Phoenix Lands on Mars this Sunday!!!

OM wrote:
OM wrote:
On Wed, 21 May 2008 00:49:50 GMT, Brian Thorn
wrote:

Wreckage. I'm betting the next we hear of it is wreckage spotted by
MRO sometime next month.

...Part of me is expecting this as well. JPL's been way too cocky
about claiming their success at fixing what killed MPL for me to be
comfortable about the use of a descent engine system over
tried-and-proven airbags. If Phoenix makes an ash out of itself, you
can bet your ass that they'll go back to airbags and stick with them
for the forseeable future.

Sigh... where do I even begin with this?

1) Descent engines are, as far as I'm concerned, just as
tried-and-proven as airbags, and more scaleable to larger landers. If
Phoenix fails, it won't be due to inherent flaws in powered landings,
it'll be due to the same human errors and hubris that killed MCO and MPL.

2) Even if you don't think powered landings are tried-and-proven, should
it be NASA's job to only stick to what's tried-and-proven? If that were
the case, they'd rarely achieve anything new. Shoot, they never would
have attempted airbags in the first place.

3) If Phoenix fails and NASA (irrationally, in my not-so-humble-opinion)
goes back to airbags and sticks with them, then it's highly unlikely
we'd ever see Mars landers much larger than the MERs. No sample return
mission, and definitely no manned landings. In short, be careful what
you wish for.

OM wrote:

...Part of me is expecting this as well. JPL's been way too cocky
about claiming their success at fixing what killed MPL for me to be
comfortable about the use of a descent engine system over
tried-and-proven airbags. If Phoenix makes an ash out of itself, you
can bet your ass that they'll go back to airbags and stick with them
for the forseeable future.


I like the concept of it landing just fine, but the heat of its landing
engines rupturing the dry ice over the liquid CO2 that is apparently
underground at the pole, so that the lander goes flying right back
skyward on a CO2 geyser:
http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/08...with_carbo.php :-D
It's interesting in that article how they are fine with high pressure
CO2 gas under the ice, but aren't going to mention liquid CO2 down
there, even though the pressures and temperatures are right for it to
occur...as soon as you open that can of worms, then a lot of those
"water-related" features on the surface of Mars have a whole other
explanation possible, and the Mars probe funding starts to dry up:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-...ence-00k1.html
Just a few days ago, new evidence emerged of a Mars that is colder
internally than was suspected:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0805/15marsinterior/

Pat

jonathan wrote:
Phoenix Home
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...ain/index.html

News Release
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/news...20080516a.html


Anyone care to stick their necks out and make predictions on what
they'll find?

1) Spheres?

2) Organic material?

3) Will they find the northern lowlands used to be covered by a sea?

4) habitable?

I'm saying yes on all counts.


Good luck Phoenix!


s

I'll say no on most counts. Nothing organic. Perhaps some ice.
Toxic dirt.

Damon Hill wrote:

I'll second that; too bad the Russians haven't sent anything that way recently. The GMG has
had an insatiable appetite for Soviet/Russian spacecraft. He's also snacked on ours, gone on
a Japanese diet, and had an English snack along with High Tea.

On May 20, 6:42 pm, "Alan Erskine" wrote:

I saw the NASA TV media briefing on the landing a couple of days ago. The
reason for using thrusters instead of air bags is that the bags have
limitations on how much mass they can land.

Well, in that case, getting experience landing something heavier will
help when it comes time to land people on Mars.

John Savard

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...


OM wrote:

...Part of me is expecting this as well. JPL's been way too cocky
about claiming their success at fixing what killed MPL for me to be
comfortable about the use of a descent engine system over
tried-and-proven airbags. If Phoenix makes an ash out of itself, you
can bet your ass that they'll go back to airbags and stick with them
for the forseeable future.


I like the concept of it landing just fine, but the heat of its landing
engines rupturing the dry ice over the liquid CO2 that is apparently
underground at the pole, so that the lander goes flying right back skyward on
a CO2 geyser:

I think the CO2 ice is mostly in the south pole. The north
has most of the water ice.

From what I've read, they expect to land in an area where
the top meter of ground is 60 to 80 percent water ice.
So it should be like a dry antartic site. Not a sheet of ice
but very frozen water rich soil. The northern lowlands are several miles
below the highlands, so it has slightly thicker and warmer atmosphere.
And this chart shows just how much water exists in the first meter
of soil planet wide.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...-20080513.html


What strikes me is that if Mars has been dry and cold for geologic
time, why would the first meter of soil still have such a large
concentration of water ice? I think we're going to learn someday
that Mars has ice ages. And periodically the ice melts out from
underground. Keeping the near surface icey. If some crater or
canyon becomes filled from underground, it would ice over.
And the ice cap would abate away fairly slowly in comparison
with being filled by an underground spring.

Water, lakes and such could exist with the thin atmosphere
if underground water melts out as ice ages wax and wane.
The assumption that since the atmostphere thinned over
a billion years ago, doesn't mean the surface has been
dry at that time. Quite the opposite it seems.


Look carefully at the ....shadows...in each of these pics.
And also the general surface texture. Keeping in mind
that the mars pic is on a roughly ten degree slope.
But the delicate erosion pattern cast in each /shadow/ is
the same, and the result of water eroding away the soil.

How long ago was Mars wet???
To say geologic time seems absurd.


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



http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/08...with_carbo.php :-D
It's interesting in that article how they are fine with high pressure CO2 gas
under the ice, but aren't going to mention liquid CO2 down there, even though
the pressures and temperatures are right for it to occur...as soon as you open
that can of worms, then a lot of those "water-related" features on the surface
of Mars have a whole other explanation possible, and the Mars probe funding
starts to dry up: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-...ence-00k1.html
Just a few days ago, new evidence emerged of a Mars that is colder internally
than was suspected:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0805/15marsinterior/

Pat

On May 20, 4:31 pm, "jonathan" wrote:
Phoenix Homehttp://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

News Releasehttp://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20080516a.html

Anyone care to stick their necks out and make predictions on what
they'll find?

1) Spheres?

2) Organic material?

3) Will they find the northern lowlands used to be covered by a sea?

4) habitable?

I'm saying yes on all counts.

Good luck Phoenix!

s

See my article he

http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.c...nding-preview/

Damon Hill wrote:

Isn't MSL a more likely candidate for a GMG meal? I've seen the animation of that mission's
landing and a lot can go wrong with the skycrane lander that will deploy the rover.

| wrote:
I'll say no on most counts. Nothing organic. Perhaps some ice.
Toxic dirt.


I'm picturing more detailed data on Martian dry ice samples than has
ever been done before.
At least they stuck a microscope on this one, so any potential
microfossils might by detected.
Should have thought of that around the time of Viking. :-D

Pat

"Matt Wiser" wrote in
:

Damon Hill wrote:

Isn't MSL a more likely candidate for a GMG meal? I've seen the
animation of that mission's landing and a lot can go wrong with the
skycrane lander that will deploy the rover.

Yeah, a hover-winch; I'm sure we'll all be sweating that one's
crunchdown.

--Damon