Methane on Mars Announcement Today? (update)
NASA Hosts Nov. 2 Teleconference About Mars Rover Progress
“NASA will host a media teleconference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) on Friday, Nov. 2, to provide an update on Curiosity’s studies of the Martian atmosphere.”
Curiosity set to weigh in on Mars methane puzzle, Nature
“NASA has announced that Grotzinger’s team will discuss atmospheric measurements at a briefing on 2 November. If the rover has detected methane at sufficiently high concentration, or exhibiting temporal variations of the kind that suggests microbial activity, then it will surely motivate a desire to identify and map the sources.”
Keith’s note: Up until now, NASA has been rather quiet about the characterization of methane distribution by Curiosity …
Watch LIVE
Keith’s update: Press conference statement: “How much methane did we see? So far we have no definitive detection of methane. We have no detection of methane but we will keep looking in the month ahead.”
NASA’S Curiosity Rover Provides Clues to Changes in Martian Atmosphere
“Methane is clearly not an abundant gas at the Gale Crater site, if it is there at all. At this point in the mission we’re just excited to be searching for it,” said SAM TLS lead Chris Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “While we determine upper limits on low values, atmospheric variability in the Martian atmosphere could yet hold surprises for us.”
Marc’s note: I’ve added the complete recording of today’s telecon with reporters questions to the above press release.
A news conference room full of reporters probably also contains some methane. 😉
There is less than 5ppm of methane and with the TLS and the conservative way they interprete the data it is even less. No widespread earthlike life. The earth based measurments and the MarsExpress data have to be revisited.
“No widespread earthlike life”
No discovery. This was known from long ago.
Please note that Gale crater is NOT one of methane hotspots.
Marc, I don’t see the link to the recording of the press conference.
Mac/Windows/Linux? and OS? Also RSS of podcasts here: http://spaceref.com/podcast… and on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/…
I have a question!
So, when do we give up and admit to ourselves that the planet is pretty much dead and nothing there can sustain human civilization without external support in the way of sending resources from Earth and building local habitats. Is it 10, 20, or 100 automated rovers before calling quits?
Yohan – you’ve broken your own record at making no sense:
1. A local no-methane measurement does not directly contradict a global measurement that showed both geographic and seasonal variance.
2. Even a global no-methane measurement does not mean the planet never supported life
3. Even if the planet never supported life, it doesn’t mean it cannot support human habitation. [We already know there’s more such resources, easily accessible, on Mars than anywhere else outside Earth]
4. Even without considering human habitation, Mars has the most diverse geology to explore.
5. You’re most welcome to call it quits even after this rover…
You misunderstood me.
When do we call it quits and just focus our energy, time and resources on sending manned expeditions and building an outpost instead of sending robotic missions that pretty much tells us knowing that we already know from external measurements.
If we are sending all these robotic missions just to try and determine whether mars once supported life, I think its just a waste of time and money.
I don’t care whether mars supported life or not. I’m only interested in building an outpost. Once we have an outpost we can send all the scientific we want to answer these mysterious questions.
When I said calling it quits, lets quit these robotic missions and get on with the business of sending manned missions to build outposts on the moon and mars. Then send all the scientists to the planet to make them happy puppies!!!
Fair enough.
But – before we land human on Mars, we need to have figured out:
– ISRU Oxygen and propellant
– local building materials
– Preferably, local veggies.
Otherwise, the “outpost” will end up being a flag-planting mission, and we all want to avoid that.
To learn these things, you need a whole campaign of robotic precursor missions, several per launch window, for several years.
MSL, even though designed as a science observer, goes a long way towards being a scout for such missions. Let’s see what the next few years will bring.
Yohan,
Is there anything that anybody’s doing in space development or space science that you’re happy about? You seem to be complaining about just about everything lately.
Steve
I’m trying to balance this forum. Everyone seems to be praising all the slow achievements. I thought I be the devils advocate and express dissatisfaction on the slow process.
Yohan,
Fair enough. But there are a lot of questions/problems to be addressed before tossing people to another planet. You ask about, “sending manned expeditions and building an outpost instead.” To do what, exactly?
Let’s say we could wave a magic wand and safely land a dozen people, with some supplies, on the surface of Mars at a safe location (no storms, steep dunes, etc.) What is the game plan for their mission? What are they there to do?
The obvious first step that people will think of is build more permanent living quarters. Again, fair enough, but what for? What things will these living quarters have to enable the astronauts to do, for the duration and afterward?
Given that they are going to be there for a minimum of half an Earth year, what’s on their to do list for the rest of their stay? What are they required to have up and running for the next mission when they finally leave?
Once we work through all of the tasks/chores/experiments/maintenance/etc. for manned Mars missions, we’ll end up with a long list of things that we need to know, need to have, and need to know how to do, just to survive. And like meekGee said, “To learn these things, you need a whole campaign of robotic precursor missions, several per launch window, for several years.” There’s no way around that. And I think the unfortunate reality is that we are still in the early stages of that process. We need to learn the nature of the planetary surface well enough to be safe on it before getting into more advanced and detailed stuff. In all honesty, this process has been proceeding much slower than it might have done, not just for reason of funding, but also because every lander or rover and even orbiter that we send to Mars is a muti-purpose machine, whether it’s acknowledged as such or not. MSL is called a science rover, but it is planned to do several different types of science which will provide data to several different groups, each with their own priorities and interests, and not all of its work, or the places it goes, will necessarily contribute knowledge usable for developing an outpost or even an HSF mission. But this shared resource is far better than none at all.
When it comes to Mars, I think it’s fair to say that we’re still learning to walk, and it’s hard to be patient. Perhaps would should consider ourselves lucky that the first humans to land on Mars just might do so within our lifetime. Like Hawking said, it’s a wonderful time to be alive.
Steve
This mission thus far seems to have a penchant for throwing press briefings with either no real new results (detected Floridian air on Mars and then no Martian methane detection from SAM) or already know facts (soil composed of volcanic material) about Mars. Looks like they are trying to hard to be relevant and justify the costs of this mission…
moon2mars,
True enough. But then again, not that long ago people were complaining that NASA science missions weren’t telling us anything, or waiting (what seemed like) a long time before releasing any data, pictures, whatever to the public (except in subscription journals).
I think I prefer things this way (regular press reports), even if it sometimes seems like a waste. I find it’s a lot easier reading the press releases than going to a typical NASA science mission web site and trying to get just the latest news and data.
Programs like Cassini and THEMIS have provided what I consider to be the most usable approach. They’ve each sent out a simple, basic weekly report summarizing “significant events” of the previous week. If anything really special or cool happens, the weekly report gives links to the details. