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Nasa's $2.5 billion mission to seek life on Mars.
3:04PM GMT 26 Nov 2011
Nasa has launched its most ambitious ever mission to Mars, sending a $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion) robot thundering off a launch pad at Cape Canaveral to help answer a question that has confounded mankind for centuries: Is there life on the Red Planet?
Crowds whooped and cheered as the 19-storey Atlas V rocket carrying the Curiosity rover roared into the sky, powered by two million pounds of thrust and trailing smoke and fire from its tail as it climbed out of Earth's atmosphere.
"Good luck and God speed. It's been a long challenge getting here and we are proud to start the journey to Mars," said Nasa launch manager Omar Baez.
Seven years in the making and fraught by cost over-runs that caused its original price tag to double, Curiosity - the most powerful, capable and complex planetary rover ever built - is to spend almost two years assessing whether the environment of Earth's nearest neighbour once was, and may still be, conducive to habitation.
The nuclear-powered, laser-toting robot is considered the superlative planetary explorer, equipped with 10 instruments that will allow it to see, sniff, sample and analyse rocks and soil with an unprecedented level of sophistication as it hunts the elements of life.
"This is the grand-daddy of them all," said Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa. "This is science fiction come to life. I call it the Super Bowl of space exploration."
A crowd of 13,500 invited guests watched live as an Atlas V rocket carrying Curiosity - also known as the Mars Science Laboratory - thundered off launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, Florida on Saturday.
Thousands more people stood on roads and beaches, applauding as the rocket - as tall as a 19-storey building - rose into the sky, trailing a thick plume of smoke as it embarked on what is likely to be Nasa's last flagship mission for at least seven years.
Budgetary cutbacks, shifting priorities in Washington, and mounting bills in other areas of Nasa's operations threaten to derail hopes of future robotic expeditions aimed at building on what Curiosity may find.
"Not only do we lose the science, but we simply cannot give up that technical capability, the ability we have to do things like orbiting Europa or landing and roving on Mars.I feel that the danger is severe," Steve Squyres, chairman of the Nasa Advisory Council, testified to a congressional sub-committee on space earlier this month.
At 4,212 miles (6780kms) in diameter, Mars is around half the size of Earth and has a gravity field only 38 per cent as strong. Humans could not exist there outside a pressurised, oxygen-fed spacesuit; the planet's surface temperature ranges from minus 199F (minus 128C) during the polar night, to a daytime high of 80F (27C) at its equator during its closest passes to the sun, and its surface atmosphere chiefly comprises carbon dioxide.
But scientists believe that microbial life forms may once have lived there, and still might - a theory spurred by evidence that water, one of the essential building blocks of life, existed below the surface of Mars at some point and could yet remain.
Overseen and operated by 240 scientists and engineers on Earth, Curiosity is expected to roam a 96 mile-wide crater searching its 3.8 billion year-old soil and rocks for evidence that another major ingredient of life - carbon - may also have been present, either in the past or currently.
Subject to Curiosity's findings, and to government funding and political will, future missions would aim to bring Martian samples back to Earth for "life detection tests", or send life-detecting technology to the Red Planet. The current mission will also help Nasa to assess Mars' potential for future human visitation - a feat loosely targeted for the mid-2030s.
Landing the nearly one-tonne Curiosity on Mars following an eight-month, 354 million-mile journey in which it will speed towards the planet at 3,200mph is fraught with risk. Much has to go right for it to touch down safely without smashing to pieces, including the activation of a parachute to slow its descent and a hovering "sky-crane" to lower it to the surface on tethers; a sequence considered ambitious.
Peter Theisinger, a Nasa project manager, said: "An awful lot of people had the same reaction - 'You've got to be kidding.'"
~News.
Nasa's $2.5 Billion Mission To Seek Life On Mars.
[yt]ys8we-Qd85Q[/yt]
Link--->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys8we-Qd85Q
Thank you for reading/watching.
Happy Ma'al Hijrah~1433 Hijri
to all muslims world wide.
~May Allah swt help,protect and guide all muslims~Amin!
Take care,
~Wassalam
greeting!
