Humans caused earth's warming... psh

According to Abdussamatov, the sun is what caused the warming of the earth and this is evident in the melting of Mars. So they've been lying to us all these years... well take a look and make your own conclusion

Pluto and Its Cousins

This article explains why Pluto was named a planet in the first place. It discusses how the "planet" was discovered and how few classification types we had to give it at the time. The article then goes on the tell why Pluto lost its status and the other objects out in the Kupier Belt it resembles. What is really interesting is how these objects are found. The article explains that we find these objects by noticing their tiny movement at night. THis is the same way Pluto was originally found, only there were no computers to help back then. It makes the discovery of Pluto seem amazing and very improbable, and actually gives Pluto back some of its grandeur. It may no longer be a planet, but look at how phenomenal it was that we ever noticed it enough to think it was a planet.

Looking for Life All over Again

This article talks about the newest method for looking for life on Mars. Well, it's not entirely a new method, but scientists are trying to figure out a way to do mass spectroscopy on non-volitile things. They can do this here on Earth. The problem is such a machine would be both huge and physically dangerous on Mars. Researchers are trying to create a new, smaller and better version that could go to Mars with the next spate of landers. While they are hopeful, they have not had much luck. Maybe this new influx of money will help things along.

Visionary, Epic, Crazy...or your next paper topic?

the ESA (Eurpoean Space Agency) is dedicated to science and space exploration. To prove it they held a conference to talk about new science, crazy experiments, and the future of space exploration. They discussed some pretty epic stuff, from looking for planets in other solar systems with terrestrial spectrum to studying black holes. Ladies and Gentlemen, Cosmic Vision 1015-1025: Europe's vision of the future (Ok, I totaly made that byline up).

Those crazy Europeans and their 3D pictures

Everyone here has probably heard by now of Rosetta and its (her, his? what is the proper pronoun for a satelite? What do you think?) fly by of Mars to pick up speed or whatvever on its trajectory to the Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, if not, you should check out Brendon's article about it.

But, did you guys hear what those silly Euros did on their fly by (besides drop of Mars landers?), they took pictures of Mars in...3D!! Now, when I heard this, I assumed that they did some computer-imaging, terrain maping, composite photos or something, but no. When they said 3D, they mean old-school, put on your 3-D glasses, red-blue pictures. They also took some pictures and strung them together to make a movie of Phobos casting a shadow on Mars.

Oh, those crazy Europeans.

Urey Will Test for Specific Building Blocks of Life

The device called Urey: Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector, is designed to test for the chemical building blocks of life to a sensitivity about a million times that of previous tests. The molecules it will be testing for are amino acids. The primary argument that has been set forth before is that these acids occur in nature, and are not necessarily of organic origin. But, Urey can tell. Amino acids in nature come in a racemic mixture of stereoisomers, whereas those from life are all one stereoisomer. Think of it like hands or feet. One is right handed the other left, if they are from non-biological origin its mixture of right to left is 50/50. All life on earth uses almost solely one type. They're hoping to find just one, which would give a lot of support the idea of life on Mars. Yet, if they find both, it doesn't mean there's no life because life on Mars could use both (there are a few instances of this happening on Earth).

Rosetta Measures Mars' Magnetic Environment

Rosetta has been in the news recently for sending back images of Mars and for performing a crucial part of its orbital pathway by decelerating around Mars and changing directions back toward Earth. However, it also measured Mars' Magnetic Environment as it flew by, showing how solar radiation is deflected and slowed by Mars' meager magnetic environment. This sort of information is essential in determining the amount of radiation protection that astronauts will face when on the surface of Mars.

NASA Mars Rover Spirit Status 23 February 2007

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23436

The Mars Rover Spirit is still functioning and taking measurements of Mars atmospheric opacity. However, the rovers arms are no longer being used. Engineers must perform diagnostic tests to determine why there has been positioning errors with the arms. However, everything else on the rover is still functioning normally.

Using Mars' Orbit

This article talks about how the Rosetta probe used the Martian gravity to slow its speed to travel to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The probe was launched March 2, 2004. This article kind of reminds me of a worksheet we had to do....

