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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory |OT| 2,000 Pounds of Science!

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Dmax3901

Member
Tesseract said:
to celebrate this great scientific endeavor, i have upgraded the nicholson nod.

animation1dfg2zq7g.gif
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Incredible. Go science.
 
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Kettch

Member
Yep. And it's probably what caused the marks on the wheels too. Funny a lot of people think we never found water on Mars. There's ice all over the poles:p Ice melts, travels into the earth, evaporates, goes back to the poles, etc.
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Heh, had to read that a second time before I understood what you meant.
 
T

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Pandemic said:
Pretty sure this is where Curiosity landed, and dug into the floor a little,
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I believe you mean dug into the Mars.

I'm not seeing it though. That dark patch on the left maybe?


So how long until we slap on a magnetic field onto this rock, put some bootstrap factories on there to create a greenhouse effect, and create a paradise for future diabetic Americans? 300 years? Science save us.
 
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Pandemic

Member
teh_pwn said:
I believe you mean dug into the Mars.

I'm not seeing it though. That dark patch on the left maybe?


So how long until we slap on a magnetic field onto this rock, put some bootstrap factories on there to create a greenhouse effect, and create a paradise for future diabetic Americans? 300 years? Science save us.
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Yeah, that rocky/darker than the surroundings patch is where I'm assuming it landed?

It'll happen soon enough,
wall-e.jpg
 
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Oozer3993

Member
I went to see The Cleveland Orchestra perform the music of John Williams today and, oddly, there was a little booth set up near the venue where people from the nearby Glenn Research Center were handing out 3D glasses and had big pictures from Mars and of Curiosity set up. They also had a model of it and the LEGO model of Opportunity and were handing out information. As if seeing the Cleveland Orchestra perform Star Wars and Indiana Jones wasn't cool enough!
 
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Tom_Cody

Member
You've got to love the clarity of these new pictures. I can't for new sunset pictures, etc. By the time this mission comes to a close NASA will have accumulated a gloriously collection of content.
 
Forsete

Forsete

Member
jgkspsx said:
Zubrin is a nut. Not always a bad guy, but... kinda out there on his own, and very hostile to anybody who doesn't share his priorities (i.e. pretty much everybody :)
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He knows he is right though. ;)

That docu was very interesting btw, thanks for posting the link here.
I also started reading Red Mars just now.
 
B

BruiserBear

Banned
Diablohead said:
Seeing clear images of the surface of mars makes me tingle, it's amazing how these pictures are taken so far away off earth.
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Yeah. What really makes my head spin though, is realizing how many planets there are out there, where we could literally land a rover on their surface and do the same thing.

In other words, we see this rover sitting on Mars and sending back these high res photos of this alien planet, and it's sort of crazy to realize these entirely new worlds actually exist, and can be walked on. But then you remember there are probably billions/trillions of others planets out there where it's actually possible to do the exact same thing, and then your mind is full of fuck.
 
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Ether_Snake

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I think NASA should dedicate all of their money used for space exploration to simply work out better faster ways to get to the Moon and Mars. Any research is secondary since if you can get there faster and cheaper over time, you can do more research. It should be the prime objective.

It's as if we had sent rovers over the Atlantic to find life. And then try to figure out the life's history, etc., instead of just going.

It isn't logical to do the research before you find better ways to get there. If this had been their focus for the past few decades, we'd already know more about Mars and the Moon than we do today.
 
O

owlbeak

Member
akira28 said:
Why do so many people act like he ran on the "shrink NASA and drown it in a bathtub" platform?
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He may not have ran on that platform, but he's definitely not helping.
The Obama administration, however, has no plans to continue in like vein. Far from it. It has canceled NASA’s plans for joint Mars missions with the Europeans in 2016 and 2018 and is proposing to butcher the program budget.

The figures speak for themselves. This year’s NASA Mars exploration budget is $587 million. The administration is proposing to cut that to $360.8 million in fiscal year 2013, $227.7 million in 2014, and $188.7 million in 2015, a level that would effectively put the nation out of the Mars exploration business.
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Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
"I'm gonna give you guys a personal commitment to protect these critical investments in science and technology."

Let's hope so.

