NASA Mars Rover's First Soil Analysis Yields Surprises

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:14:43 GMT, "Julius Kilo"
wrote:

They have a $200 million wasting asset on the surface of Mars for over two
weeks now and they are still taking baby steps. "We now know we can traverse
2.85 meters." In four steps. They dicked around with the lander airbags for
two days before deciding to turn anyway. "To RAT or not to RAT--we might
wait a couple sols to decide." Wouldn't be prudent. All in preparation for a
two-day "stand down" when Opportunity lands. God, that'll be a relief after
this breakneck pace.

DRIVE THE MOTHER****ER! These engineers are anal beyond belief.

---
"There's comes a time in the course of every project when it's necessary to
shoot the engineers and start production."


How fast would you drive a car that had ten minute delay?

--

Boris Mohar

"Julius Kilo" wrote in message
news
They have a $200 million wasting asset on the surface of Mars for over two
weeks now and they are still taking baby steps. "We now know we can
traverse
2.85 meters." In four steps. They dicked around with the lander airbags
for
two days before deciding to turn anyway. "To RAT or not to RAT--we might
wait a couple sols to decide." Wouldn't be prudent. All in preparation for
a
two-day "stand down" when Opportunity lands. God, that'll be a relief
after
this breakneck pace.

DRIVE THE MOTHER****ER! These engineers are anal beyond belief.

---
"There's comes a time in the course of every project when it's necessary
to
shoot the engineers and start production."

They want to be extra careful. If they tip the thing over, all sorts of
groups will come out of the woodwork and claim:

o It was a conspiracy
o It was "Gods Will"
o It was the "devils work"
o It was caused by PlanetX's gravity waves
o It's horoscope predicted it (Just look! I've just written one!)
o Nostradamus predicted it
o It hit a vein of coal with homnid bones
o Gravity failed
o It was pushed over by the "evil grey's"
o It never happened and is being shot on a sound stage in san diego
o It was sabotaged by Islamic Fundamentalists
o Henry Kissinger funded it with ET funds
o It was caused by 4th dimensional blue resonances
o The F***ing B*****ds built S****y equipment
o It had bad Karma
o James Randi caused it
o Debunker puppet socks and Mammoths caused it

and all of that crud will wind up raising the noise levels in the sci.*
newsgroup.

O'

"jbeck" wrote in message
...
snip

DRIVE THE MOTHER****ER!
snip

And just where should they go, and what should they do when they get
there?

To the crater they want to investigate and the ejecta along the way. And
then to the east hills, scratching and sniffing as they go.

Or is the goal in your own little world merely to drive a small vehicle
across the Martian landscape for no other reason than to drive it?

It's called a rover for a reason. Even the stated range is 100 meters a day.

Ever since the landing, every action by NASA seems calculated to lose the
audience. An experiment watching paint dry on Mars would be an improvement.
It doesn't help that every bit of data and image gathered so far points to
same old same old (cold, dead, dry, desertlike). Surely there are fantastic
discoveries to be made once the scientists are given the wheel--or so it can
be hoped.

The press conferences have dwindled to the point where today there were only
two panelists (engineers), and the main item on the menu was a pancam mosaic
of the now-useless lander, umbilical severed. Yesterday literally spent
navel-gazing! Or maybe afterbirth-gazing. The press conference was largely
devoted to fully grokking this image and self-congratulation of all the
wonderful team members who made it possible. Won't there be enough time
later for kudos? Getting the results, that's job one. The deputy principal
investigator, a top-notch geologist, was in the audience but he is largely
on ice right now. Oh, it was announced today that after extensive analysis
of the terrain for the last two weeks, "mobility engineers" have determined
that the surroundings are incredibly benign and rover-friendly. I guess
that's why it's still within a few feet of the lander after 17 days? Stated
mission duration is 90 days. I suppose we are lucky the terrain isn't
unfriendly!

Ever hear the one about the engineer who never consummated his marriage
because he sat on the edge of the bed every night telling his wife how great
it was going to be?

"Julius Kilo" wrote in message gy.com...
It doesn't help that every bit of data and image gathered so far points to
same old same old (cold, dead, dry, desertlike). Surely there are fantastic
discoveries to be made once the scientists are given the wheel--or so it can
be hoped.

