Technocrat

Phoenix Confirms Water on Mars

zogger
Thu Jul 31 16:10:00 -0700 2008
Science
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Mars lander Phoenix has run a successful test, and the controllers back in Arizona are confirming water on Mars.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted." ed.z.: Spiffy! And think on this if people will pay 200 thousand to 20 million to go to near space or orbit for a week, how much is a ticket to Mars worth? I wonder if we'll see that sometime. Back in the 60s I would have said yes, now..not so sure. Because I thought by now we'd have a slew of orbiting habitats, including hotels, several moon bases, and would have at least landed some folks on Mars and gotten them back, and even have a permanent orbiting habitat there.

Phoenix Confirms Water on Mars
Bruce Perens
Thu Jul 31 17:19:09 -0700 2008
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I'm glad that they got past the problem with the screen vibrator shorting out. The vibrating screen was supposed to separate globs of soil into individual particles for analysis, but the soil was so globby that they had to run the vibrator over-long, and it short circuited.

I think this was an avoidable technical error on NASA's part. Their engineers must have been really geeky, because most folks know that battery-powered vibrators quit just when you need them the most.

opec, vibrators and jobs

zogger
Thu Jul 31 21:13:06 -0700 2008
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I had a job running a hugemongous vibrator. Kid thee not. Unfortunately, it wasn't at supermodel island :( I used to bolt a vibrator onto a railroad sandcar at a concrete plant. The sand was shipped from texas to florida (weird, huh?) and by the time it got there it was half sand stone, so they had to vibrate the whole car to get the sand flowing again. Then OPEC oil embargo crisis came, gas went to ten bucks a gallon, so I lost that job, bought some bikes for myself and girlfriend at the time, and went to work more locally.

Phoenix Confirms Water on Mars
Jason Zheng
Sun Aug 03 10:48:22 -0700 2008
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Actually, all the instruments are built by U of A, and the spacecraft itself is built by Lockheed. NASA/JPL is just there to manage the spaceflight, EDL, and telecommunication.

 

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