NASA Builds a Rollercoaster

One of NASA's new plans to let astronauts and others to escape the launch tower should an emergency come about.

Buzz Aldrin's Roadmap to Mars

Buzz Aldrin has been working on plans for an expidition to Mars which involves spacecraft in permanent oribt between Mars and Earth. In this article written by Buzz he explains just how we will get to Mars, the challenges we'll face and why a "Cycler" spacecraft in permanent orbit will take the politicians out of the program.

Back to the Moon!!

Popular Mechanics takes a look at the new plans and new technologies that NASA is looking to use for going back to the moon.

Radiation You Say? We'll let You Know!

Geiger-counters are so passe. Now, a tiny microdosimeter instrument (great word to drop at parties, don't you think?) has been developed to help Astronauts detect when radiation is around, and how to get away. This instrument can be put inside spacesuits, so everyone can have their very own high-tech raditation-detector. On a mission that wil probably encounter raditation, en route and on Mars or the moon, this will be a very nice additional tool for our future intersystem trail-blazers.

Radiation Consequences of Mars Mission

This article outlines some of the stuff we've said in class about the solar radiation that would bombard astronauts flying to Mars. It outlines a few possible strategies to protect the ship, but doesn't go into much detail, just simply states the possibilities. The article seems to indicate that keeping the astronauts alive flying to Mars and back might actually be the greatest risk, not actually living on the planet.

Still Can't Find the Beagle 2

This brief article explains that new high resolution photos of crater H2O still show no sign of the Beagle 2. This spacecraft was supposed to land in the creater in December 2003, but it disappeared sometime during or just after landing. All efforts to find it, including this one, have failed. It looks like we're going to have to go to Mars to find this missing lander.

Rover Software Looks Promising

As a follow up to an article I found a few weeks ago, this article dicusses how the Martian rover did with its new navigation software in the driver's seat. This first live test of the program was promising as the rover behaved exactly how it was supposed to. NASA is hopeful that the software will continue to perform well, thus allowing the rovers a small degree of autonomy in their movements. The main perk of this new software will be the rover's ability to get itself out of dead ends without someone back on Earth manually driving it (which takes a while due to communication lag). The rover is not going to go wandering around by itself if this software is successful, but it will be able to navigate more intelligently than its blind turning proceedure of the past.

NASA Successfully Launches Science Satellite Quintet

NASA launched five probes into space after having to delay the launch for almost a week because of poor weather. The probes will be studying the source of some of Earth's most colorful auroral displays.

USA's Mars and Moon Goals are Blocking Space Station

The USA's new goals of sending people back to the moon and eventually on to Mars is sapping the money away from the international Space Station, which is still not complete. Money that could have been used, and was originally allocated for experiments on the ISS is now being used to fund the more ambitious goal of lunar and martian space walks.

The Ice is Melting

This is an article I found that discusses recent evidence that Mars is moving out of an Ice Age. This could have pretty big implications because it means that the planet is not geologically dead. The data was all gathered from the Odyssey spacecraft which has been orbiting and monitoring the Martian surface for a full Martian year.

Oppritunity passes 10k.

Pop quiz hot shots, if ａ Martian rover travels 10 kilometers on Mars, how many miles is it on Earth? (click here for answer) Just thought it was a neat fun fact.

Spirit's Spectrometer

This talks about the Mars rover Spirit, and its recent activities on the planet. It also details the use of its thermal emission spectrometer on some rocks around its current position. Although maybe not that entertaining, the article definitely illustrates how much effort and time goes into each meter that the rovers travel, and how much caution and care missions like this require. I can't imagine how much caution missions with humans to mars are going to require when they need a whole team to decide what path a robot should take.

Why Science is Ignored

This article talks about something I had never thought about much. It discusses how science in popular culture has become linked with evil. It's the mad scientists who understands physics, not the heroes. This, the author claims, is why most people, Americans especially, do not pay attention to science. The article points out that even reading the article makes the reader unique or at least unusual. People no longer care about science like they used to do hundreds of years ago. This is because science has done and is capable of doing frightening things. It may be most peoples' favorite subject in high school, but beyond that, science seems to make people leary by its very possibilities.

