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Searching for life in Mars



 
 
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  #11  
Old August 14th 16, 11:35 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Searching for life in Mars

Jonathan wrote:


The MER rovers were designed to find signs
of water NOT LIFE.

Curiosity Rover was designed to find habitable
conditions NOT LIFE.


Wrong. Note Goal 1 of the Curiosity mission:

"Goal 1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars"

http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/goals/

Hard to do that if it can't detect life.



It could land in the middle of a field of moss and
it has NOTHING on board that could prove it was life,
aside from pictures and that's not proof, unless of
course a flippin' bird flew past the lens.


Incorrect. I suggest you examine the instruments that Curiosity
carries, paying attention to the spectrometer suite (and SAMS in
particular).


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
  #12  
Old August 15th 16, 04:26 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Bob Haller
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Posts: 3,197
Default Searching for life in Mars

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?


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


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.....

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
  #13  
Old August 15th 16, 09:02 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Searching for life in Mars

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
  #14  
Old August 15th 16, 10:03 PM posted to sci.space.policy
jacob navia
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Posts: 341
Default Searching for life in Mars

Le 14/08/2016 à 16:24, Jeff Findley a écrit :
This has nothing to do with the
inability of "toasters" to do more than they are pre-programmed to do.
Whenever something unexpected is encountered, they can be programmed to
either ignore it or stop everything until someone on earth tells them
what to do.


They can look for a gradient in the methane concentration that will lead
them directly to the source of the emissions...

They can dig, sample the terrain, see where in Mars that methane is
coming from, isn't that quite evident?

Something is there, and it produces methane, specially in spring. Now,
we have to loook for that, see what it is.

Even if they come back (as they could do NOW!) just to the fossils it
would be an enormous discovery: Life is Mars is like earth life and
produces similar fossils.

Incredible that we do not tell the NASA to come back and look for the
life we have already found. This is not about geology, it never was.

It is biology that is interesting, much more interesting that rock
formations isn't it?

NASA could stop the geology program and start an exo biology program.

Two indices point to very interesting hints:

The methane is coming out of the rocks pointing to a possible source
underneath.

Life in the surface is difficult and life could be hidden below. But in
the precise place where the most pronounced concentration of methane is
detected could be outposts from life in the surface or very near it.

Other gases could be detected, what would lead us to some metabolism
conclusions. The discovery of similar fossils as in earth leads to the
logical conclusion that life in mars is very similar to ours.

NASA should open their eyes NOW. Let's start a BIOLOGY program and

1) Program that rover to come back where the emissions were the strongest.
2) If the emissions persist, try to find their gradient.
3) Go near the source of the emissions, analyze all gases in the
atmosphere at that spot.

If there are no emissions continue to the fossils and take a very close
loook at them. Compare with similar fossils on earth and see the atomic
spectrum and composition. The rover can detect an atomic signature. That
would confirm that discovery.

Let's find life in mars now ok? Why wait?

Humans have all the tools, several machines in place, emissions of
methane and possible fossils around. Let's LOOK FOR LIFE NOW.

NASA should come back to look and follow those hints that life in mars
is giving us. Stop "following the water" and start following that
methane now!


  #16  
Old August 16th 16, 02:21 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
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Posts: 752
Default Searching for life in Mars

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...
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


That's not exactly how the sample return would work. Red Dragon would
have to stay on Mars. A much smaller vehicle inside Red Dragon would
need to be used to launch the sample off of Mars. I'm still simplifying
a bit. I'll provide a cite with more info (something you should learn
how to do):

'Red Dragon' Mars Sample-Return Mission Could Launch by 2022
http://www.space.com/30504-spacex-re...le-return.html


Thanks for the link. Sounds interesting but definitely a bit nebulous if
you ask me.

But the nice part is... I'm sure it would be cheaper than almost anything
NASA would come up with.

Of course ultimately the real problem I have is as Fred points out, any
crewed mission will immediately obtain just as much and unless they abort
immediately probably 10-100x as much mass in samples and a far better
selection because of the impact of having a Mark I eyeball on the ground.

Apollo showed the value of having trained people on the ground selecting
samples.


Jeff


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

 




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