MSL delayed till 2011

.....as was suspected in recent weeks:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat

On Dec 4, 11:27 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
....as was suspected in recent weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat

With that nifty plank of Mars wood setting in plain sight, as such
sort of changes most everything, doesn't it.

An old railway sleeper found on Mars?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s...a5bc47d?hl=en#
On Dec 2, 3:21 am, Neil Gerace wrote:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...l_L-B118R1.jpg

Opportunity / Sol 115, May 25, 2004
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...nity_n115.html

Makes this nifty plank of Mars wood from a fairly old archived image
kind of weird. Wonder why it was intentionally withheld for so many
years. Apparently the faith-based rusemasters that are about to lose
their public funded jobs are starting to uncontrollably sweat.

Perhaps keeping our public media focus on Mars instead of Venus is
clearly their priority number one.

-

That's certainly a good one, as though looking kind of "old railway
sleeper" artificial. (? apparently Mars once had trees to make rail
ties?)

Seems they ran directly over the top of it, so it's not such a large
rail sleeper/tie as you'd think.

However, small Mars folks shouldn't have needed much bigger than
quarter-scale.

~ Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth BG / “Guth Usenet”

"BradGuth" wrote in message
...
On Dec 4, 11:27 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
....as was suspected in recent
weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat

With that nifty plank of Mars wood setting in plain sight, as such
sort of changes most everything, doesn't it.

An old railway sleeper found on Mars?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s...a5bc47d?hl=en#


......................

That's nothing. Here's the secret entrance to Mars Underground!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...P2365L7M1.HTML

On Dec 4, 4:00 pm, "jonathan" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message

...
On Dec 4, 11:27 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

....as was suspected in recent
weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat
With that nifty plank of Mars wood setting in plain sight, as such
sort of changes most everything, doesn't it.
An old railway sleeper found on Mars?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s..._frm/thread/fd...

.....................

That's nothing. Here's the secret entrance to Mars Underground!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...5468289EFF65C3...

Perhaps these two rather weird/artificial looking items are related.

~ BG

"BradGuth" wrote in message
...
On Dec 4, 4:00 pm, "jonathan" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message

...
On Dec 4, 11:27 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

....as was suspected in recent
weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget
program.

Pat
With that nifty plank of Mars wood setting in plain sight, as such
sort of changes most everything, doesn't it.
An old railway sleeper found on Mars?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s..._frm/thread/fd...

.....................

That's nothing. Here's the secret entrance to Mars Underground!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...5468289EFF65C3...

Perhaps these two rather weird/artificial looking items are related.



Sure they are! Sedimentary rock that's been repetitively soaked, frozen
and thawed. Freeze and thaw cracking is everywhere at Meridiani
creating usually five sided or polygon shaped slabs. Like a mud flat.

http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/164...5L7L7.jpg.html

I think it's a sign of waxing and waning ice ages on Mars.
Where during the cold periods layer upon layer of sand
accumulate from dust storms. Then during the brief
warm periods underground water melts out and soaks
the layered rocks. Freezing and thawing over and over
cracking everything up. In the craters these slabs are
all moved around like the water was sloshing them
around.

I don't know how long ice ages on Mars may last, or if
they're chaotic. But the idea Mars surface has been dry
and dusty for billions of years is absurd. Craters like
at Meridiani could easily fill with water, protected by
an ice cap, when an ice age retreats. Underground water
could replenish an ice covered crater-lake faster than
the ice cap would ablate away.

An example might be this canyon. It seems absurd those
ripples on the canyon floor are wind blown for two
reasons. One, the ripples form in ...every...direction
as if the wind were making 90 degree turns. But
also the sand ripples fill precisely the outline
water would make if water were there.

For all we know, water could've existed on the surface
of Mars a few thousand years ago if not less. For instance
this picture below clearly shows water erosion on Mars.
How long could this delicate feature survive dust
storms and dust devils etc???


Look at the distinctive and delicate ...erosion pattern...
shown in the ....//shadows//.... cast by these two pics.
How old?

Yellowstone mudpot
http://www.nps.gov/yell/slidefile/th...ages/05402.jpg
Endurance mudpot
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opp...1P2397R1M1.JPG



Only water can create this kind of entirely flat and smooth horizon. Meridiani
was a sea and probably existed when the above mudpot was formed.
http://areo.info/mer/opportunity/058...5L6L6.jpg.html


Given how little erosion seems to have occurred at Meridiania, how long
ago do you think a sea was there when looking at the pic below?

I mean, when those spheres formed, they were probably rather perfectly round.
How much have they eroded, laying /on the surface/ exposed to wind
and radiation, since forming?

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Sphere close up
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...P2907M2M1.HTML



s




~ BG

"jonathan" wrote in message
...


An example might be this canyon. It seems absurd those
ripples on the canyon floor are wind blown for two
reasons. One, the ripples form in ...every...direction
as if the wind were making 90 degree turns. But
also the sand ripples fill precisely the outline
water would make if water were there.


http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/...51Nirgal70.gif

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
telephone...
....as was suspected in recent weeks:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget
program.

No surprise. Other (smaller) programs will likely suffer because of this.
After all, the time and money for the overruns has to come from *somewhere*.

Jeff
--
beb - To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, reality has an anti-Ares I bias.

Jeff Findley wrote:
No surprise. Other (smaller) programs will likely suffer because of this.
After all, the time and money for the overruns has to come from *somewhere*.


That was exactly the point Alan Stern made in his article about the MSL
cost overruns:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/op...ml?ref=opinion
When operating in a fixed budget, any cost overruns on a major program
means a lot of smaller programs suffer disproportionately, like if you
had dropped a piranha in a aquarium and it had started feeding on all
the smaller fish.
He also correctly predicted that the launch would be delayed.

Pat

On Dec 4, 2:27*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
....as was suspected in recent weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat

Another way to look at it is to not waste the money and work invested
in it already, and to take it slow to make sure that the thing will
work as advertised. They only have one spacecraft and it must not
fail.
Plus it keeps the spacecraft engineers at JPL employed.

On Dec 5, 8:53 am, "
wrote:
On Dec 4, 2:27 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

....as was suspected in recent weeks:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7765818.stm
This will further drive up the costs of the already way-over-budget program.

Pat

Another way to look at it is to not waste the money and work invested
in it already, and to take it slow to make sure that the thing will
work as advertised. They only have one spacecraft and it must not
fail.
Plus it keeps the spacecraft engineers at JPL employed.

Apparently the only thing that matters is keeping those spendy JPL
spacecraft engineers employed. I wonder if BHO is actually going to
agree to those JPL extortion conditions.

~ BG