# Mars Rover Perseverance Landing... and continuing...



## Umbran (Feb 18, 2021)

If you want to watch, NASA's stream is live.  The "seven minutes of terror" will happen around 3:55PM or so today.









						Watch Online: TV Schedule - NASA
					

TV schedule, upcoming program information about NASA's Mars Perseverance rover.




					mars.nasa.gov


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## trappedslider (Feb 18, 2021)

Watched it, and all the fist bumps lol and the pictures they got.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2021)

Touchdown!

First Image


Spoiler









Second image


Spoiler


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## Ryujin (Feb 18, 2021)

I love this stuff. The other probe on which they're trying to test the seismic detectors, Insight, has a protective skirt that was made using scales from my chainmail supplies provider


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 19, 2021)

Look out, Martians, here we come!


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## aco175 (Feb 19, 2021)

Wow, what have I been doing?  I completely forgot about this.  All I got is this guy.


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## Umbran (Feb 19, 2021)

And, NASA has an interactive map of where Perseverance is, that'll show her path as she goes...









						Location Map for Perseverance Rover - NASA
					

Get the day-by-day location of the Mars Perseverance rover as it explores Jezero Crater in this interactive map. The map also shows the location of the Mars Helicopter.




					mars.nasa.gov


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## Azuresun (Feb 19, 2021)

I look forward to my Facebook feed filling with a hundred "this bunch of pixels here is totally an alien horseradish" posts. But this is very cool.


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## darjr (Feb 19, 2021)

This is amazing! Today I think they are going to try and FLY!!!!


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## trappedslider (Feb 19, 2021)

FYI: As far as we know Mars is the only planet inhabited solely by Robots.


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## Umbran (Feb 19, 2021)

darjr said:


> This is amazing! Today I think they are going to try and FLY!!!!




Today?  No.

_"For starters, the rover's handlers will spend the next few Martian days, or sols, getting Perseverance up to speed in its new digs. (A sol lasts 24 hours and 40 minutes, just slightly longer than an Earth day.) The team will stabilize the six-wheeled robot's power, thermal and communications systems so that new, surface-tailored flight software can be uploaded from Earth, Mars 2020 deputy project manager Jennifer Trosper said during a post-landing news conference yesterday. 

As this "critical infrastructure" work is proceeding, "we're also doing other health checks of other instruments," said Trosper, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "Over the course of the three sols or four sols of these early activities, we'll get all the instrument health checks done; we'll charge the rover battery.

Perseverance's head-like, instrument-laden mast will also be deployed in these first few sols, allowing great new imagery to be captured. " - _space.com

The first color images of the area are supposed to be taken on Sol 3.  New software upload on Sol 4.  Then another 4 days of getting that software online and functioning.  Then the rover has to drive to an area suitable for an airfield drop Ingenuity and drive to safe distance - that's another 10 Sols or so.  First flight is a few weeks off yet.  Helicopter flights will happen during the spring, and major science work gets rolling in the summer. (Earth spring and summer, I mean.


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## Ulfgeir (Feb 19, 2021)

Missed the landing. Cool stuff though. Hope they can perform incredible science. Or should that be credible science?


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## darjr (Feb 19, 2021)

Thanks for the update @Umbran 

I heard it in speculation talk during the nasa feed. Might have been everyday astronauts feed.


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## trappedslider (Feb 19, 2021)

Well, i hope they find Mark Watney


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2021)

Here's a cool picture.  It is taken from the "rocket pack" in the sky crane maneuver, as the rover is being lowered down onto the surface, when the rover is just a few feet off the ground.

This is one frame, but the original is a movie, with sound.  It will take some time for that all to come to us, though, due to low bandwidth of the connection.



Spoiler: super cool shot from above


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## trappedslider (Feb 20, 2021)




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## Umbran (Feb 22, 2021)

As a follow-up, here's official NASA video of the landing, from cameras on board...


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## pming (Feb 22, 2021)

Hiya!

You know why I _love_ space and think it should be the number 1 priority for spending/effort?
..
Because when you ask people about stuff like these rovers and satellites exploring Luna or Mars or whatever...their answer is almost universally "Wow! That's cool that we have an actual machine on another planet!"
..
The cool thing isn't that there is a machine on the planet. The cool part is that, no matter who the person is, where they live, what their religion is, what their political background is, or their societal mindset...they almost all say... "we".  It's not "they". It's "we", as in they feel like they are a part of it, along with every other human on the planet.
..
I can't think of a single thing on Earth where people's initial reaction is to think of everyone else on earth, Humans, all of us, as ONE PEOPLE.
..
That's why I love it idea of space travel and space efforts!

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Umbran (Feb 22, 2021)

Oh, and we should note:  The first sounds ever recorded from the surface of Mars!









						Mars Audio Recordings - NASA
					

Gallery of audio clips captured by the Mars Perseverance rover.




					mars.nasa.gov


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## Retreater (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?


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## Ryujin (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?



Every subsequent rover had used new tech, been more capable, and has been able to provide more information than has the last. Camera tech has improved greatly in the last couple of decades, they packed in a helicopter drone, and NOW, WITH SOUND!


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## darjr (Feb 22, 2021)

This one has droppings. Later one will clean up.


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## Arilyn (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?



Different rovers are equipped to do different things. We are learning more and more about Mars, without actually sending people there. I'm excited.


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## embee (Feb 22, 2021)

Even if there had been only modest advances in tech over the decades,the Perseverance mission is worth it. Even if only from a fiscal standpoint.

NASA spent $2.8 billion dollars on Mars Perseverance. Wow that sounds like a big number.

There are about 331 million people in America per the 2020 census. That's also a really big number.

So that means NASA spent $8.46 per person. But wait... There's more.

The $2.8 billion was spread over the project's 11 year span. So the actual cost comes to...

77¢ per person per year. Even rounding up, that is two pennies a week.

So, every American gave NASA two pennies a week for a decade and they built a robot and put it on the surface of another planet.


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## Istbor (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?



23 Years. 
So about half as long as your guess. And Mar's is a whole planet. Can you imaging trying to explore a whole planet with a rover like these in that time? There is understandably more stuff to see or explore, especially as our technology improves. 

I believe this lander has a bit more of a focused mission on looking for signs of ancient life on our red neighbor. 

Simple fact is while you may lack the interest, humanity as a hole is generally curious. Not always about the same things, but enough that missions to explore and learn more about our solar system and its history are still something deemed important.


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## Retreater (Feb 22, 2021)

Istbor said:


> 23 Years.
> So about half as long as your guess. And Mar's is a whole planet. Can you imaging trying to explore a whole planet with a rover like these in that time? There is understandably more stuff to see or explore, especially as our technology improves.
> 
> I believe this lander has a bit more of a focused mission on looking for signs of ancient life on our red neighbor.
> ...



Viking 1 landed in 1976, so well over 40 years since we've sent instruments to gather scientific data from Mars. 
The whole thing just seems pretty expensive for a glorified science fair experiment, which has so far produced tech we could have developed on earth, with no real world applications while we destroy our planet, people are suffering without access to vital resources.


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## Ryujin (Feb 22, 2021)

Istbor said:


> 23 Years.
> So about half as long as your guess. And Mar's is a whole planet. Can you imaging trying to explore a whole planet with a rover like these in that time? There is understandably more stuff to see or explore, especially as our technology improves.
> 
> I believe this lander has a bit more of a focused mission on looking for signs of ancient life on our red neighbor.
> ...



But.... but.... Star Wars tells us that whole planets only have a single ecosystem!


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## Retreater (Feb 22, 2021)

I mean I'm also a guy who thinks maybe we didn't go to the moon. If there was a conspiracy theory I'd believe it's that one.


