Comments on: Mars Science Laboratory: Still Alive, For Now

By: fsm

fsm — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:40:36 +0000

Funny, I had always thought that just sending more of the successful MERs, with more modern & only slightly heavier instruments, keeping to using solar panels/batteries (again modern ones are better & hence can be smaller) would have been a better and cheaper idea. The MSL uses RTGs which are way more expensive than solar – there have also been a chronic shortage of plutonium 238, using it for the MSL impacts future outer planet missions where RTGs are essential. Heck, just keep building MERs & send one every 2 years, you can evolve/use the same infrastrucure & operators & get costs down..
NASA is very good at doing its most successful designs only a few times, then throwing out all the "tried and tested" tech, and starting again – think Apollo->Shuttle..

(@Michael: I assume you mean Phoenix – it uses Solar, and at the poles you soon have 24 hours darkness. Its been a "cheap" mission, at around $400 million..)

By: Michael Spencer

Michael Spencer — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:11:17 +0000

I have a really hard time understanding why more than a billion dollars were spent for the Polar Lander- whose mission is nearly over due to RTG depletion. The use of pricey non-rovers is inexplicable. And now we find our selves a bit short for this superior project. Go figure.

By: Ralph Rewes

Ralph Rewes — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:22:05 +0000

That is why it is so important to stimulate the general public imagination with more than scientific endeavors. The public need speculations, clearer pictures, questionable subject images, more "faces", more pyramids, anything that pull enthusiasm out your regular joe.

I will back any NASA plans. I think it is very important for humanity to get on the wagon of space exploration. But NASA cannot continue to push forward a dull public relation with half answers, uncertain conclusions and apparent denial of good answers about some unexplainable Martian structure. No more balloon explanations. Tickle the fancy of the public. They are the one who can stops cuts in space exploration.