The landing of the Curiosity rover was a huge hit for nasa in the summer of 2012. Now the space agency is letting its winnings ride with another bet on Mars. Last December, NASA announced plans to send a similar rover to the Red Planet in 2020—its seventh planned or active Mars mission—citing the low risk and cost savings of a mission reboot.
NASA's fixation on Mars (or on avoiding risks) comes at the expense of the rest of the solar system. Outer planets Uranus and Neptune have scarcely been explored. The same goes for Jupiter's moon Europa, which planetary scientists believe to be a promising habitat for extraterrestrial life.
Recently a team of researchers proposed a novel mission concept: a floating spacecraft that would explore the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn's moon Titan. But NASA opted instead for a Mars lander called InSight—which, like the 2020 rover, is a low-risk mission based on proved hardware.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
For interactive graphics about planetary exploration, see ScientificAmerican.com/mar2013/graphic-science
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28 Comments
Add CommentThere are good reasons to keep looking at Mars, risk factors notwithstanding: it is the only other place in the solar system where humans could conceivably live.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman space exploration is mainly for propaganda/bragging rights.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(It is very inefficient to send living organisms into space.)
Still, if NASA was looking to keep its astronaut program going, it would do well to sign up Bruce Willis to go after asteroids as a national priority.
(Why let science get in the way of a great angle to keep funding open?)
As long as we're casting this discussion as a gambler's risk/benefit analysis, we have to consider the potential wins other than having a "huge hit" (presumably in terms of public relations). Trouble with that is that every science dollar risked wins a pot we didn't even know we were playing for, from Galileo's discovery of mountains on Luna to the Voyager missions that did not buy the expected boring iceball moons, but instead found whole unique worlds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars is near and relatively easy to reach, and certainly hasn't yielded all its secrets. Be patient- the rest of the Solar System isn't going anywhere.
On the other hand, I'd be happier if there were an international effort dedicated to identifying rocks likely to impact Earth in say the next few decades... who knows what else it might find?
"I'd be happier if there were an international effort dedicated to identifying rocks likely to impact Earth in say the next few decades"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-> That was exactly my first thought too. Latest events have shown us how fragile we are. And a true international effort to fight this "common enemy" might might also help to foster intra-terrestrial cooperation. Sure I am too optimistic. But maybe that kind of optimism is, why our species has come so far...
Yes definitely. NASA is just a big waste of money period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho cares if there is other life out there when we muck up our own so much?
Shame on us if we export our violent species to the stars.
"Be patient- the rest of the Solar System isn't going anywhere."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe solar system isn't but people die in the meantime, especially with 30+ years between missions to place like Europa.
The really sad thing about this NASA's Mars obsession is that in difficult budget times like now the bias is particularly painful because there is no slack to get in another mission anyway.
NASA has spent $2.5 B on Curiosity and allocated $500 M to Maven, $500 M to Insight and another $2 B for MSL 2 (another Curiosity). Total $5 B. There is no money left for Europa or Titan, especially during budget cuts.
A proper mission to at least one of these two bodies would cost $ 2B. Again, due to budget cuts, this is not possible in the foreseeable future. If the replica of Curiosity didn't fly, this could happen now. With all the data collected by all the other missions, Mars science would hardly be affected without a repeat of Curiosity.
As things stand, if we are lucky, we will get 2 flybys of Europa from ESA in 2032 during their Ganymede orbiter mission.
The bias towards Mars is profound, ridiculous and deeply unscientific. Especially at a time when Mars looks less habitable than ever. With each mission another piece of evidence against habitability is collected :
1) Three separate missions failed to find organics (Viking 1-2, Phoenix). We'll see with super sensitive Curiosity.
2) The place is bone dry. Two separate ground penetrating RADAR mission (ESA's MARSIS and NASA's SHARAD) have found no water, not even a little lake under the polar caps where it would be obvious.
3) There is no volcanic activity or hot springs of any kind. if there were the THEMIS instrument would have found them.
4) The soil is hostile to life according to Phoenix results :
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=35954
Compare this to Europa with a deep ocean and Titan with a complex pre-biotic environment and one can only conclude that they deserve a lot more attention.
To get a real grasp of the depth of NASA's bias, consider the case of the Titan MARE mission. Someone proposed a mission o Titan's northern lakes for only $500M. But no, it had to be Mars again and NASA chose Insight instead.
Crushed between unscientific bias and budget cuts, the state of planetary exploration is very sad indeed.
"NASA's fixation on Mars (or on avoiding risks)"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not buy the "avoiding risks bit". If NASA was really avoiding risk, it would have never bet $2.5 B on the fantastically complex (and until then unproven) Curiosity landing system.