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## Istbor (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> Viking 1 landed in 1976, so well over 40 years since we've sent instruments to gather scientific data from Mars.
> The whole thing just seems pretty expensive for a glorified science fair experiment, which has so far produced tech we could have developed on earth, with no real world applications while we destroy our planet, people are suffering without access to vital resources.



You said rover. Viking 1 was not a rover. Otherwise I would have cited the first lander which was in 1971, even though it only transmitted for like 20 seconds.


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## Maxperson (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I mean I'm also a guy who thinks maybe we didn't go to the moon. If there was a conspiracy theory I'd believe it's that one.



I don't get this at all.  We see rockets/shuttles go into space with people all the time.  They make it to the space stations with no problem.  What's so hard to believe about going somewhat farther to the moon and back?


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## darjr (Feb 22, 2021)

There is a big lot of omg in that “somewhat”


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## Retreater (Feb 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> I don't get this at all.  We see rockets/shuttles go into space with people all the time.  They make it to the space stations with no problem.  What's so hard to believe about going somewhat farther to the moon and back?



First, I'm not saying that we definitely didn't go. I'm saying that if it came out that it was hoaxed, I'd simply shrug and say, "I'm not surprised. The whole thing seemed a little fishy anyway."
So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily? 
We haven't been back since the early 1970s. It was exciting for a few years, and we just never cared again? All of a sudden? 
We would have had every reason to lie about it. We were at the height of the space race of the Cold War and the Soviets had beaten America on nearly every front. 
I'm not saying it was a lie. Just saying I wouldn't be surprised.


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## Umbran (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is.




Learning stuff.   That's the only thing that we do better than any other animals.  If we aren't doing that, might as well pack it all in, allow ourselves to fade as a species, and leave the Earth to the goats.



Retreater said:


> Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?




The first US landing on Mars was in 1976.  Since that time, there have been a whopping 9 successful landing missions:  Viking 1 & Viking 2 in 1976, Pathfinder in 1997,  Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, Phoenix in 2008, Curiosity in 2012, Insight in 2018, and Perseverance in 2021.  

Only 5 of these could be called "rovers".   One rover (Pathfinder's Sojourner) traveled a total of about 100 meters.  Spirit drove about 4.8 miles.  Opportunity covered 28 miles.  Curiosity has covered 24 miles, and is still going.

So, all in all, we've seen only tiny portions of the planet up close.  There's tons more left to learn.  And we keep creating better and better instruments.


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## embee (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I mean I'm also a guy who thinks maybe we didn't go to the moon. If there was a conspiracy theory I'd believe it's that one.



The problem with that conspiracy (and many others) is that it relies on a large amount of government coordination, efficiency, competence, and secrecy which simply does not exist in the real world.


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## Retreater (Feb 22, 2021)

embee said:


> The problem with that conspiracy (and many others) is that it relies on a large amount of government coordination, efficiency, competence, and secrecy which simply does not exist in the real world.



I've worked in government since the 1990s, so I can attest to this. 
However, NASA is also a government agency, so you're also saying that you think they could do all of these same tasks to send a man to the moon with the computing power of a calculator in the 1960s. I have my doubts they could've done it then (or now).


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## Arilyn (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> First, I'm not saying that we definitely didn't go. I'm saying that if it came out that it was hoaxed, I'd simply shrug and say, "I'm not surprised. The whole thing seemed a little fishy anyway."
> So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily?
> We haven't been back since the early 1970s. It was exciting for a few years, and we just never cared again? All of a sudden?
> We would have had every reason to lie about it. We were at the height of the space race of the Cold War and the Soviets had beaten America on nearly every front.
> I'm not saying it was a lie. Just saying I wouldn't be surprised.



It would have taken more tech know how and money to fake the landing in the 1960s then to actually do it. 

There is no way faking a moon landing could have been kept quiet. That's thousands of people over the years agreeing to covering up the lie. Not going to work. 

And, we have moon rocks from the actual moon that astronauts brought home, and that have been studied for years. 

Americans could have returned to the moon. It's not that the knowledge was lost, it was the will.


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## Maxperson (Feb 22, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Learning stuff.   That's the only thing that we do better than any other animals.  If we aren't doing that, might as well pack it all in, allow ourselves to fade as a species, and leave the Earth to the goats.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've heard this rover is also set up to better detect signs that life existed in the past.  That also sets it apart from all prior rovers.


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## embee (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I've worked in government since the 1990s, so I can attest to this.
> However, NASA is also a government agency, so you're also saying that you think they could do all of these same tasks to send a man to the moon with the computing power of a calculator in the 1960s. I have my doubts they could've done it then (or now).



I most certainly think that a team of the greatest rocket scientists in the world could do that. We split the atom with those very same slide rules.


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## Maxperson (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I've worked in government since the 1990s, so I can attest to this.
> However, NASA is also a government agency, so you're also saying that you think they could do all of these same tasks to send a man to the moon with the computing power of a calculator in the 1960s. I have my doubts they could've done it then (or now).



They Mayans were accurately predicting eclipses and more, thousands of years ago.  We had the computing power in the late 60's and early 70's to do it.


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## Arilyn (Feb 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> I've heard this rover is also set up to better detect signs that life existed in the past.  That also sets it apart from all prior rovers.



This is what I'm particularly excited about. Did Mars ever have life? Does it now? Was it always lifeless? I really want to know the answer.


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## Umbran (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily?




Because we _stopped_.  We no longer have the facilities and tooling.  While we have the plans for the Saturn V (the only rocket to take people out of low Earth orbit), the manufacturing processes for some of the parts have been lost to time.  To recreate a Saturn V, we'd need to figure out how to make them again with sufficient quality.

From there, there are two reasons why we have lost the capability - one is that, due to the perceived high costs in both money and lives, NASA has been forced to become extremely risk-averse.  If NASA missions fail, it becomes a point of politics, not of science and engineering.  The other is that there is no such thing as a "general purpose rocket", and there are no general purpose rocket parts.  In order to design a launch system, you have to define the requirements that system must meet.  And, again due to politics, NASA has not been allowed to settle on what missions their next heavy launch vehicle is supposed to serve. 

Between the risk aversion, and not knowing what the mission is, development on a new system is extremely slow.  Compared to, say, Space X, which has no issues if their test vehicles blow up, so long as the result is a reliable flight.  They get to revel in and learn from mistakes in a way NASA cannot.


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## Umbran (Feb 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> I've heard this rover is also set up to better detect signs that life existed in the past.  That also sets it apart from all prior rovers.




Yes.  Curiosity was designed to look for evidence fo water (past and present), explore geology, and generally help figure out if its landign site ever had cnditions suitable for life.  Perseverance is more loaded out to seek out more direct evidence of past life, along with a few forward-looking experiments (sample return and the Ingenuity helicopter, for example).


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## Ryujin (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I've worked in government since the 1990s, so I can attest to this.
> However, NASA is also a government agency, so you're also saying that you think they could do all of these same tasks to send a man to the moon with the computing power of a calculator in the 1960s. I have my doubts they could've done it then (or now).



The old adage that, "Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" is close to being accurate. I was a kid during the original Apollo missions and, despite being Canadian, the whole school would turn out to watch. We watched the first moon landing on a half a dozen TV sets, in the gymnasium.

In total there are 3 retroreflector arrays that were placed on the moon, by Apollo 11, 14, and 15. Want to see if someone has been to the moon? If you know someone with a sufficiently powerful astronomical laser, just bounce a pulse off one of them.









						Lunar Laser Ranging experiment - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




It's not the technology that we lack, for going back to the moon. It's the will. NASA was getting major, serious budgets in the 1960s, because of the Space Race and Kennedy's speech. These days, if they could justify spending the money, India could put a man on the moon. Private corporations are putting people in low orbit, with an eye toward following Hauser's advice from "Total Recall."