ESA spacecraft nears its mars swingby

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070215-14523200-bc-europe-esa-rosetta.xml

ESA engineers are preparing for tomorrow, when they will do a swingby of mars. Engineers are using the gravity of mars to put the spacecraft on track to visit a comet that is 4.4 billion miles away. The trip will take a total of 10 years.

Looking for Life Again

This article is a brief look at what the pursuit of life on Mars is going to be like. First the author explains why looking for current life is unfeasible at the moment, because any life is miles below the surface - miles that no rover will be able to dig through. The article then outlines what we will be able to do on Mars, which is to look for evidence of past life. A new rover scheduled for launch in 2009 will be able to perform this task of looking for fossils. Such a rover will hopefully be looking at old sedimentary deposits on Mars using organic chemistry and some type of mass spectroscopy. What the article claims we may find are something like stromatolites, colonies of microbes. These colonies will be very hard to find, but locations where water once flowed are, as always, the best bet.

Oh man, HiRISE does it again.

So, I should probably be working on my paper, but this is some pretty sweet stuff. Scientists have found evidence of water on Mars...again, I know, but still. Finding water on Mars just never stops being exciting. Granted, even the scientists admit that the evidence could be from water that existed millions of years ago, but the evidence is only getting clearer (even for those who always believed it).

HiRISE (that is one popular telescope) found the offending pictures on a pass over the deep canyon Valles Marineris.

Space Historian Sees Cyborgs in Our Future

This article speculates on the evolution of humans and how it will be affected by living on other planets.

Mass Spec to Explore for Life Signs on Mars

A group of scientists at John Hopkins Medical School just received a $750,000 grant from NASA to developed a tiny mass spectrometer that would be designed to search for the 'chemicals of life'. The mass spec would be designed to go with a mission scheduled to launch in 2013. They hope to identify molecules that could indicate the building blocks of life (analogous to the bases and sugar and phosphorus backbone that make up DNA).

Success for the Thales Space Laser Headed to Mars

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Success_For_Thales_Space_Laser_Headed_To_Mars_999.html

The Thales space laser programme in Paris has completed work on a a compact low weight laser that will operate for 2 years on mars. This laser will help to better analyze martian rocks. Tests have shown the the new laser and withstand impacts of 2000 g's.

Going to Mars via Ares

So this is about the rocket system Ares , that is currently being developed by NASA to propel people (probably Americans) to the Moon and Mars, as well as components to build cool stuff in space. The latest press release actually dates back from about a month ago, but this is some sweet stuff.

This new rocket system, named after the Greek counter part to the Roman god of war (Mars), has apparently passed first inspections by NASA, and is on its way to becoming the rocket of the future that will take Americans to the Moon and ultimately Mars. Sweet! Sounds like nothing is final yet, but make your own conclusions: here is the article.

Mars Rovers Get Four Upgrades

Through the magic of technology the Mars rovers currently on the red planet have had new capabilities literally 'beamed' to them. They can now make decisions of their own such as where to place their instruments instead of taking photos to send back for NASA to decide. The rovers have been on Mars now for over three years, far out lasting their projected life spans.

New material being developed for spacecraft that can 'heal' itself

At the University of Bristol as part of a project with the European Space Agency, a material that has the ability to patch itself after being punctured is in testing. It works much like our skin where blood flows to the cut and hardens into a scab, but this material uses a two part epoxy to do the work. It has withstood the first round of testing but now they are trying to develop this system into stronger materials and test it against extreme heat and in a vacuum.

CMU Software Makes Spirit and Opportunity Smarter

Software developed at Carnegie Mellon University was uploaded to Spirit and Opportunity last summer, however tests have just been made, and have proven successful. Several other tests will be run before they employ the software full time. It makes the rovers smarter about getting around things that get in their way. The software helps them navigate through rocky areas, instead of just looking one rock ahead, they can now plan out where they will be going, and can navigate back out of tricky spots.

MRO glitch is disrupting data

Glitches in the MRO is disrupting the data flow to Earth. Two of the instruments - the HiRISE and Mars Climate Sounder - are creating problems here on earth. Read more!

