MarsBlog - Part 133

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HEY LOOK, someone with “Mars vision” over at NASA: UK astronaut sets sights on Mars.

I think I like this guy.

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ROCKS: This article gives some interpretation to the often-confusing IR pictures from THEMIS, and explains what they can tell us about the Martian surface.

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STOPPED CLOCK: Self-professed “unrepentant Democrat” Donald F. Robertson says “I Have A Dream For The Democrats“.

Even if his politics are not to my taste, he advocates expansion into space for the right basic reasons.

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MARS NEEDS PLANES: An appropriate story considering the date —MISSION TO MARS: NASA Langley’s plane project finalist for trek to red planet.

Yes, of course there are plenty of reasons for it, but it seems a pity that the thing would only fly for an hour or so. Such a short flight leaves the project open to the criticism that it is little more than a “stunt”.

China and Russia: Partners in Space?

“Russian Space Officials Meet in Beijing to Discuss More Cooperation”

Curious developments. On the one hand, China wants to get aboard the ISS project (this is a howler):

As it prepares to send astronauts into space next year and launch a space lab in 2005, China is also making new overtures to join science operations on the ISS. Without China’s participation, the ISS “is not a truly international program,” CNSA administrator Luan Enjie told the Aviation Week & Space Technology last year

Reminds one of the political thought experiment currently in vogue in Europe: “How many nations have to join in before an undertaking stops being ‘unilateral’?”

But on the other hand, they take a poke at the U.S. and our inexplicable habit of complaining about, you know, those pesky ‘human rights’ thingies:

In a lengthy joint statement signed by Putin and President Jiang Zemin on 2 Dec, China and Russia stressed their commitment to a “multipolar” world code for a world less dominated by the United States. They also complained that some governments have a “policy of double standards” on human rights, rejecting “the use of human rights issues as a lever for pressure in international relations.”

(Though with Dana Rohrabacher calling them ‘Nazis in space’, one might expect the Chinese to get a bit snippy.)

The article concludes that it would be nearly impossible for the U.S., alone among the ISS partner countries in its opposition to Chinese use of the station, to prevent such use forever — at some point we’ll have to give in to the inevitable.

Personally, I hope that we don’t. And I also hope this cozy-cuddling between Russia and China and the rhetoric about a “multpolar world” is more than just words. Why? Because a worthy rival in space (on peaceful terms, mind you) is what is desperately needed to get NASA off its backside and motivated to accomplish something more spectacular and meaningful than simply getting its financial house in order. If the Russians pull back or pull out of the ISS in favor of (for example) a revived “Mir 2” project with the soon-to-be spacefaring Chinese, the public will be wanting to know how and why it happened, and what we as a country are going to do to answer it (well, for one thing, we’d have to crash-build a crew return capability).

Competition is a good thing.

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WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Frank Morring, Jr., seems pretty sure that, for the NEXT team at NASA, Mars is the Destination.

I’m not so sure it’s the truth, but his theory is at least an attractive one. The nuclear power initiative is unquestionably positive, but I’m still a bit put off by the Lagrange point idea.

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LEAD US SAFELY THROUGH HEAVEN’S GATE: What the…? It’s NASA’s theme song for the Centennial of Flight.

It’s chock full of religious allusions and Tranzi political symbolism. And packed with space references, rather than the flight imagery that one would expect for the commemmoration of…well…powered flight.

Listen and cringe.

If only NASA really was serious about “bringing us closer to our home in space”.

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TODAY’S THEMIS IMAGE: An interestingperspective shot, overlaid with daytime and nighttime infrared details.

More images like this need to be released — that is, more perspective images interpreted from the laser altimeter and other data. It’s much easier to understand what you’re looking at when you can see it from a more familiar, more human-scale perspective.

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MARS DESERT TELESCOPE: The Mars Society will be adding an observatory to the Mars Desert Research Station, with construction beginning after the arrival of the new crew this coming weekend.

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BACK AGAIN: Here’s a couple of things I missed:

Two new essays from John Carter McKnight, Small Steps and Marching on the Undiscovered Country. (Note that the formatting is a bit messed up on both of these essays — his website still seems to be having some technical problems.)

Updates on Mars Express and TransOrbital.

A contrarian look from Reuters at the “Mars was once warm and wet” scenario (with a slightly different version from AP).

Just days after Orbital Recovery offers to rescue it, the Euros scuttle the Astra 1K satellite. Sure, it would have cost money to monitor and control the thing while Orbital Recovery got up to speed, but there’s a chance that the cost of delay, monitoring, and recovery would have been lower than the cost of dumping and replacing the thing altogether — along with the now-lost opportunity of demonstrating a new capability for the industry.

Uiniversity of Colorado scientists believe life was unlikely to have developed on Mars (note how the asteroid impact heating theory appears to be taking root).

NASA, along with the Planetary Society and LEGO, is running a “Name the Rover” contest for the upcoming MER missions.

MarsBlog.net

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