Nasa's $2.5 billion mission to seek life on Mars.
3:04PM GMT 26 Nov 2011
Nasa has launched its most ambitious ever mission to Mars, sending a $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion) robot thundering off a launch pad at Cape Canaveral to help answer a question that has confounded mankind for centuries: Is there life on the Red Planet?
Crowds whooped and cheered as the 19-storey Atlas V rocket carrying the Curiosity rover roared into the sky, powered by two million pounds of thrust and trailing smoke and fire from its tail as it climbed out of Earth's atmosphere.
"Good luck and God speed. It's been a long challenge getting here and we are proud to start the journey to Mars," said Nasa launch manager Omar Baez.
Seven years in the making and fraught by cost over-runs that caused its original price tag to double, Curiosity - the most powerful, capable and complex planetary rover ever built - is to spend almost two years assessing whether the environment of Earth's nearest neighbour once was, and may still be, conducive to habitation.
The nuclear-powered, laser-toting robot is considered the superlative planetary explorer, equipped with 10 instruments that will allow it to see, sniff, sample and analyse rocks and soil with an unprecedented level of sophistication as it hunts the elements of life.
"This is the grand-daddy of them all," said Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa. "This is science fiction come to life. I call it the Super Bowl of space exploration."
A crowd of 13,500 invited guests watched live as an Atlas V rocket carrying Curiosity - also known as the Mars Science Laboratory - thundered off launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, Florida on Saturday.
Thousands more people stood on roads and beaches, applauding as the rocket - as tall as a 19-storey building - rose into the sky, trailing a thick plume of smoke as it embarked on what is likely to be Nasa's last flagship mission for at least seven years.
Budgetary cutbacks, shifting priorities in Washington, and mounting bills in other areas of Nasa's operations threaten to derail hopes of future robotic expeditions aimed at building on what Curiosity may find.
"Not only do we lose the science, but we simply cannot give up that technical capability, the ability we have to do things like orbiting Europa or landing and roving on Mars.I feel that the danger is severe," Steve Squyres, chairman of the Nasa Advisory Council, testified to a congressional sub-committee on space earlier this month.
At 4,212 miles (6780kms) in diameter, Mars is around half the size of Earth and has a gravity field only 38 per cent as strong. Humans could not exist there outside a pressurised, oxygen-fed spacesuit; the planet's surface temperature ranges from minus 199F (minus 128C) during the polar night, to a daytime high of 80F (27C) at its equator during its closest passes to the sun, and its surface atmosphere chiefly comprises carbon dioxide.
But scientists believe that microbial life forms may once have lived there, and still might - a theory spurred by evidence that water, one of the essential building blocks of life, existed below the surface of Mars at some point and could yet remain.
Overseen and operated by 240 scientists and engineers on Earth, Curiosity is expected to roam a 96 mile-wide crater searching its 3.8 billion year-old soil and rocks for evidence that another major ingredient of life - carbon - may also have been present, either in the past or currently.
Subject to Curiosity's findings, and to government funding and political will, future missions would aim to bring Martian samples back to Earth for "life detection tests", or send life-detecting technology to the Red Planet. The current mission will also help Nasa to assess Mars' potential for future human visitation - a feat loosely targeted for the mid-2030s.
Landing the nearly one-tonne Curiosity on Mars following an eight-month, 354 million-mile journey in which it will speed towards the planet at 3,200mph is fraught with risk. Much has to go right for it to touch down safely without smashing to pieces, including the activation of a parachute to slow its descent and a hovering "sky-crane" to lower it to the surface on tethers; a sequence considered ambitious.
Peter Theisinger, a Nasa project manager, said: "An awful lot of people had the same reaction - 'You've got to be kidding.'"
~News.
Nasa's $2.5 Billion Mission To Seek Life On Mars.
[yt]ys8we-Qd85Q[/yt]
Link--->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys8we-Qd85Q
Thank you for reading/watching.
Happy Ma'al Hijrah~1433 Hijri
to all muslims world wide.
~May Allah swt help,protect and guide all muslims~Amin!
Take care,
~Wassalam