It just plain bias.
Curiosity worked, that's a great mission, but can we do something else too ?
There is not and never has been a more important endeavor of our civilization than the exploration and development of Mars, ultimately to terraform Mars. Nothing we have ever done compares to that in magnitude. And that would be the most eco-friendly act ever undertaken by the human species. By far-and-away the most important impact humans have ever had on terrestrial life or biota. Compared to that, global warming & climate change are a minor triviality, a minor blip in the evolution of terrestrial life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Terraforming of Mars is something well within our present technological capability. The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System. The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. In order for Life on Earth to expand it needs the help of humans, who can Terraform other planets to make them suitable for Terrestrial life. If you look at Mother Earth as a Living Organism, often called Gaia, then one can consider that the SOLE PURPOSE of humans is to take the PROGENY OF GAIA to other worlds. Thus Humans are the agents of reproduction for GIA. A truly NOBLE goal, to bond all people of Earth together in a singular quest. Humans may come & go, but we could create a wonderful legacy that would last BILLIONS OF YEARS. An achievement that would be the greatest event in the history of Terrestrial life since the Precambrian explosion.
Mars is actually an easy planet to Terraform, and can be done in a trivial one hundred years. Expanding Terrestrial Eco-systems to another World, makes up for all the damage humans have done to the Earth by a billion-fold. We have abandoned our duty to Mother Earth by our failure to embrace Space Colonization. A run-of-the-mill, Nuclear Powered Transport would get to Mars in 39 days. The most environmentally responsible action the human species have undertaken, ever. Indeed our failure to embrace our ability to achieve this goal is the greatest act of environmental destruction in human history.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
There is not and never has been a more important endeavor of our civilization than the exploration and development of Mars, ultimately to terraform Mars. Nothing we have ever done compares to that in magnitude. And that would be the most eco-friendly act ever undertaken by the human species. By far-and-away the most important impact humans have ever had on terrestrial life or biota. Compared to that, global warming & climate change are a minor triviality, a minor blip in the evolution of terrestrial life.
The Terraforming of Mars is something well within our present technological capability. The greatest and most Responsible Endeavor Human Civilization can undertake is to carry Terrestrial Life to other planets & moons in this Solar System. The #1 goal of Life is to expand to new environments. In order for Life on Earth to expand it needs the help of humans, who can Terraform other planets to make them suitable for Terrestrial life. If you look at Mother Earth as a Living Organism, often called Gaia, then one can consider that the SOLE PURPOSE of humans is to take the PROGENY OF GAIA to other worlds. Thus Humans are the agents of reproduction for GIA. A truly NOBLE goal, to bond all people of Earth together in a singular quest. Humans may come & go, but we could create a wonderful legacy that would last BILLIONS OF YEARS. An achievement that would be the greatest event in the history of Terrestrial life since the Precambrian explosion.
Mars is actually an easy planet to Terraform, and can be done in a trivial one hundred years. Expanding Terrestrial Eco-systems to another World, makes up for all the damage humans have done to the Earth by a billion-fold. We have abandoned our duty to Mother Earth by our failure to embrace Space Colonization. A run-of-the-mill, Nuclear Powered Transport would get to Mars in 39 days. The most environmentally responsible action the human species have undertaken, ever. Indeed our failure to embrace our ability to achieve this goal is the greatest act of environmental destruction in human history.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
"...In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life. Humans could not breath the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for humans ..simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across the planets surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities.."
enozo, there are huge reservoirs of water ice on Mars. It once had oceans, and life could easily have developed there before the Earth, and more likely Martian life would be carried to Earth by asteroid strikes. And it has been proven that even terrestrial microbes could survive under the Martian surface as does most microbial life on Earth, including within frozen ice. And water has and does flow onto the Martian surface more recently in its history. So it is entirely possible, even likely, that we have a Martian ancestry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is Mars is the easiest planet by far for us to Terraform, and the cost would be trivial compared to what we throw down the sewer on nutty scams here on Earth, or spend trying to kill each other.
And should anything happen to civilization on the Earth the Martian civilization would survive and even rebuild the Earth.
I'm all in favor of exploring other worlds for science reasons but Mars exploration is in a separate class from basic scientific research. It is a singular quest that could transform human civilization in a fundamental way. Many if not all major civilizations have undertaken much less important efforts with an even larger expenditure of resources proportionately. We need to get people to dream and think big once again, to build - not destroy, to expand - not contract. The imagination that would result would amplify our desire to explore Titan & Europa and many others by a large magnitude, in addition to Mars.