Surely. Maybe one day NASA will wake up and land a probe
on or near Mars' polar caps, so we can study something other
than silly rocks and dust.

Rick

On a sunny day (Wed, 21 Jan 2004 21:59:09 GMT) it happened Robert Ehrlich
wrote in NCCPb.116621$I06.815517@attbi_s01:

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I agree with Carsten. Olivine is unstable in the presence of water.
I have never seen olivine in a volcanoclastic sandstone older than the
Pleistocene. Apparently NASA assumes that the present survace is quite
ancient (1 by+). They have also detected olivine over wider areas from
orbiter. Thus most of the geomorphology observed has probably not been
sculpted by water. For some reason NASA holds tight to the
water-on-mars hypothesis rather than some sort of multiple working
hypothesis approach. Apparently present day martian water frost
condenses at the poles in the winter and then sublimates during the
spring--no liquid water. Ubiquitous olivine argues against even
capillary bound water in the distant past.
I will be willing to bet a case against a sixpack that, other than at
the ppm level, free water will not be found in either Martain soil nor
on the moon in the next decade.I will also bet that no strong positive
evidence for life will be found on mars during the same decade.
You are so wrong,
http://www.home.zonnet.nl/panteltje/...ills-bunny.jpg
for the latest from the mars rover :-) LIFE
Note also in the picture the green, so the ground must be quite fertile.
These things do not grow without water.

I all looks eolian to me, plenty o' ventifacts and whatnot. Is it just me
or was that other rover in a better spot? How about landing one in that
canyon and checking out the stratigraphy there? I know it is probably
really risky, but we are 2 for 2 with the bouncing airbag method, if we land
the other one successfully then we should make a small armada of those
things and send them all over with different tools (including some seismic).
If we ditched the space station and shuttle and forgot about that humans to
moon and then to mars thing we could do some killer science all throughout
the solar system with the current budget. I know I will catch some **** for
this, but it seems to be the most efficient method.

Jason

"Jason Clayton" wrote in message
om...
snip
If we ditched the space station and shuttle and forgot about that humans
to
moon and then to mars thing we could do some killer science all throughout
the solar system with the current budget. I know I will catch some ****
for
this, but it seems to be the most efficient method.

Conversely, if we concentrate on getting something profitable working in
space, there will be plenty of resources for exploring the solar system with
robots AND people.

Cheers!

Chip Shults

"Jim Hewitt" wrote in message
...

"Darren Garrison" wrote in message
...
On 20 Jan 2004 17:24:53 -0800, (Ron) wrote:

One unexpected finding was the Moessbauer spectrometer's detection of
a mineral called olivine, which does not survive weathering well. This

How would you judge the possibility that this olivine could be from
pallasites?

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/minsci/images/gallery/10.htm


My understanding is that olivine does survive weathering caused by water
and
oxygne, two things that are somewhat lacking in the Martian environment.
So
it may be possible that the olivine is meteoritic in origin or it may just
be present in the rock under a thin layer of soil. Only more measurements
will reveal.

Go Spirit!

Jim



Didn't you mean to say "does not survive weathering"?

I expressed that

The chemical weathering is thought to have a greater influence on Earth
erosion, than mechanical breakdown.

However, Gerhard Einsele in "Sedimentary basins" concludes that dissolved
sedimentload does generally not exceed suspended load, so my opinion is not
valid. Both of these figures relates to running water and an assessment of
temperaturedependant (waterfree) breakdown as may be at work on Mars may not
have been measured for a possible comparison.

Carsten

"Sir Charles W. Shults III" wrote in message
om...
"Jason Clayton" wrote in message
om...
snip
If we ditched the space station and shuttle and forgot about that humans
to
moon and then to mars thing we could do some killer science all
throughout
the solar system with the current budget. I know I will catch some ****
for
this, but it seems to be the most efficient method.

Conversely, if we concentrate on getting something profitable working
in
space, there will be plenty of resources for exploring the solar system
with
robots AND people.

Cheers!

Chip Shults


If we could just get the damned robots to work correctly!