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## trappedslider (Feb 22, 2021)

I'll just quote Tyson ""Where do you _think they were going_... to the _local Piggly Wiggly_?"


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## R_J_K75 (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?



Pretty sure Sojourner drove off a cliff causing its "loss of communication."


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## trappedslider (Feb 22, 2021)




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## trappedslider (Feb 22, 2021)

Retreater said:


> First, I'm not saying that we definitely didn't go. I'm saying that if it came out that it was hoaxed, I'd simply shrug and say, "I'm not surprised. The whole thing seemed a little fishy anyway."
> So here's the issue. The moon landing was in 1969. We can't even do that today if we wanted. I remember Obama saying during his presidency that he'd like to see us get to the moon in a few decades. How can the tech to have done this in the 1960s have regressed so far that we can't do it now ... easily?
> We haven't been back since the early 1970s. It was exciting for a few years, and we just never cared again? All of a sudden?
> We would have had every reason to lie about it. We were at the height of the space race of the Cold War and the Soviets had beaten America on nearly every front.
> I'm not saying it was a lie. Just saying I wouldn't be surprised.


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## Retreater (Feb 23, 2021)

My casual research seems to indicate that GPS technology came from NASA, so I'd say that is a big accomplishment. I'd put that above Velcro, Tang, or the Mars rovers. 
Likely, like many of you, I wasn't around to have memories of any great successes from the space program. The first notice I gave it was when I watched in school the Challenger disaster, live on television, after we had followed the project for months. And then the shuttle program failed on live TV with the Columbia disaster, which was a day I was getting together with some of my friends for a game of D&D. 
Witnessing these events with my peers had a heightened effect on me. To me, it's hard to see that anything that we've discovered has really been worth it.


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## trappedslider (Feb 23, 2021)

Here's a website from NASA that answers: What have you done for me lately Home | NASA Spinoff and to be on topic what spins are coming from persverance  NASA's Perseverance Pays Off Back Home


Spoiler











“Because it’s there,” the British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory famously told the_ New York Times_ when asked why he was attempting Everest’s peak before his 1924 attempt ended in his death.


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## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> My casual research seems to indicate that GPS technology came from NASA, so I'd say that is a big accomplishment. I'd put that above Velcro, Tang, or the Mars rovers.




Velcro, and Tang were used by the space program, but not developed by them.



Retreater said:


> Witnessing these events with my peers had a heightened effect on me. To me, it's hard to see that anything that we've discovered has really been worth it.




So, as of 2020, there have been a total of 30 people, worldwide, who have lost their lives in activities related to spaceflight - this includes actual launches and in training and testing exercises.

What nobody has likely ever done is shown you what those 30 deaths have gotten us.  

Here's one: the bioreactor.  It was originally designed to grow cells in a closed, zero G environment for experiments.  Today, lifesaving drugs are produced by microbes grown in bioreactors.  Countless people are alive today due to the drugs made in, and the research performed with, bioreactors.

Here's another cool spinoff - the most common breathing apparatus used today by firefighters would not be possible without an aluminum composite material NASA developed for rocket casings.

In Tokyo and San Francisco, buildings are constructed with giant shock absorbers to help them withstand earthquakes.  Those shock absorbers were first designed to safely remove fuel and electrical connectors from the Space Shuttle during launch.

The FDA guidelines that currently keep your seafood, juices, and dairy products safe are based in guidelines created by Pillsbury for handling and preventing contamination of foods going into space.


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## Imaculata (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?




This sort of incredible short sightedness is baffling and frustrating. Some of the greatest scientiffic accomplishments came from unexpected places. If we stopped every time someone said "What is the point?", we'd never learn anything.

This mission and the ones to follow, can lead to groundbreaking new technology that could severely impact all our lives for decades to come.

Landing on Mars is very difficult. NASA is the only organisation able to do it consistently, which is an incredible feat of engineering. Most of the Russian and Chinese missions to Mars have been failures. But NASA has now managed to land a rover on Mars several times, and twice using an ai driven skycrane system. That technology alone is a scientiffic breakthrough. Ai driven aircrafts are the future.

This mission will do something that none other has done before; to collect samples on Mars, and with a follow up mission (with the aid of ESA) return them to earth. We can do a lot more research in our labs on earth if we can retrieve those samples.

Also, do not underestimate the importance of the first sound recording on Mars. This is history in the making. You may be easily fooled into thinking it is but a boring recording of a minor windgust, but it is so much more. Being able to hear during space missions may change how we do space missions from now on. All future rovers may be equiped with a microphone now.


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## Horwath (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> Viking 1 landed in 1976, so well over 40 years since we've sent instruments to gather scientific data from Mars.
> The whole thing just seems pretty expensive for a glorified science fair experiment, which has so far produced tech we could have developed on earth, with no real world applications while we destroy our planet, people are suffering without access to vital resources.



oh FFS,

I dont want to be rude, but if you want to whine about money being dropped in the toilet, NASA is hardy a good target.

Go after billions in tax brakes and donations to various religious cults, trillions in military budget that is more or less now armed security for oil drilling and multiple Wall street bailouts.

NASA's budget was divided by 9 since 60s. They get less than half a penny to a dollar of federal budget.


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## Imaculata (Feb 23, 2021)

I'd also like to point out that the last couple of Mars missions by NASA are still ongoing. The fact that this technology lasts for several years under the harsh weather conditions on Mars, is incredibly cost effective and an accomplishment on its own. The Mars orbiter is still assisting in the communication between this and future rovers, and earth. The previous rover is also still in operation.

People who think these sorts of missions are without merit, have learned nothing from our long history of scientiffic discoveries. And worse, they lack the imagination to dream.

But I am a proud dreamer, and I believe the future depicted in shows like Star Trek or the Expanse is not outside our reach. If history has shown us anything, it's that with enough willpower we can do anything. Yes, even put a man on the moon.


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## Horwath (Feb 23, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Because we _stopped_.  We no longer have the facilities and tooling.  *While we have the plans for the Saturn V (the only rocket to take people out of low Earth orbit), the manufacturing processes for some of the parts have been lost to time.  To recreate a Saturn V, we'd need to figure out how to make them again with sufficient quality.*
> 
> From there, there are two reasons why we have lost the capability - one is that, due to the perceived high costs in both money and lives, NASA has been forced to become extremely risk-averse.  If NASA missions fail, it becomes a point of politics, not of science and engineering.  The other is that there is no such thing as a "general purpose rocket", and there are no general purpose rocket parts.  In order to design a launch system, you have to define the requirements that system must meet.  And, again due to politics, NASA has not been allowed to settle on what missions their next heavy launch vehicle is supposed to serve.
> 
> Between the risk aversion, and not knowing what the mission is, development on a new system is extremely slow.  Compared to, say, Space X, which has no issues if their test vehicles blow up, so long as the result is a reliable flight.  They get to revel in and learn from mistakes in a way NASA cannot.



I agree 99% with you, except the bolded part.
NASA didn't suffer "The burning of library of Alexandria". They KNOW how to make Saturn V. And they can make it if needed in one year or less.
But, simply there is not interest as there is no money for it.
As I stated in my last post, in mid-60s, NASA budget was near 4,5% of federal budget and they could literally burn money. Now they have 9X less and the have to weight in every mission for possible benefit and linked costs.

If NASA had 5% federal budget from 60s till today, we would have people on Mars already. Maybe they would have died or have a much larger risk from cancer because of radiation, but we would have seen that leap in exploration.

Damn the Soviets and their failed Luna project. If they landed on Moon in 1970, space race would have continued towards Mars.

EDIT: and don't get me started on James Webb Space Telescope, which now after 10 years of delaying, finally has finalized most final of final launch date of 31.10.2021.
Until it gets delayed again for next final launch day...