"I'm all in favor of exploring other worlds for science reasons but Mars exploration is in a separate class from basic scientific research."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, if that's the case, then additional Mars exploration should be funded from the human space program, not the measly funded scientific exploration program. Instead NASA is using the already scarce science funds to subsidize the much better funded human space program.
Yes, I would agree with that, but you should recognize that a serious worldwide effort to explore, terraform & colonize Mars will amplify the funding for science exploration of other planets, stars & moons by at least an order of magnitude. Just consider the impact of having space industrialization, nuclear powered ferries that make regular trips between Mars and Earth orbit, launch sites on the Moon, bases on the Mars moons, that would make exploration of Titan, Europa etc, just a minor addition to the budget, using resources & technology already available and developed for the Mars mission.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, I do think that NASA has become obsessed with Mars. More over, I think that ISRO (NASA's Indian counterpart) will eventually get dragged in this obsession willingly. I wonder how scientists ignore the fact that living on Mars, just like living on Earth, is very difficult because the gravity of Mars is much weaker than that of Earth - that is nearly 1/3 of Earth's gravity
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdwbd,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the last forty years the human space programs has been stuck in LEO and, at the same time, managed to spend $100 B on the space station plus some on multiple canceled programs. There are no serious plans for nuclear rockets, missions to Mars, let alone terraforming Mars.
In short, nothing happened for forty years, why should it change now ?
While the human space program was not happening, the research space program, with a tiny fraction of the same budget has brought us fantastic results.
The money taken from the scientific program for the Mars' obsession is miniscule and it will not make the slightest difference to the human space program. It will however manage to seriously damage the research program with this monochromatic obsession.
Hopefully Dennis Tito will announce a human Mars mission, putting an end to this pathetic bias in the scientific program :
http://spaceref.com/mars/the-first-human-mission-to-mars-in-2018.html
No the Russians are planning a Nuclear Space Transport and there is some very innovative Nuclear Tech being developed, that will make Nuclear Transport a No-Brainer. NASA human flight got stuck in Earth Orbit due to the efforts of warmonger Nixon, who admitted a hatred of science, and anti-technology guru Clinton who created the biggest international political boondoggle in history called the ISS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour attitude is defeatist, if we haven't cured cancer in 50 yrs of trying, well let's just give up, why should be succeed now. Get the politics and the politicians out of space exploration, utilize private companies like Bigelow, SpaceX and the new PlanetaryResources enterprise and human space exploration will take off. And if the USA & Europe don't Russia, China and India will. And whoever controls the high ground will dominate the Earth. The USA will be relegated to the dustbin of history.
NASA is like all BIG government creations - Universities - NOAA - and many others - ADDICTED TO GRANT MONEY even if it is not based on solid science - like Global Warming and C02 - bad data sets = false failed hypothesis. No more money to further bad data set.How to stop it is below.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/
NASA has no choice but to avoid the Moon leaving Mars the only alternative for investigation or local swirling Asteroids? Not a single photo of the Moon's surface up close from Telescopes or from Satellites are available even though vivid images could be taken, but why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's clear that Scientists are not allowed to produce images of it's surface using any government funded equipment as this could expose what really is on the Moon.
The Moon is loaded with H3 (Helium 3) a byproduct of the Sun that rains down on it every moment with 1 Ton able to supply the entire Earths population with electricity for a year. Now the question among great thinkers is why would the government keep photos of the Moon surface from the public?
Even on this forum it is taboo to speak about the lack of transparency of NASA Moon missions and the sequester of voice communications with Astronauts.
You can not question anything that NASA has done or withheld without being considered a conspiracy theorist by attack dogs who are paid de bunkers.
Likely there will be an immediate response to this post that is designed to provide cover to NASA and it's community.
12 Astronauts, 2 CIA Chiefs, 7 Admirals and General, hundreds of Officers and enlisted men and 250 scientists have come forward and said NASA has been covering up the greatest secret in World? The News Media is paralyzed, unable to speak a single word on the matter for fear of losing their broadcast license. Really, you don't want to know what's on the Moon or what the greatest secret is before you die???
@ Ronnie
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLow altitude high resolution images would reveal deposits of He3 laid down over billions of years by the Sun? Source, please.
He3 would power a fusion reactor that doesn't exist? Source, please.
You might recall Newt shilled a permanent Moonbase by 2020 devoted to He3 mining for the nonexistent He3 fusion reactor. That sounded very tinfoil hat to me.
