For God Sakes We Finally Have It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Frank]

Thats a pretty good Q impersonation

+1 Wisdom.

 

[Frank]

The amount of astrophysics involved in sending a probe to Mars is close to zero, and that which is involved (erm... Newtonian gravity, and, erm...) is pretty well understood. The losses of Mars missions are generally explainable as failures of engineering or of human procedures.

Yes, but then again, what do we want to do on Mars? It's neat, it sells. And it's the only feasible candidate for colonization. Not that we're going to do that any time soon.

But what have those missions contributed to science?

 

[Schuey]

The amount of astrophysics involved in sending a probe to Mars is close to zero, and that which is involved (erm... Newtonian gravity, and, erm...) is pretty well understood. The losses of Mars missions are generally explainable as failures of engineering or of human procedures.

I guess that depends on what you consider should be included in astrophysics and what you consider "pretty well understood". I would think that both dark matter and dark energy, whatever they are, must be taken into account since they make up 90% of the known universe. But since we know virtually zero about them how can they be included in astrophysics calculations? The answer is that they are not! Until they are understood and can be included in all calculations then we are missing a lot of data.

Sorry, but the losses of Mars missions are not generally explainable as you stated. I've read dozens of papers and hundreds of articles over the past 15 years or so that state the exact opposite. The explanation NASA has for the majority of those failures is the "Mars Curse". The "Mars Curse" is slapped on any mission failure to Mars which can't be explained as engineering mistakes or human error, and this just happens to be the majority of the failures. I wish this was not the case, but if you know someone with more answers then please point me in the right direction.

 

[nutball]

I would think that both dark matter and dark energy, whatever they are, must be taken into account since they make up 90% of the known universe.

No, they're irrelevant for interplanetary work.

Sorry, but the losses of Mars missions are not generally explainable as you stated. I've read dozens of papers and hundreds of articles over the past 15 years or so that state the exact opposite. The explanation NASA has for the majority of those failures is the "Mars Curse".

That's not a serious scientific explanation -- it's what the press report, because the press are idiots. It's about as credible as the "it's the Illuminati sabotaging the missions because we've got Martian landers in Area 51 and they don't want us to find out" theories.

Are you seriously suggesting that after making a $500 million heap of scrap metal on the surface of Mars that NASA would turn around to the American tax-payer and say "shucks, it's that Mars Curse again, BTW can we have another $500 million for another go?"???

The "Mars Curse" is slapped on any mission failure to Mars which can't be explained as engineering mistakes or human error, and this just happens to be the majority of the failures. I wish this was not the case, but if you know someone with more answers then please point me in the right direction.

Mars Climate Orbiter - mix up in physical units (human procedural failure)
Mars Polar Lander - software glitch (engineering failure)
Beagle 2 - probable failure of airbags on landing (engineering failure)
...that's just three off the top of my head.

Furthermore just because an investigation can't uncover the reason for a failure, doesn't mean that the failure isn't due to engineering or human procedures.

 

[Schuey]

No, they're irrelevant for interplanetary work.

From what we know, yes, they should be irrelevant. But the problem is that we know nothing about either so I wouldn't jump to that conclusion until at least having a general idea on how both of these "darks" interact with the visible universe.

That's not a serious scientific explanation -- it's what the press report, because the press are idiots. It's about as credible as the "it's the Illuminati sabotaging the missions because we've got Martian landers in Area 51 and they don't want us to find out" theories.

Are you seriously suggesting that after making a $500 million heap of scrap metal on the surface of Mars that NASA would turn around to the American tax-payer and say "shucks, it's that Mars Curse again, BTW can we have another $500 million for another go?"???

And by no stretch of the imagination do I consider them serious scientific explanations! As the saying goes, "don't kill the messenger." The press may be idiots, but this "Mars Curse" thing is not made up by them. It's been an inside joke at NASA for a long time and you don't have to do much research to see that that's true. IMO, it's very possible that NASA labels many things unexplained in order to avoid explaining to the public that most of these failures were their screwups. American's faith in NASA has been in a downward spiral since the first shuttle disaster. Combine the last disaster w/ NASA admitting that 2/3s of their missions failed because of human error and their funding would go the way of the dodo. So yes, I agree that it's likely there are good explanations for all of these Mars flops. But until someone credible comes forward and says so or some docs mysteriously pop up, the majority remain unexplained.

Mars Climate Orbiter - mix up in physical units (human procedural failure): I do remember this one. In one word, pathetic.
Mars Polar Lander - software glitch (engineering failure): I thought there were several theories for it's failure, but we were waiting on some new photos to confirm this. Did that happen already?
Beagle 2 - probable failure of airbags on landing (engineering failure): I never heard this explanation before. As far as I know after several inquiries it's still unexplained.

 

[nutball]

Beagle 2 - probable failure of airbags on landing (engineering failure): I never heard this explanation before. As far as I know after several inquiries it's still unexplained.

i know the guy who built Beagle 2, he said that the airbags were his personal guess what went wrong (I know that before launch it was the part that they were most worried about).