Searching for life in Mars

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.

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

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.


This is the problem with sending toasters rather than people. Toasters
can't do things they aren't preprogrammed to do.


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.


And they probably can't get back to exactly the same place anyway.
Again, this is why people on the ground are so much more effective
than toasters. They can make decisions 'on the fly' and don't need to
wait for a human back on earth to check out things that a toaster just
can't do.


--
"Then tomorrow we may all be dead. But how is that different
from every other day?"
-- Morpheus

In article ,
says...

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.


This is the problem with sending toasters rather than people. Toasters
can't do things they aren't preprogrammed to do.


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.


And they probably can't get back to exactly the same place anyway.
Again, this is why people on the ground are so much more effective
than toasters. They can make decisions 'on the fly' and don't need to
wait for a human back on earth to check out things that a toaster just
can't do.

Exactly my thought. Sending people may be 10x or more expensive, but
the return is far greater. None of the "toasters" have returned any
samples from Mars. That would happen on the first manned mission which
landed on Mars. Collecting a small contingency sample (in case the
mission was cut short) would no doubt be done on the very first EVA.

With SLS/Orion sucking up so much funding, NASA is not sending
astronauts to Mars anytime soon. NASA is finally starting to look into
developing a deep space HAB module. A Mars lander would be far more
expensive and its development is therefore far in the future.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

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.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

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.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.



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.


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.

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.........

In article ,
says...
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.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.



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.




Where is the cite that says that lack of power prevented a detailed
search for the source of the methane detected?

I snipped your sample return ramblings. 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.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On 8/13/2016 7:14 PM, 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.




Well that was the plan all along.

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

Curiosity Rover was designed to find habitable
conditions NOT 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.

ALL ALONG the big discovery was deliberately withheld
for the coveted sample return mission, so as to
extend all their careers an additional 15 or 20
years.

But the sample return mission was cancelled.
So the discovery will have to wait another
who knows 20 or 40 years.

It was a self-serving mission plan that denied the
human race one of the greatest discoveries
of all for at least a generation or two.

It almost qualifies as a crime-against-humanity
and is quite literally UNFORGIVABLE.

Those responsible for making sure Curiosity did NOT
have the ability to prove life should be held
accountable in the court of public and scientific
opinion for their incredibly selfish and anti-science
decision.

And the decision to go to the curiosity site
to see all those laminations and unravel
the geologic history of Mars is clearly a
decision by GEOLOGISTS not ASTROBIOLOGISTS.

But we must have faith in humanity, all this
means is Musk or the EU gets to make the
Big discovery not NASA. And far..sooner than
NASA's self serving timeline could ever
accomplish.

Just would have been nice if NASA had
decided discovery and science was more
important that padding their own careers.



Jonathan


a

On 8/14/2016 11:48 AM, Jonathan wrote:
On 8/13/2016 7:14 PM, 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.




Well that was the plan all along.

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

Curiosity Rover was designed to find habitable
conditions NOT LIFE.



And I'm not making this up, the MER and Curiosity
pages say so right up front.



Mars Exploration Rovers

Overview

"Primary among the mission's scientific goals is to
search for and characterize a wide range of rocks
and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars.
The spacecraft are targeted to sites on opposite sides
of Mars that appear to have been affected by liquid
water in the past."

http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/overview/




CURIOSITY

Mission Overview

"With its rover named Curiosity, Mars Science Laboratory
mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program,
a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the
red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess whether
Mars ever had an environment able to support small
life forms called microbes. In other words, its
mission is to determine the planet's "habitability."


http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/overview/


NOT LIFE!




Although I haven't Googled this issue for
a while and just found this, a plan to
send another Curiosity rover except with
the instrument package Curiosity should
have had, one designed by Astrobiologists
designed to search for life.

Anyone know if it's being funded?
The site says that's still to be determined.

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/missions/2020-mars-rover/

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