New Space Suits in the Offing

This article gives a very brief outline of research being conducted on a new style of space suit. The space suits used for the lunar missions had several problems, and one graduate student, Melissa Scott-Pandorf, seeks to rectify those issues. Mostly Scott-Pandorf seeks to improve the mobility of any future astronauts. This would include both more joint flexibility and better balance. How much she can improve on the old space suit is unknown, but she hopes to at least make falls less common than they were during the lunar mission. This research clearly shows that there is a good possibility that we may go back to the moon, because there is very little other application for this research. If we go back to the moon, maybe we really will send people to Mars. At the very least, Scott-Pandorf's research on better space suits will be waiting around for when we do go back into space.

Martian Hiker's Maps

While not that well written, this article tells of a very interesting occurence. From mapping data, scientists have created topographic maps of a very small portion of the Martian surface. NO hiker's are going to be able to utilize these maps for a very long time, but they serve another purpose inthe meantime. The maps are helpful for making accurate 3D models of a particular area, which in turn helps with planning where Martian landers will touch down and so forth. Although it seems sort of silly to make hiking maps of a planet no one has been to, it is really a good thing for improving our understanding of Mars.

Mars Desert Research Station

Out in Utah's desert, The Mars Society, the same one we wrote that review of their website, is running a Mars Desert Research Station. Robert Zubrin is quoted several times in the article, and talks primarily about how practice and actual experimentation is essential before all the money is spent to send people to Mars. They discuss "habitat design, exploration strategies, tools, equipment and crew selection," and have run a total of 56 teams through two week training/experiments. They're planning a four month mission to the Arctic, for similar reasons, but to test out all the items on a much longer time scale.

Moon Rocks? Try Martian Moon Rocks

This article talks about a concept mission to Phobos, and how the UK are thinking of doing it. They want to send a spacecraft into orbit around Mars, have another craft be launched from it to land on Phobos, run tests on the moon, capture rocks, launch off of the moon and be captured by the orbiting craft, and then return home. To me, that sounds like a lot of technical problems just for getting moon rocks. But, they have to practice all this stuff first before they try it on Mars first. They stress that the whole landing on a planet and then getting back off thing is really hard, and that's why they want to practice it on a low-gravity target first. They're thinking about launching in 2016.

Night time clouds

There are night time clouds that warm Mars during the nighttime. They have been thought to exist for some time now, but haven't been observed until now. These clouds warm Mars during the night. They are so hard to see because there is no sunlight for the clouds to reflect. Take a look at the article and images of clouds.

Send your name to Mars!

The Planetary Society is sending a CD with people's names on the Phoenix that will be landing on Mars in 2008. If you send your name in by February 12th, it will be included. The CD will include the names and "Vision of Mars" (a collection of art and stories from people of the 19th and 20th century). Check it out!

Astronaut Love Triangle Highlights Mars Mission Challenge: Avoiding Crazy on Long Flights

Someone Else may have already posted this but I found it to be particularly pertinent to our discussion in wednesday's class. It's a PopSci article specifically about how this event might affect a possible Mars mission.

Astronaut Love Triangle Highlights Mars Mission Challenge: Avoiding Crazy on Long Flights

NASA investigating problems on latest mars orbiter

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-02-08-mro-problems_x.htm

This article, posted yesterday by USA Today, details the problems that NASA is having with 2 instruments currently in orbit around Mars. The problems began last year, but have recently worsened. Because of these problems, one of the instruments is no longer able to be used. This instrument is called a climate sounder, and it maps the temperature, ice clouds, and amount of dust in mars' atmosphere.

Terraforming Mars

Steven Wintergerst has some crazy ideas about terraforming mars. He talks first of all the problems with colonizing mars. This section has some great information (not sure how accurate). After this he goes onto speculate and give his own opinion of what could be done. This is where it gets a little humorous. Especially pay attention to the section on reducing Mars' solar radiation. He claims that the core of mars just needs to be made molten again in order to create a magnetosphere like the one earth has that protects us from large radiation doses. He proposes a number of tasks that might get this job done such as nuclear devices detonated under ground or a large parabolic mirror reflected at the surface of the planet to heat it up.
Other than some of the spacey ideas, this page presents the problem at hand with colonizing the red planet and then brainstorms some entertaining ideas of how these might be fixed.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Hardware Problems

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is starting to have some glitches. This is understandable, as it is about to be the mars mission that has returned the most scientific data. Only one of its camera lenses (it has 14) is starting to be faulty, returning images with bad pixels or distorted data. An instrument that measures atmospheric distributions and ice has been malfunctioning to the point that it is temporarily being put out of commission until the think tank down here on earth figures out how to fix it. Regardless of whether the orbiter broke right now, it has still returned enormous amounts of data and has been instrumental in mapping the surface of mars to greater detail.

Kepler Mission Goes Looking for Extrasolar Planets

This article talks in detail about the Kepler Mission. This mission is bent on finding new extrasolar planets, hopefully of Earth size and within the habitable zone (where water would be liquid). The mission will monitor some 100,000 stars waiting to see when/if the star is obscured by an orbiting planet between earth and the star (like an eclipse). From the amount of diminished light, scientists shoudl be able to determine the size and orbital distance of any planets found. The concern at this point is how many planets will be found. We don't know how rare planets are, especially Earth-sized ones. This mission may shed some light on that, and if we're really lucky, a new planet(s) will be found that is a candidate for harboring life. Mars may have disappointed us by not having the life we theorized about, but maybe any new planet found by the Kepler Mission will revive the dream of extraterrestrial life.

Super Sunday: ISS Spacewalkers Complete Cooling System Overhaul

The International Space Station had some work done on its cooling system. It took seven hours for two astronauts in spacesuits, but the work was finished despite an ammonia leak. This was the second in a series of spacewalks.

I swear, iI read things other than Telescope Weekly, but still...

We cried for the Hubble, We cheered for HiRSE but prepare to have your mind blown by LMT!! I swear its just a coincidence, but telescopes are pretty freaking cool, don't you think? Yeah, but wait till you hear about this one:
LMT stands for Liquid Mirror Telescope, and it is made by "spinning reflective liquid, usually mercury" to create a reflective parabolla. On the earth the size of these telescopes are limited because they create wind when the spin, but on the moon... The plan right now is to build a 20 meter mirror. For reference, the Hubble has a 2.4 meter mirror, and its replacement will have 6m mirror. This telescope has the potential to "provide a depth of observation which would be unmatched with any telescope on Earth or in space"!! Heck yeah!

Just replace "Star Trek" with "Research is Good"

The difference between the tone and attitude of the two sites could not be more apparent. Where Hoagland’s site was obviously dedicated to espousing propaganda-like theories and solely interested in promoting his ancient-Martian theory, The Mars Society presented itself as a private Mars interest group, looking to stimulate and encourage any and all research about Mars. The home page of The Enterprise Mission’s site was enough for me to completely disregard anything else on the site, because as I scrolled down I was inundated with cynical advertisements for lectures on the latest cover-up and conspiracy theory. The skeptic in me had warning bells and red lights flashing within the first 10 seconds I read the page. The website is full of remarkable claims defended by questionable and sometimes non-existent evidence. The grandiose claims and the sparse evidence results in feeling like the whole website is more conspiracy-theory than science.

In comparison, the Mars Society presents a much less biased attitude towards Mars research. Their only true bias seems to be that Mars research should be more important and receive greater attention. Just replace the hokey Star Trek references and conspiracy theories with bulletins about political awareness and accolades about research, and they’re pretty much the same website.

In both cases, the websites aren’t libraries filled with a wealth of actual Mar’s information. They act more as a hub and start point, with myriads of links to other sites, promising more information. While they do provide limited (really basic) information, they act more as jump points for people to further pursue their interests, but don’t expect a lot of organization from either site.

Oh, and don’t forget your PayPal account, to continue funding for these not-for-profit organizations.

Super Bowl and New York Times Predict Junk

FedEx's ominous commercial during Sundays game of a man on the moon being vaporized by passing debris was a early forecast to The New York Times Science section today. Following the destruction by China last month of a weather satellite has caused growing concern for the amount of debris floating in the outer heavens. What this could mean is a potential hazard of all space objects in orbit. At its extreme too much debris could make it impossible to even launch into space without being destroyed.

Site for Next Mars Mission Debated

http://www.physorg.com/news89624006.html

Nasa is sending a stationary robot to the icy northern pole of mars this summer, however, they need to find a new landing site before they can do this. They thought that they had a landing site chosen, but new photos have shown that the original landing site is covered in huge boulders. Three other sites are currently being looked at, and are going to be further investigated to determine which site would be the best one for the robot.

How Earth Escaped Mars' Cold Fate

This article talks about how Earth suceeded in staying unfrozen while Mars did not early in both planets' histories. Scientists found a group of very old rocks on Earth, and their composition indicates that there was a high amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in Earth's early past. While it appears to be a bane of modern existence, carbon dioixde, and the greenhouse effect, seem to have kept Earth warm enough for water to flow back then when the sun was younger and much cooler. Mars was not so lucky (or maybe it was and something happened, we don't know), and lost its greenhouse effect before the sun warmed enough to keep the planet going on its own. Since Mars is farther away from the sun, the sun may not have ever been able to keep the planet warm, but the article doesn't talk about that. It focuses on the fact that we now have pretty good proof that Earth was once a sphere warmed by the greehouse process, and that enabled the planet to progress and live while Mars died.

Reviewing The Mars Society and The Enterprise Mission

After reviewing both The Mars Society and The Enterprise Mission I have to admit I was unimpressed with both. First, I looked at The Enterprise Mission website. All the banners were eye catching and flashy, but upon further inspection they came off as annoying advertising without any sort of organization. The menu at the top is a weak Star Trek reference that only made The Enterprise Mission seem nerdy and fake. Finally, it was hard to find any current news. They seem stuck in the past. Thumbs down overall.

Next, I looked at The Mars Society and was optimistic at first after having visited The Enterprise Mission. I liked that the goals of the site were listed at the very beginning and the articles and links on the main page were organized, clear, and current. However, I didn't like that you had to be a member to look at certain content. In the end, the Mars Society was better organized and seemed on top of things, but they come off as over eager and demanding. The interview with Robert Zubrin by USNews sums it up by saying "when it comes to the red planet, Robert Zubrin is a true believer and has spent decades agitating for a more ambitious NASA."

Overall, the Mars Society was better. Their info seemed more credible and there wasn't a conspiracy theory feeling like on the Enterprise Theory. In the end, both sites suffer from being too pushy with their agendas. I might consider using the Mars Society for info, but it wouldn't be my first choice and the Enterprise Theory is definitely out.

This Phoenix better not have to rise from any ashes

As the launch date for the mars scout Phoenix is drawing nearer, the scientists at Lockheed Martin in Colorado are starting to get scared. After building the Mars Polar Lander which crashed in 1999, the engineers are trying really hard to find any flaws in this one. If this one fails too, their funding would also likely fail, especially when they're already over $30m over budget. They don't think there are any problems, but they didn't think there were with the other one either, so they're scurrying about to find any last problems before its shipping date in May. It's scheduled to launch in August.

The Solar Wind at Mars

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_1.htm

This is an article put out by Nasa on January 31 2007 that details the effect that the solar wind is having on mars, due to the lack of a magnetosphere. The article discusses how scientists believe that whatever atmosphere used to exist on mars was litterally "blown away" due to the strong forces of the solar wind, which the earth is shielded from by the magnetosphere.

The Mars Society and The Enterprise Mission: A Short Review

After poking around both websites, I feel that they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

The Enterprise Mission website has a more flashy and commercial feeling. There are a lot of banners and graphics that are eye catching. But once you get past the bright colors and interesting fonts, you see that what they say isn't as impressive. All the website seems to reiterate time and time again is "[p]ublic understanding of major achievements of the Space Age over the past 30 years -- carried out by both the former Soviet Union and the United States -- increasingly seems to have been nothing more than a carefully constructed "version" of a much more extraordinary truth" or " Far more disturbing than this evidence (if it is indeed disturbing, to a generation raised on "Star Trek"...) is other, equally-documented evidence of a profound, deliberately politically-motivated cover-up of this important data by both major spacefaring nations... for more than 30 years". Basically, all its saying is that there is a lot of (government) opposition to finding extraterrestrial things (mainly living things) out in space. This sounds more like conspiracy theory jargon than anything. However, some of the external links contain less "conspiracy theory" driven information. A thing to note is a lot of the stuff on this website is older (from the late 90's). There are a lot of things that have changed since then.

Looking at the Mars Society website, just from first glance, this one has a more "educational" feeling. As soon as the homepage comes up, there are links to various articles, many of which are fairly to very recent. The downside is that you have to be a member of the website in order to read some of articles. After getting past the home page, you can see that there are some really interesting things to look at, such as the University Rover Challenge, the Translife / Mars Gravity Biosatellite, and the Archimedes Balloon Project. This website seems more of a place to get sources than to actually get information to use directly. They have an extensive list of external links.

The Mars Society website seems to be updated regularly as opposed to the Enterprise Mission website that has a lot of stuff from about 10 years (or more) ago. Although the Enterprise Mission website seems to be a little bit more one sided and very conspiracy theory oriented, it does provide places to get information to make your own conclusions. The Mars Society website I see more as a place to look for information (and articles!) instead of a place to get information. I like the fact that it is not as one-sided as the other website, but it lacks in the flashy eye catching stuff. I would probably look at this website for educational purposes only.

Chinese Long March 3A Rocket Orbits New Satellite

The Chinese have launched a new navigation satellite that is the first part of a system of satellites called Compass that will function similarly the U.S. Global Positioning System. More importantly, this launch kicks off a big year for the Chinese space program that includes up to ten planned launches.

Phoenix Getting Closer to Having a landing site

This article talks about how NASA is having problems finding a place for phoenix to land still. The good news is that they've now narrowed the choices down to three. They have a month to figure out which is the best. I guess they'll do that by taking more photos of the sites, but at this point I'm wondering what more they're going to learn with all this extra, expensive work.

Enterprise Mission - Warp Speed to the Nut House

I find it hard to take much of The Enterprise Mission website seriously. At first glance it just looks like some people having fun who have alot of time on their hands. Upon more thorough searching, one starts to realize that the site is run by a bunch of nuts. The first indication of this was in their mission statement where they use a quote from Neil Armstrong as evidence and support for their claim that NASA is hiding important information from the public in a huge conspiracy. Continuing down the page, every paragraph introduces new conspiracy theories.

The Mars Society site appears to have more focus than the Enterprise Mission, clearly stating their goal and the ways they wish to accomlpish it. Under the surface it does get a little stranger especially in the section 'Resources- Everything you need'. In this section they equip anyone who wants to help the society out with pictures, handouts for a meeting, sample letters to write to congress and basic information to memorize. This is not necessarily a bad idea but I think they need to take it one step at a time and not give someone who wants to convince people that we should go to mars cartoon pictures of martian space suits.

A new look at something old

This article says that the results of the Viking Mission in 1976 have been re-examined by Dirk Schulze-Makuch of WSU and Joop Houtkooper of Justus-Liebig-University in Germany (who wrote the paper presented) using our better understanding of extremophiles. The paper, presented at WSU, concluded that the life living on Mars uses hydrogen peroxide to survive. Could it be true?

Mars Society and Enterprise Mission

Overall, I thought that the Mars Society Website had a lot of good information, but it was kind of a boring, unexciting website. I thought it was really annoying that the first thing that pops up on the front page is a donation box asking for money. I did think it was good that the website clearly stated its purpose at the top, and then went on to state how they are going to reach their goals. This website comes across as being very legitimate and I would feel comfortable using it as a source for a paper.

I would not feel comfortable using anything off The Enterprise Mission as a source in a paper. There are obviously a lot of trekkies running around who are extremely devoted to Star Trek, but even they know that it is fiction. It doesn’t seem to me that modeling something after Star Trek is the best way to be taken seriously (but who knows, maybe that isn’t their goal). However, everything I read on the site kept me very entertained and made me want to read more. Reading about trekkies complaining about NASA is just pretty hilarious. I especially liked the article “When We’re Right, We’re Right.” Clearly the people running this website have very active imaginations.

Even though the Mars Society Website clearly had better information than The Enterprise Mission website, the stories on the Enterprise Mission were a lot more fun to read. This means that I’m probably most likely to waste time surfing their website than I am the Mars Society Website, so maybe Enterprise Mission is doing something right.

The Enterprise Mission and The Mars Society

Well, I think that the Enterprise Mission website is on level with the tabloids The Globe and Sun. The tabloids claim Jesus is back or Aliens captured Bush (and other such funny, although completely ridiculous claims). Whereas the Enterprise Mission just thinks that people have already been to Mars, and that there are government cover ups right and left. They claim that anything new and non-mainstream is going to be controversial, and that they are continually messaged by people thinking they are, well, not too rational. Several times, they say its time to start getting serious about what NASA is really up to, stressing serious. Overall, the site sounds, reads, and looks like a whole lot of space nerds (every third sentence refers to Star Trek) convinced of extraterrestrial ruins and government conspiracies. It is hard to take them seriously just looking at their site before even reading it, at which point it becomes even harder.

The Mars Society web site is so much better in pretty much every aspect. Even just looking at it, you would be more inclined to read what it has to say, regardless of its claims and assertions. The fact that it has their mission statement at the top of the first page, in three concise bulleted sentences, also goes a great way to understanding and accepting the site. You might not agree that getting the word out is a good thing, or that even going to Mars should happen, but you are not immediately skeptical because they never make a claim that can not be readily proven true (unlike The Enterprise, who say life has been discovered on Mars already - you'd think you would have heard about that if it was somewhat credible at all). The site also has links to other credible organizations, such as several universities.

The Mars Society, although perhaps run by people with the same zeal and fanaticism as The Enterprise Mission, has a completely different 'Mission Statement'. Where The Enterprise Mission wants to discover cover-ups and life on mars, the Mars Society wants to get there. One of these can be achieved through the scientific method, and one cannot. The Mars Society wants to "further the goal of the exploration and settlement" of Mars. They are trying to raise awareness of the possibility of getting to Mars, as well as researching and developing ways to get there and survive there. They can do this through performing experiments on earth in surprisingly Martian terrain (deserts of the Southwest) or even simulated atmosphere or terrain. In the film we watched in class, Robert Zubrin is determined to get there, and is devising ways to do so. Hoagland, of The Enterprise, does not really have any way to prove his hypotheses; and as such, it seems, has fallen to gaudy web ads and misleading fallacious arguments.


And, just in general, if you are trying to be taken serious by the general public, it probably is not a good idea to have, right next to your controversial claims, links to sites about UFO's, E.T., and the Mayan countdown to the end of civilization in 2012. Nor to have your website tied so intricately with a science fiction television show.

MGS sees changing face of mars

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=3503

This is an article that talks about how the geology of mars has changed over the past 30 years. It talks about the new technology that is being used to take higher resolution photo's of the planets surface.

Hubble what? Meet HiRISE.

So, forget the Hubble telescope. Yeah, it was fun while it lasted, and it had its run, but now make way for HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Experiment) , the biggest baddest telescope ever to leave orbit. Thats right, this telescope is actually orbiting Mars, and because Mars is so much further away from the Sun than Earth, some of the images it gets from the other planets is as good Hubble's! Click here to see a picture of Jupiter from Mars!

Life down deeper?

The article deals with the common topic of possible life still beneath the surface of Mars, however it states that a new study has theorized that life may be as far underground as 30 feet. It discusses a few of the reasons, the best locations to drill, and the technical hurdles to do so (large). drilling 30 feet down is sometimes difficult on earth, especially into hard rock, let alone lifting all the equipment into space, and then getting it to Mars safely.

MRO finds remnants of old landing spacecrafts

This article is a little old (from the beginning of December '06) but it has some good information. First, it says that MRO has found some US landing spacecrafts from the past. It also has information about the Phoenix mission and how the pictures that the MRO is taking now will help determine where the Phoenix landing site will be.