Mars 2020 rover will pave the way for future manned missions

[Poitier]

Mars 2020 rover will pave the way for future manned missions
By Jonathan WebbScience reporter, BBC News

Instruments on the new rover will sample the planet's geology and atmosphere as well as making 3D movies
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

• Mars rover drills for rock sample
• Next Mars rover to hunt ancient life
• Nasa to send new rover to MarsWatch

Nasa's next Martian rover will attempt to make oxygen on the surface of the red planet when it lands there in 2021.

The rover will carry seven scientific projects, aimed at paving the way for future manned missions, seeking evidence of life and storing samples to be brought back in the future.

Among them is a device for turning the CO2 that dominates the thin Martian air into oxygen.

This could support human life or make rocket fuel for return missions.

The rover will also carry two cameras and an experimental weather station among its 88lb (40kg) of instruments.

"This is a really exciting day for us," said astronaut and Nasa administrator John Grunsfeld, announcing the Mars 2020 scientific payload in Washington DC.

Continue reading the main story
Mars 2020 rover

• Planned launch in July/August 2020
• Expected to land in 2021 after eight to nine month cruise
• Total weight approximately 2,094lb (950kg)
• Payload of seven scientific instruments weighing 88lb (40kg), worth $130m
• Closely modelled on Curiosity (illustrated above)

The one-tonne, $1.9bn (£1.12bn) vehicle will be closely modelled on Curiosity, the rover that touched down on the red planet in August 2012.

Its suite of instruments is downsized compared to Curiosity, which is carrying 165lb (75kg) of scientific kit. Some of that space will be used to package up cylindrical rock samples drilled from the planet's surface.

Nasa hopes these can be shipped home by future return flights.

Being able to produce oxygen could help with that ambition, since transporting fuel is heavy and expensive. Other Nasa spacecraft can already produce oxygen from CO2 but the new "MOXIE" device will test this capability in the Martian atmosphere, for the first time.

An oxygen supply would also be essential if people were to land on the planet.

Immersive images
This change in focus was described as a "shift in gears" by Prof Tom Pike from Imperial College, London, the co-investigator of the "MOXIE" instrument.

"It is very much about the old Star Trek 'boldly going', the real focus of this payload is exploration rather than science," he told BBC News.

"There are not very many places that humans can go after the Moon. I would say it's practically a list of one and Mars is it!"

Could Mars support human life?
Also on board the 2020 rover will be a ground-penetrating radar for analysing the planet's geology, two arm-mounted gadgets for analysing the chemistry and structure of soil and rocks, and two cameras.

In another first, the cameras are designed so that in a particular configuration they will be able to record 3D movies.

"You're going to feel like you're on Mars," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of the human exploration directorate at Nasa.

The announcement comes in the same week that Nasa's earlier Mars rover, Opportunity, clocked up a record-breaking total of 20 miles (40km) of extra-terrestrial driving since its landing in 2004.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28582903?ocid=socialflow_twitter

 

[BocaRear]

Honestly, they have all this money to go to space & send shyt to other planets but they can't even take care of our own planet well. , we're not ready for space travel yet brehs. We need to take care of our own backyard first.

 

[humble forever]

Honestly, they have all this money to go to space & send shyt to other planets but they can't even take care of our own planet well. , we're not ready for space travel yet brehs. We need to take care of our own backyard first.

I wish we did a better job taking care of our own backyard, but I guess this is part of the human condition. I'm glad we're checking out mars, but I wish we could figure out what all those people with no water are going to do in detroit.

 

[BocaRear]

I wish we did a better job taking care of our own backyard, but I guess this is part of the human condition. I'm glad we're checking out mars, but I wish we could figure out what all those people with no water are going to do in detroit.

It's like they got money for space & all but they don't have money to end world hunger or poverty

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

At this point why bother even going to Mars. it's not inhabitable. Unless there are natural resources to be exploited

 

[Futuristic Eskimo]

It's like they got money for space & all but they don't have money to end world hunger or poverty

There is plenty of money to do both, but everyone only pretends to care so its never been a real priority.

In any event, we shouldnt put all projects that advance the human race on hold because there are problems on Earth. Theres always going to be something that is need of fixing.

 

[Poitier]

There is plenty of money to do both, but everyone only pretends to care so its never been a real priority.

In any event, we shouldnt put all projects that advance the human race on hold because there are problems on Earth. Theres always going to be something that is need of fixing.

White people living on Mars isn''t "the advance the human race"

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

At this point why bother even going to Mars. it's not inhabitable. Unless there are natural resources to be exploited

In theory it can be made habitable through terraforming.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

In theory it can be made habitable through terraforming.

They could probably also make secure structures pumping oxygen somehow. Greenhouses for crops etc. Itd be a massive and incredibly expensive process but . At this point, I wouldnt mind going up there. Start the first human settlement on Mars..and prob end up like Roanoke

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...on-mars-by-2026-almost-10-years-ahead-of-nasa

Elon Musk, speaking to CNBC about how the future of humankind is rather closely tied to our ability to get off this planet, is “hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years” — with SpaceX rockets and spacecraft, of course. This lines up with some of his previous comments about establishing a Mars colony in the 2020s. Meanwhile, NASA recently announced that it would try to put a human on Mars in 2035 — and only if it can secure the necessary funding and carry out a number of important milestone missions beforehand. Tantalizingly, Musk also spoke about SpaceX going public on the stock market — perhaps to raise the necessary funds to fly (and establish a colony?) on Mars.

 

[Poitier]

Black people need to secure their intergalactic future, independent of what the Cac private sector is doing.

 

[wire28]

we need to explore this shyt brehs

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

In theory it can be made habitable through terraforming.

you can't terraform a magnetic field.
even if you did somehow introduce atmosphere the radiation would kill people.

shielded structures or underground living facilities would be the only solution.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

you can't terraform a magnetic field.
even if you did somehow introduce atmosphere the radiation would kill people.

shielded structures or underground living facilities would be the only solution.

Yeah that's the only sticking point about it, plus to be honest the effects of terraforming probably won't last too long cuz the planet is too small to maintain an atmosphere as dynamic as Earth's. Isn't one of the asteroid moons due to fall on the planet at some point?

 

[Claudex]

It's like they got money for space & all but they don't have money to end world hunger or poverty

It's like they know that with us in it earth is a goner so they're doing all they can to find the next place to move to.