@ others
In my opinion, manned space exploration is a load of bunk (unless you happen to have a dog in the game...and yes, some do). That could not be more true of the Hundred Year Starship Project or Elon Musk's Mars Colony.
The Mars Curiosity mission was, and is, a stunt, like our manned moon landings, something we did chiefly because we could do it and embarass the Soviets. Who cares if we find evidence of microbial life on Mars? Who cares if we find exoplanets similar to Earth? We can safely assume they exist. THe, so what if thery exist? Interstellar trade?
Earth imaging and related science, GPS, etc. is a different matter.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/earth-from-space.html
Sorting out PHAs is an interesting idea, but I know of no rational feasibility study. NASA used to have a PHA register with object designation, date of discovery, date of closest approach and distance of closest apprach. It was interesting to notice how many PHAs were discovered shortly before their closest approach to Earth. Why? With little warning in advance, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to disturb a PHA impact trajectory by pushing or pulling the PHA or breaking it into pieces with a nuclear bomb. I would like to see some of the physical science related to the pre-deployment of a mitigation system.
Shades of Star Wars, I would guess.
NASA's goals and objectives should not left to the wisdom of crowds. Our crowds are more enthusiastic for voyeur space adventures than they are informed of mission costs and benefits.
This graphic is unfortunately misleading. There are several high profile/cost inter-planetary missions missing here, for example the Phoenix Lander 2008 and Spirit Rover (2004) are not here. The Deep Impact (2005) mission should fall in the same category as DAWN (2011) which is listed. What about failed missions such as the Mars Polar Lander (1999), no science return but still a NASA investment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA may become even more possessed if additional measurements over the next few months show that Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will impact Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf it does--it will bury all current orbiter robots under 10 feet of Martian dust and make exploration all but impossible and also possibly destroy life on Earth.
This Comet if impacts Mars would have nearly 400 times the energy that the dinosaur killer had (3.2 times higher velocity, 125 times larger mass). That created a crater 180 miles wide. The Mars crater would be simply astounding and probably over 1000 miles wide and throw up huge chunks out of Martian orbit--and possibly into the path of Earth.
I'm no astronomer and don't know if the impact could throw asteroids in our direction but since Mars is outside our orbit and the impact will be towards the sun it could be bad if it hits an an extreme angle and blasts it out towards Earth's orbit.
Still this is scary.
Interesting, but observations show the probability to be very low, but not zero.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2013_A1
On the bright side, 20 billion megatons, if it hit the South Pole would vaporize vast quantities of Water Vapor and frozen CO2 warming and thickening the atmosphere considerably.
Flat earth society is that way >>>>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this:O
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCeres is not an asteroid, as the graphic states, it is now categorized as a dwarf planet!!!
NASA is in serious need of a Mars OVERHAUL. Titan is where true promise lies. Go hard or go home, wasting time and resources on a dud is about as interesting to science and the public as Mars has been after all these fruitless missions - not at all. And the next time they spend thousands to find round, deceiving quartz on the barren iron planet, I'll be here to shake my head in disappointment at the wasted efforts that should have been invested in Titan and Europa instead of reaching for pathetically transparent attempts to justify unscientific fixation . And we should be sending orbiters to the outer planets - Uranus and Neptune - you know, the planets we haven't seen since the late 80's, and only BY CHANCE then? It's time to buckle down and accomplish something worthwhile. The taxpayers should be able to have more of a say in this ridiculous dead end of "exploring" what we already know. Think big and stop being so uninspired and constrained, NASA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYea I agree, the "obsession" is really ok. It's really the planet closest to us that we can live on assuming we are able to spruce it up a bit. There's no way for us to really travel to the other planets within a short period of time (8-10 months if i'm not mistaken to mars from earth).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember a talk show episode with dr.neil tyson saying if we wanna fix the economy, fundings to space travel would be an amazing option just cause the amount of jobs it would create in every single field that exist to this day.
Waste of time to terraform a planet that cannot hold an atmosphere. Without a magnetic field to prevent the sun from destroying it it's pointless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMars will force NASA to refocus soon it's attentions if Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) does indeed impact Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17107085-comet-just-might-hit-mars-in-2014?lite
It would take > 10's of millions of years for the Solar Wind to strip Mars of an atmosphere. You are implicitly claiming that human tech will not progress much beyond present day, even in millions of years. Some big assumption that is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs-a-matter-of-fact the Solar Wind can be captured and deflected by giant superconducting rings that would not only protect Mars atmosphere but capture loads of anti-matter which could be used for antimatter catalyzed fission-fusion hybrid spacecraft propulsion and energy generation.