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## Imaculata (Feb 23, 2021)

Horwath said:


> As I stated in my last post, in mid-60s, NASA budget was near 4,5% of federal budget and they could literally burn money. Now they have 9X less and the have to weight in every mission for possible benefit and linked costs.




It is so frustrating. The USA invests so much of its money on the military, which is like a bottomless moneypit. Imagine if even half of that money was invested in space exploration. Where could we be?

But many people are unable to look beyond their own horizons, and only ask what will this do for me right now? I wish people had a different perspective.


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## Retreater (Feb 23, 2021)

You know if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, through which America has suffered more deaths than any other nation, I'd be more likely to see the merit in "exploration for the fun of it." If we didn't have failing schools, a crumbling infrastructure, declining life expectancies, inadequate healthcare, and just generally a lower standard of living than the rest of the developed world, maybe I'd agree. 
Put great minds to work on that kind of stuff.


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## Ryujin (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> You know if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, through which America has suffered more deaths than any other nation, I'd be more likely to see the merit in "exploration for the fun of it." If we didn't have failing schools, a crumbling infrastructure, declining life expectancies, inadequate healthcare, and just generally a lower standard of living than the rest of the developed world, maybe I'd agree.
> Put great minds to work on that kind of stuff.



Space exploration, especially manned space exploration, has yielded many medical advances. It's not wasted money, even in times such as these.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Horwath said:


> NASA didn't suffer "The burning of library of Alexandria". They KNOW how to make Saturn V. And they can make it if needed in one year or less.




The #1 reason arguments start on this site is that people overstate another's position for effect.  You may get away with it with other folks, but not with me.  

No, NASA didn't have a burning of the library of Alexandria.  That indicates a loss of nearly everything, and I made no such suggestion.  Your statement here may seem poetic, but is a gross misrepresentation.  Ironic that something so inaccurate is in a science-themed thread.

The missing information isn't NASA's.  The specifications of all the parts is known, yes.  However, the _methods_ used to create some of the parts was not recorded by the manufacturers, who were, I must reiterate, not NASA proper.  The program was never intended to create a model of rocket that NASA would use for decades into the future.  So, there wasn't a drive to collect such information (which would have been a hassle, as in some cases it was apparently proprietary, not industry-standard practice).  This was especially true in some of the materials for seals and other non-metal parts, where chemistry matters so much.


----------



## Imaculata (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> You know if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, through which America has suffered more deaths than any other nation, I'd be more likely to see the merit in "exploration for the fun of it." If we didn't have failing schools, a crumbling infrastructure, declining life expectancies, inadequate healthcare, and just generally a lower standard of living than the rest of the developed world, maybe I'd agree.
> Put great minds to work on that kind of stuff.




None of those issues require great minds. They require a desire to make it happen, and the voice of the people to protest the current system. 

Besides, do you really think anyone at NASA is trying to put a rover on Mars because it is just fun to do so? Do you think they are having a derby along with the previous rover on the surface of Mars? We explore Mars, because there is a large gap in our knowledge about space and our own universe. Filling that gap, will yield a lot of knowledge and many advancements in technology that are currently hard to predict, but which you and I will reap the benefits of.

Space exploration is one of the few areas of science where humanity is able to overcome their differences and work together, for the benefit of all mankind.


----------



## Arilyn (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> You know if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, through which America has suffered more deaths than any other nation, I'd be more likely to see the merit in "exploration for the fun of it." If we didn't have failing schools, a crumbling infrastructure, declining life expectancies, inadequate healthcare, and just generally a lower standard of living than the rest of the developed world, maybe I'd agree.
> Put great minds to work on that kind of stuff.



What good does NASA do? If you want to totally ignore their accomplishments:

NASA employs 17,000 people, and supports 312,000 jobs nationwide. They generated 64.3 billion total economic output in the fiscal year 2019. NASA generates 7 billion in federal, state and local taxes.


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## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Retreater said:


> You know if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic, through which America has suffered more deaths than any other nation, I'd be more likely to see the merit in "exploration for the fun of it."  If we didn't have failing schools, a crumbling infrastructure, declining life expectancies, inadequate healthcare, and just generally a lower standard of living than the rest of the developed world, maybe I'd agree.




Except, of course, that the NASA budget is only half of one percent of the US budget.  Cutting it would not substantially impact the major problems on the ground.

And except, of course, that NASA's budget is spent _on Earth_, and mostly within the US.  All those dollars go into paying salaries of people who live on Earth, and to companies who make all the parts that NASA uses.  It is not removed from the economy.

And, except, of course, that of all the government programs out there, NASA is one of the few that generates more value in the overall economy than it costs.  We listed a few spinoff technologies, but overall, they are legion, and their value to the private sector is in excess of NASA'a budget.

Economically speaking, cutting NASA is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  In terms of overall dollars, cutting it is a _losing_ proposition.



Retreater said:


> Put great minds to work on that kind of stuff.




It isn't like NASA is the sole repository of great minds.  You note the pandemic as a point - There were great minds left, right, and center were trying desperately to tell the Administration what needed to happen, both in terms of mitigation plans, and for the vaccine rollout.  They were ignored.  Plans already created were tossed out.

The block to handling these other problems is not lack of genius, or lack of money that could come from NASA.  It is lack of political will.  Beyond that, we get into real-world politics.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> What good does NASA do? If you want to totally ignore their accomplishments:
> 
> NASA employs 17,000 people, and supports 312,000 jobs nationwide. They generated 64.3 billion total economic output in the fiscal year 2019. NASA generates 7 billion in federal, state and local taxes.




Hey, @Arilyn , I'd love a cite on these numbers for use in other discussions, if you have it.

Note: in 2019, NASA's budget was $22.6 billion.  Their output was $64.3 billion?  They output nearly triple what they cost.  Seems a good investment to me.


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## Ryujin (Feb 23, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Hey, @Arilyn , I'd love a cite on these numbers for use in other discussions, if you have it.
> 
> Note: in 2019, NASA's budget was $22.6 billion.  Their output was $64.3 billion?  They output nearly triple what they cost.  Seems a good investment to me.



Their 2020 Fiscal Report and other such documents would be a good source of those numbers. For example in 2020 they list 16,520 employees.









						FY 2020 Budget Request
					

NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind.




					www.nasa.gov


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## Arilyn (Feb 23, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Their 2020 Fiscal Report and other such documents would be a good source of those numbers. For example in 2020 they list 16,520 employees.
> 
> 
> 
> ...






Ryujin said:


> Their 2020 Fiscal Report and other such documents would be a good source of those numbers. For example in 2020 they list 16,520 employees.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks. You beat me to it. There are also several NASA economic impact studies, that pop up on a Google search.


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## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> There are also several NASA economic impact studies, that pop up on a Google search.




Yeah, but it sets such a better example if the person who makes the assertion shows their evidence, rather than telling folks who might not believe you that they can google it.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 23, 2021)

Okay, this is funny.









						'Dare mighty things': hidden message found on Nasa Mars rover parachute
					

Social media users say message is encoded in red-and-white pattern on parachute




					www.theguardian.com


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## Arilyn (Feb 23, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Yeah, but it sets such a better example if the person who makes the assertion shows their evidence, rather than telling folks who might not believe you that they can google it.



Ryujin beat me to it.  The google suggestion was made because there are a lot of other sources out there that I thought I'd just mention.


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## Rabulias (Feb 23, 2021)

Not wanting to stray too far into politics, but I will note that it seems to me there has been a marked dismissal of science, math, learning, knowledge, and experts in general in a portion of American society over the last few decades. That attitude has consequences that we are seeing today.

Though I am heartened by the efforts to focus on STEM over the last few years, and I am also buoyed by projects like Perseverance.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

Rabulias said:


> Not wanting to stray too far into politics, but I will note that it seems to me there has been a marked dismissal of science, math, learning, knowledge, and experts in general in a portion of American society over the last few decades.




