Next time you think sci-fi, think again

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]Indeed, if you look at the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander failures closer, you see that there were very serious, very basic fuck-ups. From an engineering point of view, such mistakes as were made then don't happen in even the most primitive industry here on earth.

we are talking about something that is not on this planet. Mars exploration, although with plenty of info, is still an untouched territory. we cannot just go in there guns blazing.

Quote[/b] ]When going to mars an AK-47 of course. And this has to be done on a larger scale. They can't be sending one or two probes every five years. They should be sending 20 of them each year. Make them cheaper and learn from the problems that occur.

how about NASA reusing same probe as this one every year? this would work too, with slight variations in task. however, bear in mind that there will be those who will complain of NASA making exploration more of trial and error through a lot of crashlanding and not getting the one-fits-a-lot solution.

[denoir 0]

As you said, it's still uncharted territory. Trial and error might be the only way to gain understanding. Sitting in your room making up theoretical models might be cheap, but you'll get little out of it in terms of how the world works. That's the Aristotelian approach that led to a 1500 years long period where virtually no scientific achievements were made.

Modern science (starting with Galilio) works in an iterative fashion: theory->measurement->new theory->measurement->new theory etc.

[Pipski 0]

In 1977 the two Voyager probes were launched. They orbited all the gas and ice giants and their moons, they flew through asteroid belts, were exposed to extreme radiation, had close encounter with micro-meteorites and are today, 27 years later still functioning perfectly.

And what is NASA capable today? Not even creating something that would last three weeks. Sad.  

NASA needs to be rebuilt, from bottom up. They need to get new, competent engineers and competent managers.

The 840 million dollar rovers should have had not one, but eight computers and not one radio transmitter but 10. There should have been so much redundency that you could attack it with a base ball bat and throw it in a pit of mud and that it would still survive.

You are completely right of course. imo the problem is the computers. Compare the PC you have now with the 8-bit computer you had as a kid (C64 or Atari or Spectrum). This computer is better right, but I bet you have way more problems with it than you did with the one you had 20 years ago. More sophistication == more liability.

[ralphwiggum 6]

As you said, it's still uncharted territory. Trial and error might be the only way to gain understanding. Sitting in your room making up theoretical models might be cheap, but you'll get little out of it in terms of how the world works. That's the Aristotelian approach that led to a 1500 years long period where virtually no scientific achievements were made.

Modern science (starting with Galilio) works in an iterative fashion: theory->measurement->new theory->measurement->new theory etc.

add the cost of each operation, then it becomes a bit of problem. there is a reason why NASA is on its careful path. they don't have the tree that grows money, so they can't just spary-and-pray. the level of caution that is holding NASA back now is a bit much, but i think not having one is also not a good option.

[ralphwiggum 6]

and i seriously hope they don't use MS products in mars probes.

[denoir 0]

and i seriously hope they don't use MS products in mars probes.

For the Mars probes they use Vx Works form Wind River system. It's a real-time OS based on unix. I know it very well as I've worked with it on the control systems of ABB industrial robots. It's ok, and fairly reliable, but not nearly as reliable as one would want.

The failure of the Mars Polar Lander was due to a bug in the VxWorks OS. A buffer used when forking tasks (creating new processes) was overloaded and the system came to a position where no new processes could be started. In practice it meant that the probe could not execute any of the commands issued from Earth.

And yes, it's always the software these days. Regular engineering has a reliability requirement paradigm that is millenia old. Software development lacks it and this is an issue that must be adressed. Software Engineering is becoming a more and more vital field. It may not be glamorous, but it is absolutely necessary today when we build real-world computer driven systems.

[bn880 5]

You are completely right of course. imo the problem is the computers. Compare the PC you have now with the 8-bit computer you had as a kid (C64 or Atari or Spectrum). This computer is better right, but I bet you have way more problems with it than you did with the one you had 20 years ago. More sophistication == more liability.

I agree with this, I think a lot of products are released (ok all), without 1/10th of the testing they should be getting. Furthermore standards mean nothing these days, and tolerances are followed as normals too often.

It's easy to put a buch of stuff together, but to make it reliable will take at least 10x the time invested to create the system in the first place. We are surrounded by piece of shit equipment, vehicles, power systems, space craft ;), almost everything is on the edge of not working.

EDIT: DAMN IT I forgot to add SOFTWAREZZ to that list... that's the most un-reliable product usually

[SpecOp9 0]

Water has been found on Mars-

Quote[/b] ]DARMSTADT, Germany (Jan. 23) - Europe's Mars orbiter has detected evidence of water on the planet, scientists at the European Space Agency announced Friday.

