Mars has intrigued mankind for centuries, and ever since “War of the Worlds” caused mass hysteria over all of America, we have wondered if there is, or ever has been life on Mars. In today’s age of technology, we know that there are no little green men running around on Mars, and our attention has shifted to the location and analysis of Martian water and its history. That is the primary reason for the Martian Ice and Water Analysis Mission, or MIWA Mission. Following the primary Martian exploration plan of “Follow the Water,” the MIWA Mission is the next logical step in our exploration and research of Martian water. This mission will not only expand on the findings of the Mars Phoenix mission and the failed Mars Polar Lander, but it will do so from the heart of the biggest known Martian ice reservoir: the North Pole. Also, the relative simplicity and fairly lax technology development deadlines of the mission, coupled with the use of previous, proven technologies, all but guarantees the mission’s success.
The essential objectives for the MIWA Mission are as follows: use “mole” technology to drill into the Martian surface to analyze the layers of polar ice and obtain information about Mars’ recent ice/water history, use robotic arms and scoops to analyze the differences in Martian surface ice and soil in three separate, yet relatively close, locations around the lander, much like the Mars Phoenix mission (Dunbar, 2013), transmit the sounds of Mars to Earth using a miniature microphone like the Mars Polar Lander was supposed to do, and use Lithium-ion battery technology and several types of heaters to preserve the MIWA Lander’s functionality throughout the Martian winter. The majority of the technologies needed to achieve these obj...
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The Martian is about an astronaut, Mark Watney, who gets stranded on the surface of Mars for over 500 days without anyone knowing, at first. He has to survive in the martian atmosphere by creating his own water and even growing his own plants! Mark sets out from his HAB on a rover to travel a distance to an old rover named Sojourner. He brings back Sojourner hoping to connect communication with Earth. Mark soon becomes low on supplies and needs help soon. Will Mark achieve communication with Earth and miraculously get rescued?
The Climax in The Martian takes place when pathfinder, the communication device that Mark was using in order to talk to NASA has one of its wires fried and loses its capability to transmit messages over such extreme distances. This occurred when Mark was working on the rover to prepare it for his final trip on mars to the Ares 4 site when he set a drill he was using very close to Pathfinder without noticing and the wires from the drill touched Pathfinder. Since the drill was so much more powerful than Pathfinder the amount of electricity it transmitted when the wires touched was enough to cause the wires of Pathfinder to fry. Power traveled from the drill line's positive lead, through the work bench...and
While just traveling to Mars is a difficult task, landing on the planet has proved to be next to impossible, with only a small fraction of the attempted landings ending in success. Over the years there have been several different designs of Martian landers that have attempted to slip past the proverbial “galactic ghoul” protecting the planet Mars. However, few of these designs have fared successful at landing smoothly. These technologies have ranged from the original Viking using aero braking and rocket power, to the Mars Pathfinder mission’s novel air bag solution. In order to gain insight into the surface of the red planet, landing is a must. Thus, the potential solutions and their benefits and drawbacks must be examined.
The sky is illuminated by the sun, only the size of our moon this far out. The red dust swirls with a gust of wind and your movements are slowed by the weight of your spacesuit. Your progress across the barren desert toward the compound that houses the plants you and your companions need to survive is slow but by now, four months into your new life, you have become used to it. Just eleven months ago you left Earth and started your journey toward what is now your home, the red planet of our solar system, Mars. The year is 2027 and you can’t believe you arrived here at last.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched two similar twin robotic rovers, which were Spirit and Opportunity toward Mars on 10 June and 7 July 2003 (NASA 2012). Spirit and Opportunity landed in Gusev Crater on 4 January 2004 and in Meridiani Planum on 25 January 2004 respectively (NASA 2012). Opportunity is still operating and roving after 10 years on the Martian surface while final communication of Spirit to the Earth took place on 22 March 2010, which is around six years into its mission (NASA 2012). The rovers were thought to last 20 times longer as compared to its original design. As part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, the Mars Exploration Rover mission is a continuing multi-mission effort to study Mars as a possible habitation for past or present life and to look for signs of life as well as to prepare for human exploration. Primary objective of the Mars Exploration Rover mission is to explore and characterize a wide range of soils and rocks that possess clues or evidences to past water activity on Mars (NASA 2012).
Even though we have confirmed the possibility of colonizing Mars, there are certain limitations posed by our current technology and by the space environment that could make traveling to Mars lengthy, expensive, and dangerous.
Scientists have dreamt over the possibility that it may be possible to live on another planet. Some think that Mars has that potential to support life, if it's hidden resources are uncovered and exploited to their full potential. There is even evidence that it once contained enough water that it had been possible to hold life. Think about it, what if we could transform it into such a place, even if only our children's children get to see any result? The following will describe Mars, present evidence of ice and water, give possible ideas for the future exploration of Mars, and give reasons for why it is important.
The agency tweeted “We congratulate @ISRO for its Mars arrival! @MarsOrbiter joins the missions studying the Red Planet,"[Source: BBC NEWS]
“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime” was said by Buzz Aldrin, a NASA astronaut. The former American aeronaut from Montclair, New Jersey believes that since Mars does exist, it is waiting to be reached by humans. When this would happen, he says that the human race would “evolve into a two-planet species.” Present day Mars has a lot of canyons, mountains and volcanoes. Even though the surface is Mars is very old, scientists learned about different younger rift valleys, plains, hills and ridges. According to recent reports, there were lakes and rivers, along with an ocean billions of years ago. The low temperatures on the planet cause there to be polar ice caps and frozen water present. Scientists continue to notice several discoveries on the planet that lead them to think there was once life on the planet. Different clues have scientists wanting to find out about even more. Many scientists in the past few centuries have been curious if life on Mars is possible or if it has ever been before.
All of Mar’s water has been absorbed by its crust making the planet habitable, concluded Oxford scientists. Water is a very important factor that is needed for survival in the human world. The planet had water about three billion years ago. It was very much like Earth three billion years ago. According to Cbsnews.com life may have existed at that time, but not much evidence supports it.But now Mars became cold , dry , inhospitable . For life to exist the celestial body would need the conditions, and space organizations would need the right technology.
Recently, two probes were sent back and they made it to Mars. They landed on the South Polar Caps of Mars. That is where NASA plans to find water. After landing on Mars, the probes extracted water like crystals from the surface of Mars. They found that there was a small amount of water in the crystals, which means that there is a strong chance that life, was on Mars at one time.
The water contained under the soil has had some various effects on the Mars terrain. When the robots were on mars collecting samples, they found some rocks that looked like rocks from prehistoric life here on earth. When analyzing these samples, the scientists deemed that the water was very acidic and salty. This is similar to some of the earlier times in the Australian area.
NASA’s planned missions to Mars, should it come to fruition, will be the furthest distance any human being has ever traversed. While this is an impressive feat in and of itself, it becomes even more so when one takes into acco...
Mars is a very similar planet to earth in relation to size and atmosphere. Therefore it seemed like the most likely place to search for life. At the end of the 19th century, an American named Percival Lowell built himself an observatory so that it was possible for him to study Mars in intimate detail when its orbit was closest to Earth. At this time it had recently been suggested that the planet had a system of channels on the surface, present from the evaporation of flowing water. Looking through his telescope Lowell became convinced he could see a network of artificial canals. This led him to believe that there were intelligent beings on Mars who had built these canals. However, spacecraft have now visited Mars and found that there is no evidence of water at all. It is now thought that the lines he could see were the combination of Lowell's overactive imagination, and scratches on the lens of his telescope. We are now searching one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, as this seems to be the next likely place to hold life.