More than the past few decades.  One can see anti-intellectual sentiment going back to the early days of the nation.  Its root isn't strictly political, but is more broadly present in the culture.


----------



## Orius (Feb 24, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I'm not trying to troll or criticize anyone's interest, but I'm left wondering what the point of this is. Haven't we had rovers on Mars for the past 40 years (or longer)?




They haven't all been rovers as other people pointed out.  The Viking landers were stationary, as was Phoenix.  And the Viking landers had technology that was over 45 years old as well.  While the Viking landers returned no evidence of life on Mars, science and technology has advanced since their landings.  Possibly the Viking landers were in very lifeless areas of Mars, or as some people have speculated, the crudeness of the instruments used may have destroyed any evidence of life.  This current mission not only has much more advanced technology, but it's in a place that would have been conducive to supporting any Martian life that may have existed.  Not only does this rover have better instruments to investigate specific scientific questions we have about Mars, but it's also designed to leave behind samples that a future mission can return to Earth that scientists can study directly in ways a rover can't.

The point of all of this is to determine if life did exist on Mars in the past and if any sort of life still exists.  It's still an open question, and answering it is of fundamental importance to any manned presence on Mars.  Beyond that the whole question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe is one of the most fundamental unanswered questions in science today, one of the top 10 if not top 5 questions.

I very strongly disagree with anyone who thinks space exploration is a total waste of money, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum.



Umbran said:


> More than the past few decades.  One can see anti-intellectual sentiment going back to the early days of the nation.  Its root isn't strictly political, but is more broadly present in the culture.




While there's always been that anti-intellectualism, it hasn't always been the same as it is today.  Early Americans didn't really idealize stupidity, but rather they valued practical learning and education that was more immediately applicable to their daily lives and would help them prosper rather than more theoretical ideas.  Modern anti-intellectualism isn't entirely the same, but there's a lot of it that's very political in nature.


----------



## Horwath (Feb 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> The missing information isn't NASA's.  The specifications of all the parts is known, yes.  However, the _methods_ used to create some of the parts was not recorded by the manufacturers, who were, I must reiterate, not NASA proper.  The program was never intended to create a model of rocket that NASA would use for decades into the future.  So, there wasn't a drive to collect such information (which would have been a hassle, as in some cases it was apparently proprietary, not industry-standard practice).  This was especially true in some of the materials for seals and other non-metal parts, where chemistry matters so much.



All of this is true and yes, many companies that produced parts for Saturn program do not exist anymore, but claims that it is impossible to make another rocket of that size and that trust just fuels the fire of conspiracy theorist that say that the whole Apollo program was staged. 
I am not even going to comment those folks 

But saying that today engineers cannot (re)make that machine with more than 50 additional years of global experience in rocketry in little insulting to those folks. Yes, todays version would not be a carbon copy of those made in 60s/70s as some things would have to made by new companies and some parts would made anew, and also some parts would be much better(and maybe cheaper) if made with todays technology.

One fact is also true that, when you adjust for inflation, you can get 11-12 Atlas V launches for one Saturn V. And as we can see today NASA budget is 9× smaller than in the 60s we can see why they are even not trying to build one. 
Other reason is that they obviously decided that there is nothing new that can be found on Lunar surface to justify this huge cost.


----------



## Imaculata (Feb 24, 2021)

I'm just stunned whenever people say "Why are we doing this?". I'm sure when people were working on the first aircrafts, there were folks who asked the same question. Why bother? What is the point? Now thousands of people fly across the earth every day.

And as stated, the question whether life exists (or existed) on Mars is one of the most important in science today. It may shed light on where we come from, and if there might be life on other planets.


----------



## Horwath (Feb 24, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I'm just stunned whenever people say "Why are we doing this?". I'm sure when people were working on the first aircrafts, there were folks who asked the same question. Why bother? What is the point? Now thousands of people fly across the earth every day.
> 
> And as stated, the question whether life exists (or existed) on Mars is one of the most important in science today. It may shed light on where we come from, and if there might be life on other planets.



people said that humans cannot survive train speed because it's faster than human running...

And yes, if we can prove that there was life on Mars, then we can say that Space is full of it. 1 planet in Solar system could be a cosmic accident, but two planets? Next to each other? Yes, there will always be a theory that life was brought to Earth from Mars, or vice-versa.


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## Retreater (Feb 24, 2021)

I guess my practical side is saying if you don't find the evidence of life on Mars, will you stop looking on Mars? Likely not. It will be another rover checking again and again until, well, forever. It's like sending a satellite into space to try to find God. 
Contrasting it to the manned flight on earth scientific advancement - we knew it was possible to fly. We had been doing it for years with balloons and gliders and saw birds doing it. We just had to develop the technology to do it ourselves. So if Mars had some evidence of life that we could observe from earth, and then we sent a rover in an attempt to make contact or study it, that would be a comparison to manned flight. We have been observing Mars for 40+ years (20+ years with other rovers) and have found nothing. Time to move on.
Sending rovers to Mars is the equivalent of rednecks throwing different things on a fire to see what will happen.


----------



## ART! (Feb 24, 2021)

Rabulias said:


> Not wanting to stray too far into politics, but I will note that it seems to me there has been a marked dismissal of science, math, learning, knowledge, and experts in general in a portion of American society over the last few decades. That attitude has consequences that we are seeing today.
> 
> Though I am heartened by the efforts to focus on STEM over the last few years, and I am also buoyed by projects like Perseverance.






Umbran said:


> More than the past few decades.  One can see anti-intellectual sentiment going back to the early days of the nation.  Its root isn't strictly political, but is more broadly present in the culture.



There are strains of conservative (note the small "c") thinking that _actively disdain knowledge_.

(I had this pointed out to me years ago by a fairly conservative, very intelligent, devoutly religious relative - whom I really like and respect despite disagreeing with them on myriad issues. That observation changed how I see a lot of things.)


----------



## Imaculata (Feb 24, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I guess my practical side is saying if you don't find the evidence of life on Mars, will you stop looking on Mars? Likely not. It will be another rover checking again and again until, well, forever. It's like sending a satellite into space to try to find God.




Not really. We know for a fact that life exists, and that our effort to look for it is there for not pointless. And even if we didn't find it on Mars, there are plenty of other things to study about Mars that will broaden our understanding of our galaxy. These missions are very directed and precise. It is not even in the same ballpark, or the same continent, as sending a satellite into space to find god.



Retreater said:


> So if Mars had some evidence of life that we could observe from earth, and then we sent a rover in an attempt to make contact or study it, that would be a comparison to manned flight.




That kind of defeats the point of going there doesn't it? If we knew there was life already, we didn't need to go looking for it. And it's not like we don't have reasons to believe there 'could be' (or could have been) life on Mars, at some point in time. Mars has ice. Mars had water. Therefor the Rover is investigating a delta we spotted.



Retreater said:


> We have been observing Mars for 40+ years (20+ years with other rovers) and have found nothing. Time to move on.




No, we have observed Mars from very far away for a long while. But we have only started investigating the surface of Mars for a couple of years. Only now is the technology far enough to enable us to do that. Plus we've only investigated a very small area of Mars.

Would you investigate one part of a desert on earth, and conclude there is no life on earth because you didn't find it there? Thats how silly that sounds.



Retreater said:


> Sending rovers to Mars is the equivalent of rednecks throwing different things on a fire to see what will happen.




That quote just betrays an embarassing lack of understanding of NASA's work, and how science explores the galaxy. When you explore another planet, you don't know what you'll find ahead of time. But it takes years of planning, testing, preparations and research. Previous missions have given us tons of valuable data, and this one will yield much much more. Especially once the samples are returned to earth, and we can study them in our own labs. You think we are just tossing random rovers at random planets?

