bob haller wrote:

On Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 6:24:55 PM UTC-4, Fred J. McCall wrote:
bob haller wrote:

On Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 8:13:14 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Saturday, August 13, 2016 at 7:14:40 PM UTC-4, jacob navia wrote:
Nasa has published the resultds of methane emissions sensed by the
Curiosity rover.

There are sometimes mysterious methane hot spots.

Great.

What is not great is that the rover didn't STOP and tried to figure out
from where exactly the methane was coming from!

No, it just continued roving around.

Not great.

The search for life in Mars is becoming completely ridiculous. Either
NASA is not really searching anything, or they are just not aware of
what they are doing or what?

A microbiologist in earth (not associated with NASA) discovers rests of
fossilized bacteria in a formation that has the same appearence as
fossils here in earth. She describes all her conclusions, publishes an
article in a peer reviewed journal...

... and nothing. No, the rover doesn't come back to investigate the
fossils and definitely say if those are fossils or not. Of course not.
There is a drive plan, etc.

Actually there is no search for life there. Rovers are happy roving
around but nobody is looking because to look for something you have to
believe it exists.

If not, "looking for life" looks like what NASA is apparently doing.

the rtg that powers curosity has issues. its a prototype, and power is dropping faster than expected. this problenn was known about before launch, but nasa didnt want to delay curosity.

at some point roving will end, no doubt nasa wants to get as much travel in before curosity becomes a door stop

So, in other words, "Damn the science, we want to rack up as many miles
as possible!" Makes zero sense Bob. And of course you have no cite
for this assertion.


soon curosity will be so power starved science will be curtailed. nas had info on this at the time of launch. tey choose to launch it...... go back and search its beginings, and around the time of it original landing.


Bull****. NASA says parts will wear out long before it starts
suffering from power shortages.


there are plans for sample return......

a red dragon will lland near some retrieved samples, and the samples will be put in the unmanned dragon and returned to earth.


Proposal, not a plan.


for all those send humans.........

once a human steps on te mars surface it will be forever contaminated......

humans are dirty and once they land we will never know if any life found is from earth or already existed on mars before we landed.........


Bull****. You think we can't identify Earth organisms? REALLY????

Bobbert, more samples (and more science) were obtained by the first
manned moon landing than by ALL unmanned probes combined. Not just
'more', but orders of magnitude more.

If humans aren't going, why care at all?


when the RTG got changed to a new design, because of shortage of the nuclear fuel nasafound out power was dropping faster than the original design. nasa decided to launch as is, knowing it would shorten its mission.....


Bobbert, which part of "NASA says that Curiosity will be mission
degraded from wear and tear long before it suffers from power
shortages" is it that has left you confused?


elon musk is launching red dragon to mars. onceit lands safely on mars surface the door can be opened and some samples put in red dragon, forr proof of concept for return from mars


How's it get back, Bobbert? Magic pixie dust perhaps? The CONCEPT is
to use a modified Red Dragon vehicle (modifications don't exist except
as concept) to carry extra fuel, a mechanical arm (that doesn't exist)
to transfer samples to a Earth Return Vehicle (that doesn't exist)
that would be lifted to Mars orbit by a Mars Ascent Vehicle (that
doesn't exist) launching out of a central tube through the nose of the
Red Dragon (structural studies of punching that hole and launching a
rocket through it don't exist). All this is based on a 2014 NASA
conceptual study for a program that was never funded. It is now being
noised about by the Red Dragon team that it could be launched in 2022
(not sure when all the new hardware development and testing is
supposed to happen) and has no backing or funding inside SpaceX.

Are you getting it now? Sample return via Red Dragon doesn't exist.
If and when it ever does, it will return a tiny quantity of material,
relatively speaking.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn