GeekwithEnvy

Mars

LeVar Burton Explains NASA’s Martian MAVEN Mission

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In this cool NASA Public Service Announcement, LeVar Burton tells us all about MAVEN’s mission and explains why it’s important.  On November 18th, NASA has had a successful launch of MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission. The Atlas V rocket lifted off at approximately 1:30 P.M EST and is now on it’s way towards Mars to hopefully allow us to better understand why Mars has become so inhospitable and to possibly help us better understand our climate here on Earth.

We’re currently about 14,000 miles away from Earth and heading out to the Red Planet right now,” – MAVEN Project Manager David Mitchell-

NASA is trying to understand why most of the Martian atmosphere has disappeared and just how it lost all of it’s liquid water. Perhaps we can even answer the question we have all been really wanting to know, was there ever life on Mars? The only way to find out is to keep on studying our neighboring planet and to continue to dig deeper into the past of the great red planet.

NASA 2020 Focus is Life on Mars

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Mars2020RoverConcept
Mars 2020 Rover Concept (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

On July 09, 2013 NASA discussed their outline for the 2020 Mars Rover. Their focus will be primarily on looking for signs of past life on the red planet as well as collecting samples to bring back to Earth for analysis.  The sample information could help with future manned missions to Mars as we would need to have a greater understanding of the resources available to us.

There are many hazards on the martian surface that must be better understood before we go sending our best to go walking around out there. Even the dust of Mars could be very dangerous to explorers, add into account the higher radiation levels and potential for wild weather and you could be in real trouble.

NASA’s 2020 mission aims to build on the tremendous success of Curiosity. The 2020 mission will not only look for signs of past life but also attempt to understand what it takes for life to take hold. NASA will also focus on how to use the resources on Mars to survive long periods of time on the planet. Creating oxygen, collecting carbon dioxide, and creating fuel are just a few examples of the engineering hurdles that the Mars 2020 mission could help us jump.

 The Mars 2020 mission concept does not presume that life ever existed on Mars, however, given the recent Curiosity findings, past Martian life seems possible, and we should begin the difficult endeavor of seeking the signs of life. No matter what we learn, we would make significant progress in understanding the circumstances of early life existing on Earth and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.” – Jack Mustard, chairman of the Science Definition Team and a professor at the Geological Sciences at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Want a more in-depth look at the future plans for Mars Rover missions? The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) offers a rich experience with the latest updates and multimedia.

 

PayPal Goes Galactic With Space Currency

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The question that you may or may not have ever asked; what currency will we use in space? PayPal is trying to answer this question by officially launching PayPal Galactic. It’s one of the problems that no one ever really seems to talk about, until now.

I often think about how people could soon be spending their vacation in a “space hotel” and how we could set-up shop on Mars and start building cites and growing our own food there but I never thought about how we would pay for things in these places. It may sound like crazy science fiction movie but I think it’s a great time to start figuring out these problems as space becomes more accessible.

Pat Rawlings_J. Spencer, Donut Robot Moon

As space tourism programs are opening space travel to ‘the rest of us’ this drives questions about the commercialization of space. We are launching PayPal Galactic, in conjunction with leaders in the scientific community, to increase public awareness of the important questions that need to be addressed,” -David Marcus, PayPal’s President. 

Even if spending your vacation on Mars doesn’t happen during your lifetime, it doesn’t mean that it will never happen. It’s the way we are built as humans, we want to explore and push the limits of what we can do and where we can go, so space colonization is highly likely if not completely inevitable. One day, generations after us may need to study their history books to prepare for a test that focuses on the earliest settlers who came to Mars and built the first cities. Perhaps PayPal will be in those books as the pioneers who helped create the first universal space currency.

PayPal is currently working with the SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) to help bring this issue to light and hopefully make all of this happen. PayPal Galactic also has Buzz Aldrin talking about the issue, whom you can see in the video above.

So, What do you think about PayPal Galactic? Are we ready to talk about space currency?

 

Curiosity Drills a Hole into Mars

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Curiosity drills a hole into a Rock on Mars
Curiosity drill site (Source: NASA, JPL-CalTech, MSSS)

The Mars rover Curiosity has drilled a small hole into a rock on the surface of the martian planet today. The hole is about 2cm deep and this “mini-drill” test is in preparation for a larger drilling operation to be performed later on.

The test was performed on a patch of flat rock called “John Klein.The team plans to use Curiosity’s laboratory instruments to analyze sample powder from inside the rock to learn more about the site’s environmental history. Eventually researchers plan to find out whether or not the environmental conditions for life ever existed on the red planet.

For the official post you can head to the NASA news site

Big NASA Discovery On Mars? Not So Much

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About a week ago we received news that NASA was possibly on the brink of a major discovery, in fact it was mentioned that it could be for the “History Books”. Well, unfortunately it doesn’t seem like were going to get that kind of news from Mars anytime soon.

This discovery that apparently never happened is being described as a “big misunderstanding”. Here is the original report that I read from NPR. Planet Mars Viewed From Space

“Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something remarkable. “This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good.”

“Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he’ll tell me what the heck he’s found, but he’s not providing any more information.”

This was from an interview between science correspondent Joe Palca and scientist John Grotzinger. Apparently, what were being told now is that John meant to say that the mission in it’s entirety is historical and that in the next couple of years we expect to make great discoveries.

Something sound a bit strange here? This was big news that made it’s way quickly around the world and that means NASA had to have heard it too. The big question here is if NASA did hear this report earlier then why didn’t they try to correct this earlier?

They were still sampling soil at the time of the interview and were anxiously waiting for results, but apparently they weren’t “History Worthy”. Either way you look at this, it’s still a bit of let down. I guess we will just have to keep our hopes up for future discoveries on Mars.