I'm sorry if studying space rocks isn't as interesting as finding a giant crashed alien spaceship to you. But in science we study to learn. And if you care about learning new things, space rocks are plenty exciting.


----------



## embee (Feb 24, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Would you investigate one part of a desert on earth, and conclude there is no life on earth because you didn't find it there? Thats how silly that sounds.



The Star Wars Universe would like a word with you.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

ART! said:


> (I had this pointed out to me years ago by a fairly conservative, very intelligent, devoutly religious relative - whom I really like and respect despite disagreeing with them on myriad issues. That observation changed how I see a lot of things.)




I'm going to step this away from politics and religion, and cast it in a different light.  It can be seen as an upshot of our persistent ideal of rugged individualism and exceptionalism.  

Our iconic hero is the cowboy - a man of no particular learning or understanding of the world, with some animal handling skill which is largely irrelevant to our story, who comes into town and, knowing little to nothing about the situation, and through not being willing to take crap from anyone and a few well-placed bullets, solves problems the locals haven't been able to deal with for years.  He then gets the girl as a prize, and rides off to the next town, presumably to solve its problems as well.

Our persistent myth is that you (for every particular "you" - for ART! and Horwath and me and Imaculata and every other of the 300+ million people in the nation) can be/do whatever you want to be/do.  You can do this by dint of persistence and can-do spirit - actually understanding anything is a tertiary consideration, behind grit and personal attractiveness.  This is very convenient, because learning things is hard, and everyone imagines they have grit.

These kind of myths set us up for failure, because they are untrue, and they characterize failure as a lack of the few valued virtues - and since nobody wants to admit they lack the valued virtues, they find scapegoats - typically folks who succeeded by actually knowing what they are doing, or people in out-groups.


----------



## Retreater (Feb 24, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> You think we are just tossing random rovers at random planets?



No, but we are doing the most convenient one, and have been stuck on Mars for decades.
We are (hopefully) learning how to do this on more promising locations. 
Mars is like one of those Star Wars planets. It's uniform because of the environment there. It's all rock and desert. And at the rate we're exploring the cosmos, I'll be long dead before anything interesting happens.


----------



## Imaculata (Feb 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> These kind of myths set us up for failure, because they are untrue, and they characterize failure as a lack of the few valued virtues - and since nobody wants to admit they lack the valued virtues, they find scapegoats - typically folks who succeeded by actually knowing what they are doing, or people in out-groups.




That was beautiful.


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## Imaculata (Feb 24, 2021)

Retreater said:


> No, but we are doing the most convenient one, and have been stuck on Mars for decades.




Science takes time. 'Stuck' in this case, simply means busy learning all kinds of wonderful stuff.



Retreater said:


> We are (hopefully) learning how to do this on more promising locations.




This IS a promising location, but you've got to start somewhere. There are several planets with an environment a good deal more hostile than that of Mars. Given the fact that most countries that undertake these kinds of missions have tried and failed to reach our closest planet, how about we stick with the closest planet for now? Once we feel like we can reliably land there, we can move on to more challenging projects.

Plus, the work being done here might form the foundation for the first manned journey to Mars, and the first base on Mars. This can then provide a springboard for further exploration of our solarsystem, as we venture deeper and deeper into the great unknown.



Retreater said:


> Mars is like one of those Star Wars planets. It's uniform because of the environment there. It's all rock and desert. And at the rate we're exploring the cosmos, I'll be long dead before anything interesting happens.




I'd say something very interesting just did happen.

It just depends on how you look at it... Landing a rover on Mars with a frickin' skycrane system and ai navigation is beyond cool. Just look at this! This is scifi stuff! We can do this now:


----------



## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

Retreater said:


> I guess my practical side is saying if you don't find the evidence of life on Mars, will you stop looking on Mars?




Eventually, yes.  There are other places to look for life, after all.  Once we have sufficient evidence (or lack of evidence), we will look elsewhere.  Mind you, we are nowhere near what we'd call sufficient evidence, because our ability to do experiments and explore is so limited at such remove.



Retreater said:


> So if Mars had some evidence of life that we could observe from earth, and then we sent a rover in an attempt to make contact or study it, that would be a comparison to manned flight.




So, the Wright Brothers were engineers, not scientists.  The scientific principle upon which flight is based was discovered by Bernoulli back in 1738.  However, that principle was not discovered in the context of trying to fly - Bernoulli was working in hydrodynamics.  It just happens to be that air is also a fluid, and so Sir George Cayley could apply that principle when developing the airfoil generations later in 1810.  The Wright Brothers added some structural engineering and improved control systems in 1900.

And this is how science typically goes.  The principle or information you find at one time is later (often much later) used in unrelated applications by other people.  This is the value of research for the sake of research - you cannot predict what science bits will be needed a decade or a century in the future.  So, trying to limit people to targeted pursuits with known outcomes will put a decided drag on advancement.



Retreater said:


> Sending rovers to Mars is the equivalent of rednecks throwing different things on a fire to see what will happen.




You do realize that doing this _systematically_ was some of the founding work of chemistry, right?  And that writ very large and with very complicated mathematics, this is the high-energy physics of colliders, which can be characterized as trying to figure out how a mechanical watch works by throwing it at a brick wall really hard, and watching the pieces fly out.

My doctoral thesis was effectively about smashing watches against walls. 

Your "practical side" is apparently uninformed about how well these things pay off over time.  Your entire technological world is based on what was, at its time, like rednecks throwing things into a fire to see what would happen.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

Retreater said:


> No, but we are doing the most convenient one, and have been stuck on Mars for decades.




No, we haven't been stuck on Mars.  There's all sorts of other things going on - In the time since the first landing on Mars, we've done explorations of the moons and atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, some basic workup of Uranus and Neptune, and a most excellent flyby of Pluto.  We've done sample returns of solar wind, comet tails.  Landed on and done sample returns of asteroids.  Tested solar sails and ion drives....

With respect... you seem _profoundly_ out of the loop on what NASA's been doing. Maybe you should stop making judgements, and start getting informed.



Retreater said:


> And at the rate we're exploring the cosmos, I'll be long dead before anything interesting happens.




Dude.  It isn't about you.


----------



## trappedslider (Feb 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> My doctoral thesis was effectively about smashing watches against walls.



Now,all i have is an image of Umbran talking about the best way to smash a watch as part of his thesis defense "It's under hand but using your off hand with a twist but it has to be going at about 5 MPH"


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## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

trappedslider said:


> Now,all i have is an image of Umbran talking about the best way to smash a watch as part of his thesis defense "It's under hand but using your off hand with a twist but it has to be going at about 5 MPH"




It was more about figuring out what some of the resutling whirling of gears implied about the teeny-tiny screws, but yeah.


----------



## Istbor (Feb 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> No, we haven't been stuck on Mars.  There's all sorts of other things going on - In the time since the first landing on Mars, we've done explorations of the moons and atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, some basic workup of Uranus and Neptune, and a most excellent flyby of Pluto.  We've done sample returns of solar wind, comet tails.  Landed on and done sample returns of asteroids.  Tested solar sails and ion drives....
> 
> With respect... you seem _profoundly_ out of the loop on what NASA's been doing. Maybe you should stop making judgements, and start getting informed.
> 
> ...



Humanity has been slowly losing our will or perhaps even ability to think generationally. At least from my perspective as a rugged capitalistic American. Obviously all of that colors how I see the world. 

It is a trait that I hope has a resurgence.


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## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

Istbor said:


> Humanity has been slowly losing our will or perhaps even ability to think generationally.




It is not clear that we've ever really had that ability in any consistent way.


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## Istbor (Feb 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> It is not clear that we've ever really had that ability in any consistent way.



Fair. Only noting that in the past we have begun structures or feats of engineering that wouldn't be complete until our children's children were of age. Perhaps some of that was due to technology and construction methods of the time, but I have to think at some point there were people asking what the point was, and enough people thought it worth while to complete for people they would never meet.


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## ART! (Feb 24, 2021)

Istbor said:


> Fair. Only noting that in the past we have begun structures or feats of engineering that wouldn't be complete until our children's children were of age. Perhaps some of that was due to technology and construction methods of the time, but I have to think at some point there were people asking what the point was, and enough people thought it worth while to complete for people they would never meet.



Or they were slaves and didn't have a choice.


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## Istbor (Feb 24, 2021)

ART! said:


> Or they were slaves and didn't have a choice.



Sigh, that somewhat misses the point, but sure. Some of the projects I can think of were during very different socio-economic periods, where you didn't have to pay your labor for their time, but simply keep them alive. Others were not.


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## Retreater (Feb 24, 2021)

I wanted to thank everyone for helping to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Seriously.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 24, 2021)

Istbor said:


> Sigh, that somewhat misses the point, but sure.




Well, I dunno.  The classic examples of slave-built multi-lifetime projects are pyramids, and they don't benefit the living, so are hardly examples of long-timescale projects for future generations.



Istbor said:


> Some of the projects I can think of were during very different socio-economic periods, where you didn't have to pay your labor for their time, but simply keep them alive. Others were not.




How many of those were vanity projects for the national leader, vs projects that were actually for the people?  Tombs are out, for same reason as the pyramids.  We can accept, say the Cathedral of Notre Dame as at least a building for public use.  The Roman road network took a long time to complete, but it wasn't conceived, planned, or executed as a single project.  For similar reasons, I don't think "building a city" counts as a single project.


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## Ryujin (Feb 24, 2021)

Ideally, if we don't find life, or evidence of life on Mars, over the coming decades we *become* the life on Mars. What is being done now paves the way for that. I don't really think that anyone wants to go to Mars if we can't reliably get stuff to the surface in one piece, for example.


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## trappedslider (Feb 24, 2021)

Remember we found life but it was covered by sector 7



Spoiler


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## Imaculata (Feb 24, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Ideally, if we don't find life, or evidence of life on Mars, over the coming decades we *become* the life on Mars. What is being done now paves the way for that. I don't really think that anyone wants to go to Mars if we can't reliably get stuff to the surface in one piece, for example.




Indeed. One of the methods discussed for a possible longer stay on Mars, is to deliver prefab buildings and supplies ahead of said mission, so that everything is ready for when the first human visitors arrive.

In order to do that, we'd first need to be able to deliver objects to the surface of Mars reliably. But we'd also need a further study of circumstances on the surface.


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## freyar (Feb 25, 2021)

I'm just really happy to see lots of people posting in support of basic science!


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## Rabulias (Feb 25, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> In order to do that, we'd first need to be able to deliver objects to the surface of Mars reliably. But we'd also need a further study of circumstances on the surface.



This. Heck, we build places on bad land here on Earth all the time (sinkholes, earthquakes, mudslides, etc.). We _really _need to find a stable place to build on Mars if we plan to go there.


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## briggart (Feb 25, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Well, I dunno.  The classic examples of slave-built multi-lifetime projects are pyramids, and they don't benefit the living, so are hardly examples of long-timescale projects for future generations.



If you are referring to the Egyptian pyramids, my understanding is that there is compelling evidence they were built by paid workers, not slaves, and that they were not just vanity projects, but they played a significant role in creating create a national/religious identity for the unified Egypt (though this may have been an unintended side effect).


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## Umbran (Feb 25, 2021)

briggart said:


> If you are referring to the Egyptian pyramids, my understanding is that there is compelling evidence they were built by paid workers, not slaves




When it gets beyond compelling evidence, and to consensus, then I'll change my position on that point.



briggart said:


> , and that they were not just vanity projects, but they played a significant role in creating create a national/religious identity for the unified Egypt (though this may have been an unintended side effect).




I will accept that, much later, they became cultural icons, but that seems to me to fit in the unintended side effects bin.


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## Arilyn (Feb 25, 2021)

There has been detailed archaeological work done in recent years on the lives of ordinary Egyptians, as well as ancient Egyptian social structure. Slaves were not employed in the building of the pyramids. This idea was popularized by Hollywood movies. They were paid, and there was a large infrastructure of rotating workers, made up of labourers, engineers, scribes, painters, etc. They found evidence of long dormitory type houses where the workers stayed, supported by rows of bakers and brewers. The work was incredibly hard and dangerous, as evidenced by the wear and tear we can see in the bones. 

The first known recorded strike in human history took place during the reign of Rameses lll. The payment of grain was late. 

This is off topic, but the building of the vanity projects in Egypt did provide paid work, as well as support for secondary businesses such as bakers, painters, brewers, and supposedly tool makers. So, there is a little similarity to the positive effects NASA has on the economy. Okay, it's mostly a side topic.


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## briggart (Feb 25, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I will accept that, much later, they became cultural icons, but that seems to me to fit in the unintended side effects bin.



What I was referring was more along the lines of creating a national identity by bringing together people which until not a long time before belonged to different kingdoms and putting them to work together on a common project, and in that way providing a set of shared experiences that helped these two groups of people to see themselves as part of a larger entity.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 25, 2021)

As I am getting older, I can't get as excited as I used to be about these things, but I still feel these are quite important missions.
The universe is ridiculously big. We know so little about it. We should always try to learn more about it. 
And the idea that we might figure out more about the past, present or future potential of life on Mars is pretty amazing actually. Hearing our first sounds from Mars is crazy. And the new video material is impressive. We've really come a long way. 

I don't believe that Mars will be something we will realistically colonize (at least not in the sense the Expanse did), but just trying to solve the problems of building stuff that survives there for long, and potentially having some kind of outpost there (or on the Moon) is going to also help us solve problems on Earth. Pretty much anything really bad that could happen to Earth or rather the ecosystem we rely on, be it climate change, supervolcano, nuclear holocaust or asteroid strike, can probably benefit from what we're solving out there. And that's just the goal-oriented research. The stuff we figure out along the way might yield to completely new, unexpected developments. 
The early concepts of machines that can calculate stuff automatically naturally gave us the idea that we might have "thinking machines" at some point that could maybe translate stuff or solve complicated equations or store the world's knowledge or whatever, but few people imagined how it would transform how we live and work. And giving how far we still have to go in the realm of artificial intelligence and sapient robots - the "side benefits" and unpredicted transformations happened while we are still on our march toward some of those grand visions.


On a side note: 
I just started watching "For All Mankind", and so far it has been really exciting view on a "what-could-have-been". It kinda brings me back to how I felt about research like this as a kid. It has of course an easier time because it's a "TV" show and things can happen that make compelling stories. I enjoy it a lot so far. It might stretch what was actually realistically possible in terms of space exploration back then (but I have no idea if it does), but it stays so close to it that so far it seems low to non-existent on the fictional science...


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## trappedslider (Feb 26, 2021)

D'aww NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars is carrying an adorable 'family portrait' of Martian rovers


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## Horwath (Feb 26, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> There has been detailed archaeological work done in recent years on the lives of ordinary Egyptians, as well as ancient Egyptian social structure. Slaves were not employed in the building of the pyramids. This idea was popularized by Hollywood movies. They were paid, and there was a large infrastructure of rotating workers, made up of labourers, engineers, scribes, painters, etc. They found evidence of long dormitory type houses where the workers stayed, supported by rows of bakers and brewers. The work was incredibly hard and dangerous, as evidenced by the wear and tear we can see in the bones.
> 
> The first known recorded strike in human history took place during the reign of Rameses lll. The payment of grain was late.
> 
> This is off topic, but the building of the vanity projects in Egypt did provide paid work, as well as support for secondary businesses such as bakers, painters, brewers, and supposedly tool makers. So, there is a little similarity to the positive effects NASA has on the economy. Okay, it's mostly a side topic.