Mars Express, circling high above the surface, made the discovery on the Red Planet's south pole, said agency scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring - an indication that Mars may once have sustained life.

"We have been tracking it on the south pole and there we have detected water, probably for the first time," Bibring told a news conference at mission control in Darmstadt.

More than 40 years of Mars exploration have yielded inconclusive evidence of whether water was present on the planet.

Two U.S. orbiters, Mars Global Surveyor and the 2001 Mars Odyssey, have also been circling the planet searching for indications of water in the Martian past.

In October, a team of scientists reported Odyssey had detected on the surface of Mars copious amounts of a mineral that's easily weathered away in the presence of water. That suggested Mars has been a dry wasteland.

Weeks later, a second team reported evidence to the contrary after Global Surveyor beamed back images that show features apparently created by the meandering flow of rivers.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter is part of Europe's first mission to Mars. Mars Express hit orbit on Christmas Day and began transmitting its first data from the planet this month, starting with high-resolution pictures of the surface that captured in detail a huge Martian canyon.

The latest discovery was made by a device aboard the orbiter, a spectrometer, that is mapping the surface's mineral composition, Bibring said.

[kegetys 2]

Ironic that a while ago the NASA supporters were "laughing" at ESA for losing Beagle 2 and NASA landing Spirit sucessfully... Now the situation is opposite, ESA found ice and Spirit is having serious communication problems :P

[SpecOp9 0]

Ironic that a while ago the NASA supporters were "laughing" at ESA for losing Beagle 2 and NASA landing Spirit sucessfully... Now the situation is opposite, ESA found ice and Spirit is having serious communication problems :P

Where does it say they were laughing?

[kegetys 2]

Ironic that a while ago the NASA supporters were "laughing" at ESA for losing Beagle 2 and NASA landing Spirit sucessfully... Now the situation is opposite, ESA found ice and Spirit is having serious communication problems :P

Where does it say they were laughing?

I mean people commenting the issues in various websites etc, not NASA/ESA/etc. people itself.

[OmniMax 0]

You are completely right of course.  imo the problem is the computers.  Compare the PC you have now with the 8-bit computer you had as a kid (C64 or Atari or Spectrum).  This computer is better right, but I bet you have way more problems with it than you did with the one you had 20 years ago.  More sophistication == more liability.

The device they send into space has to be expensive.

Why? Because it's already expensive enough to launch stuff in space (try to find how much it would cost to launch 1lb into space and you'll see what I mean) so they figure make it do as many tasks as it can.

The reasons for not going to mars is apparent. There are so many variables in the situation... mainly long-term life support.

But as far as the probes crashing as Denoir said, yes, very sad.

Also, when you say "more sophistication" depends on what you mean. The reason you are having problems with your PC is the way it operates. The primary handling software (Operating System) is meant to be dynamic in such a way that it is unstable. Compare this to your microwave's propitary electronic operating system which is only meant to do a few tasks (display numbers, recieve input, activate microwave...)

The tasks of the microwave are small and already known.

The tasks of the operating system are known to a point (some dynamic\modular hardware) and the software is always different. If the tasks are predetermined\properitary, there should be a 0% error in terms of relability on the software level.

If you mean on a smaller level, I don't see how the complexity of a processor for example has to do with the liability besides the fact that crashing the thing will lose you all that money you invested and just litterally wasted.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

"NASA Gets New Signals From Mars Rover"

NASA engineers received a half-hour of total

transmissions Friday morning from the Spirit rover and

planned further communications with it in an effort to

diagnose and possibly patch up their ailing robotic patient

on Mars

full storry

[denoir 0]

Ironic that a while ago the NASA supporters were "laughing" at ESA for losing Beagle 2 and NASA landing Spirit sucessfully... Now the situation is opposite, ESA found ice and Spirit is having serious communication problems :P

On, the contrary. NASA lost experiments worth several million euros when Beagle was lost. And they were certainly not gloating.

On the other hand, I could not help but noticing a trace of false sympathy in BBC's reporting of the Spirit problems. But that's just the media, plus the loss of the Beagle was a very hard blow to British selfesteem. Howver the loss of a lander like Beagle or Spirit is a loss for everybody. The work that both NASA and ESA put down benefit the whole man kind. There is very little place for petty rivalry.

Anyway, I am delighted to hear that they've begun establishing comms with Spirit. I really hope they get the little bastard up and running again.

[kegetys 2]

On, the contrary. NASA lost experiments worth several million euros when Beagle was lost. And they were certainly not gloating.

Yeah, but the general public doesn't see them as a common good but instead turn it to a Europe vs USA thing immediately when something goes wrong on either side.

[Badgerboy 0]

Looks like the spirit is talking again.....

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]Yeah, but the general public doesn't see them as a common good but instead turn it to a Europe vs USA thing immediately when something goes wrong on either side.

I guess that is inevitable these days. One funny thing though, that I did notice. Before Beagle disappeared BBC and other British media refered to proudly as a completely British project. Once it went down, suddenly it was an ESA project  

Anyway, some better news: ESA's Mars Express has snapped some more amazing pictures and has found large deposits of water near the polar caps and measured its volume.

It has already sent over 100 GB of data to earth and in a month it has covered an area equivalent of to the land coverage of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Austria combined (nearly two million square kilometers). The area has been covered at a resolution of between 2 to 15 meters per pixel, which is interestingly, a better coverage than we have of most areas on  Earth.

I urge you to check out ESA's homepage for some stunning pictures. Here are a few examples:

[Tamme 0]

Second last looks like a river...

[denoir 0]

Indeed it is.

Quote[/b] ]

Water-formed channel

img]http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/sci_nat_enl_1074861807/img/1.jpg[/img]

This picture was taken on 15 January 2004, east of an area called the Hellas basin. It shows an area 100 km across, including a channel - Reull Vallis - once formed by flowing water. The landscape is seen in a vertical view, with north is at the top.

Oh yeah, and now after a month's work Mars Express has brought conclusive evidence of water on Mars and that there once was LOTS of it - great rivers that formed the landscape.

Don't quote images, Denoir!

[Tamme 0]

Is there anyway to estimate how long ago there still was water?

They haven't found any trace of vegetation, have they? So was it the same red landscape with rivers and such. That would've looked cool.

[denoir 0]

The next really exciting thing will be the  Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. It consists of the NASA Cassini orbiter and the ESA Huygens lander. Now Saturn is cool, but it's nothing compared to it's moon Titan that has an atmosphere of carbon-hydrates and water - combined into complex molecules - the building blocks of life. It's basically raining amino-acids and primitive proteins! The atmosphere is so thick that the Voyager probe that was the last visitor there could not see through it. And now a probe will be sent down.

If there is alien life in our solar system, then Titan, together with Jupiters Europa (thin ice layer upon a vast warm ocean that covers the entire moon) are our best bets of finding it.

[bn880 5]

yeah finally they realize there was water, well they have "proof", but actually when the US launched Spirit's airbags were pulled in you could already see a muddy like substance, pretty strange for a place without any water. This is really cool beans, there probably was life on mars then, or still could be in some mud? hmm

[Pipski 0]

Alternative explanations for the seeming `mud' have been put forward. One is that the airbags punctured and released a small amount of vapour. Water is still the top explanation though (or, to be more accurate, highly concentrated `brine' - H2O alone would either freeze or evaporate apparently). Electrostatic clumping of particles has also been suggested, but, in light of the ESA water findings, mud seems the most likely. But they say the `mud' is too close to the lander to be investigated by the rover - too high risk for some reason. They're considering making the rover `skid' a bit to try and churn up some more.

[denoir 0]

There are some interesting points about water on Mars.

There are plenty of meteorite craters on Mars, which could only be there due to a very thin atmosphere. Had there been water then it would have (like on Earth) evaporated and mixed with the CO2 atmosphere of mars. From H20 vapour there would have been created CH4 and O2 molecules, creating quite a different, thicker atmosphere and therefor prevented meteorites from reaching the ground. So something's not adding up.

The only explanation is some form of global climate catastrophy on Mars. Somehow the atmosphere rapidly deteriorated. Immense heat led to water vapour breaking down to O2 + H with. The oxygen bonded with the carbon. What was left was H2 molecules, which due to their light weight floated out into space while the CO2 created the new atmosphere. And this happened a long time ago when a lot of meteorites and asteroids were flying around in the solar system.

Did life evolve? The anicent parts of Mars such as Valles Mariners that are believed to be created by fluidic erosion (i.e water or co2 flowing) are between 3.5 and 4 billion years old. Mars is about as old as Earth (4.5 billion years). The large meteorite bombardment of the inner solar system stopped about 2-3 billions years ago. That gives us an upper bound. So in the best case scenario, Mars had time to develop life in about 2 billion years.

