[Drew]

btw, the regained contact with Spirit

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by mikhael

I think you'll find if you examine the facts, you will find that NASA has the lowest failure rate for hardware sent to mars of any space agency on earth.

To be fair, NASA also has the biggest budget by a country mile, so there's not really any way to make a fair comparison

[comic]

has anyone actualy checked the records, since 1960, 29 missions have been sent to mars. Out of these 29 only 9 have actualy been sucssesful.
 
All 9 of these were sent by NASA with no other agency having any sucsses.

Also the reletive diffculty of getting to mars undamaged is incredebly high, due to the type of equipment and design required in landers and other types of probe

The complexity of the design exponentialy increses the risc of failure as even small impacts can damage delicate components.

Edit: all imformation sourced from official record and degree l;eval text book of the University of Bath England

[karajorma]

Bah. Mars is easy. If you want a real challenge copy the russians and send a probe to Venus!

[phreak]

trying to land something on venus is a waste of time and money.  if NASA does send anything, it would probably be a little probe thats designed to die and have a larger probe do some tests (ala Galileo)

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_venus.html

[karajorma]

I didn't say it had to land I was just talking about macho space exploration though were you send a probe to the harshest place you can find just to prove you can

Besides it's quite funny to hear the discussions the russians had when their first Venera probes failed to send back pictures (one managed 2 lines before shutting down!). They showed a TV programme about it in the UK and the conversation went something like this.

Russian Scientist 1 : Well Venera 6 was built to stand 25 times atmospheric pressure. How strong shall we build venera 7?

Russian Scientist 2 : How about 30?

Russian Scientist 1 : That might not be strong enough. Lets say 40

Russian Scientist 2 : 50

Russian Scientist 1 : 60

.... etc.


 When Venera 7 was finally built it could survive 180 Atmospheres

[phreak]

they should have sent a lead box.

[karajorma]

I found this little clippet while I was looking for the name of the Venera 7 Probe. As I said the Brits and Yanks could learn a lot from the russian style of doing things

As Venera 7 descended into the Venusian atmosphere, it continued transmitting temperature data down to the altitude of around 32 feet (10 meters). Then another disaster struck. At this point, the probe's parachute was lost and the spacecraft plummeted toward the surface of Venus.

The mission was seemingly over -- the Russian deep-space control station in Crimea was receiving nothing but background noise from the emptiness of space. Lavochkin engineers were even more stunned when a week later, the experts from the Moscow's Institute of Radio Electronics told them that they had been able to discern Venera 7's signal from the background radio noise recorded after the landing.

After deciphering a very weak signal, the scientists confirmed that for around 23 minutes after hitting the surface of another world, Venera 7, despite the fact it was laying on its side in darkness with its antennas pointed away from Earth, had continued transmitting temperature data.

Here's the original.

Originally posted by PhReAk
they should have sent a lead box.

Come on. They always describe venus as being hot enough to melt lead We all know where that would have ended up

[phreak]

it was an expression , a thick steel box would have suitable

[karajorma]

Originally posted by PhReAk
it was an expression , a thick steel box would have suitable

Well the sulphuric acid in Venus atmosphere would make pretty short work of that too

Besides how are you going to land the box? You can't just let it hit the ground at terminal velocity

[Grey Wolf]

Does the guy who made that site not understand basic geology and chemistry? Rocks often have flat faces and the like due to molecular configuration.

This, though, is interesting: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/express_water_040123.html
First official confirmation of water ice on Mars.

[Falcon]

arabicnews

maybe the guy should interview these people. Their ancestors did live on the red planet 3,000 years ago

[Setekh]

I see rocks.

As for the water, that's good. If they're planning a base in the future, they'll need that.

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by mikhael

More than 55% of probes sent to Mars have NOT FAILED.

That's, what, 3? 5?

I think you'll find if you examine the facts, you will find that NASA has the lowest failure rate for hardware sent to mars of any space agency on earth. [/B]

China, Japan, Britain, Germany, and China. That's not that many.


It's all relative.

[Fineus]

Solid point really, NASA is the Microsoft of space exploration anyway, one would hope they had a decent pass rate.

[phreak]

actually the russians sent a bunch during the 60s and 70s.  a bunch of those failed

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology_mars.html

[Krackers87]

OOOOO!!! Send that guy a fuzzy picture of a shivan or vasudan

see if he posts it on the site


that would be so funny im gonna do it right now!

[Lynx]

:D

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Liberator
Examine these images , and then tell me you don't think that NASA and other agencies are hiding potentially Earth-shaking information from us.

 
I can't wait to go! Man do I love mars! Look at that first picture! Doesn't that just scream "new home" to you? Don't you want to go and colonize Mars, fight for basic survival while developing a base?

Damn. Mars is the future. Why doesn't anyone see that?


~Beowulf

[mikhael]

I'd like to see a permanent settlement on Luna first, then on Mars. Its easier to intervene in a catastrophe on Luna than it is with Mars, so we get to make and fix mistakes there first.