in two forms. First are those that confirm what scientist already know or have a model about and are just waiting for empirical evidence. Second, and these are the real discoveries, are those that are completely unexpected, things that no one even imagined or thought possible. X-rays, penicillin, cosmic microwave background radiation, plastic, and even the theory of big bang were all accidental discoveries of projects that were intended to produce completely different results. I am not saying Curiosity will give us such accidental discovery, but it is giving us a chance at doing so.
Thus, let me take this opportunity to call for an end to military-economic aggression of countries and instead embrace and fund more pursuits in science, arts, philosophy, and human progress in general. Let's stop this being overly-zealous about our nationality or of our country-hating and start to see ourselves as we really are, as on human race.
I don't see how anyone can coherently argue that money spent on space travel is not useful. Apart from all the non material factors, the survival of the species must be off world (and the ultimate utilitarian consideration). I don't think people realise that civilization is a wonderful, but fragile, achievement, birthed in conducive climate conditions of the last 7,000 - 10,000 years. This will not last. And I'm not talking about global warming etc but inevitable shifts in the Earth's climate over time.
Humans may have to radically alter themselves to survive and thrive in space, but if there is any hope for humanity, for a continuation of the species, it is out there. Not here. Curiosity represents a small step towards that end goal.
On August 07 2012 13:21 StyLeD wrote: If it only takes 8 months to get to Mars, once a space suit is designed for the Martian environment, you could conceivably send an astronaut there if s/he was willing to spend 2+ years exploring Mars.
There're already very crucial differences between sending a rover/roboter and sending humans (aside from the journey varying greatly in length depending on the current distance between Mars and Earth, I think there's a low peak every 18 months or so), but the most critical point is getting the humans BACK. Even if you go ahead and plan a mission in which the astronauts do not return, you have to equip them with enough stuff and supplies to arrange a somewhat permanent settlement, which in turn requires even more energy to transport to Mars. So long story short, it isn't THAT easy.
Curiosity's First Color Image of the Martian Landscape This view of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing. (The team calls this day Sol 1, which is the first Martian day of operations; Sol 1 began on Aug. 6, 2012.)
In the distance, the image shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The image is murky because the MAHLI's removable dust cover is apparently coated with dust blown onto the camera during the rover's terminal descent. Images taken without the dust cover in place are expected during checkout of the robotic arm in coming weeks.
The MAHLI is located on the turret at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. At the time the MAHLI Sol 1 image was acquired, the robotic arm was in its stowed position. It has been stowed since the rover was packaged for its Nov. 26, 2011, launch.
The MAHLI has a transparent dust cover. This image was acquired with the dust cover closed. The cover will not be opened until more than a week after the landing.
When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is in a position that is rotated 30 degrees relative to the rover deck. The MAHLI image shown here has been rotated to correct for that tilt, so that the sky is "up" and the ground is "down".
When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is looking out from the front left side of the rover. This is much like the view from the driver's side of cars sold in the USA.
The main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site. The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. This means it can, as shown here, also obtain pictures of the Martian landscape.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
There will be a News Briefing at 10 a.m. PDT. That is in 3 hours if i am correct. Link
Scene of a Martian Landing The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing. The large, reduced-scale image points out the strewn hardware: the heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute, then the rover itself touched down, and finally, after cables were cut, the sky crane flew away to the northwest and crashed. Relatively dark areas in all four spots are from disturbances of the bright dust on Mars, revealing the darker material below the surface dust.
Around the rover, this disturbance was from the sky crane thrusters, and forms a bilaterally symmetrical pattern. The darkened radial jets from the sky crane are downrange from the point of oblique impact, much like the oblique impacts of asteroids. In fact, they make an arrow pointing to Curiosity.
This image was acquired from a special 41-degree roll of MRO, larger than the normal 30-degree limit. It rolled towards the west and towards the sun, which increases visible scattering by atmospheric dust as well as the amount of atmosphere the orbiter has to look through, thereby reducing the contrast of surface features. Future images will show the hardware in greater detail. Our view is tilted about 45 degrees from the surface (more than the 41-degree roll due to planetary curvature), like a view out of an airplane window. Tilt the images 90 degrees clockwise to see the surface better from this perspective. The views are primarily of the shadowed side of the rover and other objects.
The image scale is 39 centimeters (15.3 inches) per pixel.
HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
^ reference of scale: distance from Curiosity to Heat Shield crash site is about 1200m, to sky crane 650m and to back shell 625m. All of these are considered hazard zones, so they are not planning to investigate any of the crash sites
On August 07 2012 12:15 Perdac Curall wrote: To those saying that space exploration is a waste of money and isn't practical you should watch this movie:
The Apollo project has been analysed in many different studies over the years, and it is estimated that for every one dollar invested in Apollo, the government recieved 14 dollars in new tax revenue from economic activity that would not have taken place if it were not for Apollo. It represented really the last time the US has seen real physical economic growth. The 14:1 number is not even that current because the studies were all done decades ago and much of the technological breakthroughs achieved during Apollo are still with us today providing economic benefits.
Manned missions to Mars would almost certainly require fusion rockets to get us there and back. That fusion could be harnessed to give cheap and abundant energy to everyone on Earth. Is that not practical enough for you? There are a myriad of innovations and improvements to quality of life that can only come from advanced science driver missions like space exploration.
Earlier in this thread a great video was linked about a book showing how to get to Mars and back using technology that was very feasible 10 years ago. No fusion, nothing that isn't already fully possible. Basically saying we have had the technology to go there for a long time, nobody is funding it though.
On August 06 2012 15:31 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. Read it.
Breaking news - NASA's robot Curiosity landed on Mars today. Early pictures show no signs of beer and porn, making it very clear that men are not from Mars ...
I'm really excited about the first non-dust-cover photos! But that will take a week...
I hope they have a good video hardware on Curiosity, one that could show us some really good stuff on Mars. Question, I'm no astro geek so I wouldnt know, is Mars or Curiosity positioned now in such a way that we'll have pictures of Earth and Moon from it soon? And does it have the camera to do so?
On August 08 2012 17:58 xwoGworwaTsx wrote: I hope they have a good video hardware on Curiosity, one that could show us some really good stuff on Mars. Question, I'm no astro geek so I wouldnt know, is Mars or Curiosity positioned now in such a way that we'll have pictures of Earth and Moon from it soon? And does it have the camera to do so?
There may be moments where the Earth is visible. As far as I know, Curiosity has at least one camera that can be turned in different directions, so a snapshot of Earth should be possible. Our moon is too dim to be seen with "regular" cameras from Mars.
On August 07 2012 06:03 xrapture wrote: I guess I'll never understand the importance of these types of things or why everyone gets so excited. To me, it just seems like a waste of 2.5 billion dollars that will accomplish very little (virtually nothing).
Even after I read 2 pages of why the Curiosity rover is important I can't see the value in it.
I hear you bro. I still think whatever we can learn from that rover and the mission is not worth the money it cost us, and it is money we could have used elsewhere.
EPT
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