It's refreshing to hear Obama speak about how our scientific curiosity is one of the defining positive traits about our species. It's good to hear a president say that.
 
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owlbeak

Member
Rentahamster said:
"I'm gonna give you guys a personal commitment to protect these critical investments in science and technology."

Let's hope so.
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He's pandering to them. Look at his budget for NASA's planetary exploration program, he didn't do anything to protect those investments. In fact, he gutted it. Everyone in Congress is doing the same thing, as well, so it's not isolated to just him.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
birdcity said:
He's pandering to them. Look at his budget for NASA's planetary exploration program, he didn't do anything to protect those investments. In fact, he gutted it. Everyone in Congress is doing the same thing, as well, so it's not isolated to just him.
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I thought I recalled that Obama's proposed budgets asked for increases, but the budgets passed by congress decreased funding? (hooray austerity).
 
O

owlbeak

Member
GaimeGuy said:
I thought I recalled that Obama's proposed budgets asked for increases, but the budgets passed by congress decreased funding? (hooray austerity).
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He has asked for increases in certain areas, but his administration's budget has also slashed funding to a lot of programs, Mars exploration program receiving the biggest cuts.

I'd guess that MSL is the last large mission to Mars that we'll see for a decade or more if the current budget stays the way it is currently. No hope of a sample return mission, for sure, with the current cuts.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Lovely Salsa said:
Why does Mars pic look like they were taken from earth? There is nothing alien about Mars, I am disappoint :(
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The laws of physics are the same everywhere.
Personally, I find it magical and inspiring rather than disappointing.

Also, this is a geological mission, they're going after geological features we understand.

But I do imagine that if we ever send a rover to Mount Olympus, you'll get your sci-fi fix.
 
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Ether_Snake

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It won't look any good. The only place on Mars you might find something that looks amazing is close to the ice of the poles. Other than that, the thin atmosphere makes everything big look small, and it's brown everywhere. Only at the poles could you find interesting constrasts between the white ice and brown/red earth.
 
B

Bowdz

Member
GaimeGuy said:
I thought I recalled that Obama's proposed budgets asked for increases, but the budgets passed by congress decreased funding? (hooray austerity).
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He asked for roughly $800 million for the CCiCap program, but Congress originally only allocated $300 million, eventually bumping it up to $500 million. Conversely, he proposed some $300 million in cuts to the Mars mission architecture while Congress has been fighting back to restore it. Both programs have their purpose and should be funded IMO.

It's important to note that so much of the budget is in complete and total flux right now and will remain that way until a solution is found to the sequestration cuts next year. With any luck, Curiosity's perfect landing peaked the interest of the President and maybe he will try and ensure the program gets its funding back (although it is much more likely that he is just plain pandering to them in an election year).
 
M

Mudkips

Banned
thcsquad said:
I don't really know anything about quantum entanglment, but couldn't it still theoretically help communications once it's launched, right? Entangle them on earth, launch the thing, and then once it's on Mars it can instantaneously send data back. Even if it hasn't been tested at such large distances, that's the direction we want to go.
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Partial Gamification said:
Also:
[The scientists] entangled photons by stimulating a crystal with ultraviolet light, producing a pair of photons with the same wavelength, but opposite polarisation values.
Using these photons, the researchers copied the quantum state from the laboratory to the far station, achieving quantum teleportation over a much larger distance than the previous record of 16 kilometres.
Scientists believe that this phenomenon can be harnessed for quantum teleportation.
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Nope. When you entangle them you can no longer "write" to them. All you can do is read them.
 
L

Lovely Salsa

Banned
Chichikov said:
The laws of physics are the same everywhere.
Personally, I find it magical and inspiring rather than disappointing.

Also, this is a geological mission, they're going after geological features we understand.

But I do imagine that if we ever send a rover to Mount Olympus, you'll get your sci-fi fix.
Click to expand...

So that means we won't find anything new in any planet ever? Like a different/alien looking forest?
 
O

owlbeak

Member
mackaveli said:
is there a conference today in a hour?
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I don't believe so. The only thing happening for the past few days is the rover upgrading it's software from landing software to surface operations software. I just read that will be completed tomorrow.

edited with newly read info.
 
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