Well, if you compare it to Earth where it took 2 billion years for the most primitive photosyntetic bacteria to evolve, it's very questionable. At least if the rate of evolution was the same on Mars as on Earth.

On the other hand, we have found life on earth on the most inhospitable places, so one should not rule out that some other form of life evolved on Mars - life that was adapted to the climate conditions there. And if there really was a climate disaster on Mars, it's possible that it wiped out more or less everything alive and that it all had to start from scratch.

Who knows? One of three Viking probe tests for life was positive. The positive test was dismissed because it was discovered that an inorganic chemical reaction could trigger it. That chemical reaction would have however been impossible had there really been water in the ground. Since Viking, no other probes apart from the unfortunate Beagle2 have carried any tests for detecting live organisms.

- One funny thing: NASA's current primary mission (Spirit and Opportunity) is to determine if there is or ever was water on Mars. ESA's Mars Express has with it's discovery made 90% of the stuff carried by the two NASA rovers completely unnecessary.

[hellfish6 7]

EVIDENCE OF WATER FOUND ON MARS!!!

From Salon.com's news snippets

Quote[/b] ]Jan. 23, 2004 | DARMSTADT, Germany -- A European spacecraft has found the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on Mars, detecting molecules vaporizing from the Red Planet's south pole, scientists said Friday.

The quest for water on Mars - which could indicate life - has fascinated scientists for centuries.

The Mars Express, launched last year by the European Space Agency, made the discovery with its infrared camera while circling the planet's south pole.

Scientists have long believed the planet's poles contain frozen water, but previous findings - including NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter's evidence of large amounts of ice - were based more on inferences, European scientists said.

While the Mars Odyssey has indirectly shown the presence of water at the pole using temperature monitors, the European camera has for the first time been able to "literally map the polar cap" using infrared technology that shows where water molecules are present, said scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring.

"You look at the picture, look at the fingerprint, and say this is water ice," said agency scientist Allen Moorehouse. "This is the first time it's been detected on the ground. This is the first direct confirmation."

James Garvin, lead scientist for NASA's Mars exploration program, told The Associated Press on Friday that Mars Express had offered further confirmation of what scientists have long known: "Mars is a water planet."

At a news conference earlier, he said the Europeans' findings were "not unexpected."

"In terms of the impact, that's wonderful results," Garvin said. "It's instant science, and I think the science community is going to want some time to think about what that means in the context of what we're learning."

If Mars once had surface water, it had the potential to support life, although members of the European project have stressed that it was too early to draw conclusions.

In 2001, NASA's Mars Odyssey turned up evidence of lots of ice mixed with the soil, as little as 18 inches from the surface.

Phil Christensen, an Arizona State University professor involved in NASA's Mars projects, said the European findings bolstered such data.

"That is a very nice confirmation of the other measurements that have been previously made," he told AP by telephone.

As far back as 1940, scientists using telescopes saw vapors they believed indicated the presence of water. But in the 1960s, the first Mars mission revealed the planet to be frozen, dry and covered with craters and deep ravines.

Conflicting and inconclusive information has been coming in ever since.

The latest round of martian exploration, including Mars Express and NASA's twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are using highly sophisticated instruments to map the mineralogical makeup of the planet's surface and search for evidence of past water activity.

NASA received data from the Spirit rover Friday for the first time in two days, ending fears its mission may have come to a calamitous halt, although it is not yet functioning fully.

While the infrared camera on Mars Express analyzes reflections of sunlight to map the surface and determine its mineralogical and atmospheric composition, the rovers are on the ground searching for indications that water once flowed.

In coming months, European scientists will switch on Mars Express' powerful radar, which is capable of searching below the surface, beyond the range of the infrared camera. The radar will be probing for carbonates - contained in limestone - that would help prove whether water once flowed.

Information from all the instruments, as well as high-resolution images captured by another camera on the orbiter that has already sent back detailed pictures of Mars, will be pooled together to provide a more complete overall picture.

The data, including martian weather patterns, will be crucial for planning future missions, including the possibility of landing a human on the planet, said Michael McKay, European flight operations director.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter is part of Europe's first mission to Mars. Mars Express entered on Dec. 25 and began transmitting its first data from the planet this month. It has failed to pick up a signal from its surface probe, the British-made Beagle II, which had been scheduled to land Dec. 25.