This all may be true to degree.

As ancient Egypt had "levels" of slavery, from captured as POW, from people who sold themselves and their families into servitude and state mandated forced labor(that was paid for, but still was hard physical labor). 

Any version of those might be used for pyramids. 

Even if your were "free", having been forced to hard labor, might feel same as slavery, even if you did get housing, food and some beer in addition to your paycheck.


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## Arilyn (Feb 26, 2021)

Horwath said:


> This all may be true to degree.
> 
> As ancient Egypt had "levels" of slavery, from captured as POW, from people who sold themselves and their families into servitude and state mandated forced labor(that was paid for, but still was hard physical labor).
> 
> ...



It seems the social structure had some similarities to feudal England, so not free in the way we think of it. I'm certainly not trying to make the life of an Egyptian commoner seem rosy. Hard life, early death! And yes, Egyptians had slaves. But the bulk of the pyramid labour force weren't. It's the idea of thousands of slaves labouring away under a master's lash that has been refuted thoroughly. 

In later eras, after the Egyptians abandoned pyramids for more hidden tombs many of the workers, who knew the tombs' locations, would loot the tombs they helped build. Very few ended up executed for it, because officials were given a share to look the other way. Some things just never change about human nature.


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## trappedslider (Feb 26, 2021)




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## trappedslider (Feb 26, 2021)

Getting back to the Rover (if that's okay with everyone) NASA just unveiled a high-def, 360-degree panorama of Mars from the Perseverance rover. It's made from 142 photos.









						NASA’s Perseverance Rover Gives HD Panoramic View of Landing Site
					

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover got its first high-definition look around its new home in Jezero Crater on Feb. 21, after rotating its mast, or “head,” 360 degrees, allowing the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument to capture its first panorama after touching down on the Red Planet on Feb 18.




					www.nasa.gov


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## Istbor (Mar 3, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Well, I dunno.  The classic examples of slave-built multi-lifetime projects are pyramids, and they don't benefit the living, so are hardly examples of long-timescale projects for future generations.
> 
> 
> 
> How many of those were vanity projects for the national leader, vs projects that were actually for the people?  Tombs are out, for same reason as the pyramids.  We can accept, say the Cathedral of Notre Dame as at least a building for public use.  The Roman road network took a long time to complete, but it wasn't conceived, planned, or executed as a single project.  For similar reasons, I don't think "building a city" counts as a single project.



My realm of thought was centered on some Cathedral's that took lifetimes to complete. But yes, I can see where a nation or leader's vanity could be the cause of the actual project. May be modern thinking here, but that sort of project seems less and less likely.


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## Umbran (Mar 3, 2021)

Istbor said:


> My realm of thought was centered on some Cathedral's that took lifetimes to complete. But yes, I can see where a nation or leader's vanity could be the cause of the actual project.




So, not intending a dig at the Roman Catholic Church - I'm noting a historical point: back in the 1300s, when Notre Dame was completed, among its other aspects, the Roman Catholic Church was a significant political power - so "vanity of a nation" pretty much fits for cathedrals.  



Istbor said:


> May be modern thinking here, but that sort of project seems less and less likely.




Well, I suspect that the boondoggle/value ratio for such projects is historically not that great.  We probably shouldn't be taking on such things with great frequency.


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## Imaculata (Mar 3, 2021)

Istbor said:


> My realm of thought was centered on some Cathedral's that took lifetimes to complete.




Sagrada Famelia? That thing should be finished a few years from now.


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## Ryujin (Mar 3, 2021)

Umbran said:


> So, not intending a dig at the Roman Catholic Church - I'm noting a historical point: back in the 1300s, when Notre Dame was completed, among its other aspects, the Roman Catholic Church was a significant political power - so "vanity of a nation" pretty much fits for cathedrals.



Or vanity of a ruler (Louis VII, I believe).


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## Umbran (Mar 4, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Or vanity of a ruler (Louis VII, I believe).




Yah.  Either way.


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## trappedslider (Mar 5, 2021)

NASA will revel in Perseverance rover's 'firsts' on Mars today and you can follow it live
					

NASA will show off Perseverance's antics at 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT).




					www.space.com


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## trappedslider (Mar 6, 2021)




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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2021)

Sojourner was really, really cute.


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## trappedslider (Mar 6, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Sojourner was really, really cute.
> 
> View attachment 133735



Even cuter when it's basically a puppy in The Martian rolling around Mark's hab .


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## trappedslider (Mar 10, 2021)

Perseverance rover spies its shadow on Mars (photo) six more weks of something?


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## trappedslider (Mar 11, 2021)

Great now we're attacking planets head on Relax with the calming sound of NASA’s Perseverance firing lasers on Mars


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2021)

Why go to space if you aren't going to fire lasers?


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## Ryujin (Mar 11, 2021)

Somewhat disappointed that it's an SUV sized rover and not sharks that got the lasers.


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2021)

Well, they have to find the Mars-sharks before they can mount the lasers on them.


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## Rabulias (Mar 11, 2021)

So that's why they went where it looked like the water used to be...


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## Umbran (Mar 11, 2021)

It only stands to reason.


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## trappedslider (Mar 12, 2021)

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Mission Honors Navajo Language now the Japanese won't know what Nasa is talking about as they make plans.


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## trappedslider (Mar 18, 2021)

Which one of you taught the rover how to drive? Mars rover sends back grinding, squealing sounds of driving


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## trappedslider (Mar 22, 2021)

Mars helicopter Ingenuity gets 1st taste of Red Planet air (video)
					

The move is a big step toward Ingenuity's test flights, which could take place in early April.




					www.space.com


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## trappedslider (Apr 1, 2021)

ohhh look a rock _zap_ NASA Perseverance rover investigates 'odd' rock on Mars, zaps it with a laser


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## trappedslider (Apr 4, 2021)




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## trappedslider (Apr 11, 2021)

uh oh NASA delays Mars helicopter flight after a crucial rotor-blade-spinning test ended abruptly


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## trappedslider (Apr 18, 2021)

we are go for flight NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces troublesome spin test


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## Umbran (Apr 19, 2021)

Yep.  The attempt to fly at 9:30 AM EDT tomorrow!

Edit:  Friend who told me that time now very contrite, as apparently they cannot tell AM from PM, and cannot remember which way to modify for time zones.  

I wasn't going to be up at 3:30 AM anyway, but still disappointing.


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## Umbran (Apr 19, 2021)

Here's some video from Perseverance.


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## Umbran (Apr 19, 2021)

I renamed the thread to capture that this isn't about the landing any more.


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## trappedslider (Apr 21, 2021)

so, you have 10 mins of air, what do you say? NASA's Perseverance rover turns a tiny bit of Mars air into breathable oxygen


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## Umbran (Apr 25, 2021)

And now, a 50 meter flight!


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## Azuresun (May 6, 2021)

trappedslider said:


> so, you have 10 mins of air, what do you say? NASA's Perseverance rover turns a tiny bit of Mars air into breathable oxygen




Well, what a lot of social media says is "Why are we making oxygen on Mars when India needs it more?" Along with the familiar breast-beating about how we're "polluting" and "ruining" the freezing, choking, irradiated wasteland.

....social media has some really stupid content on it, if you didn't already know.


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## Orius (May 7, 2021)

What morons.  Any serious attempt to colonize Mars is going to need some kind of oxygen producing tech -- it would be far too costly to send all of what's needed on a spacecraft.  This, like the drone, was an experiment to test tech that could be very useful in future Mars exploration.


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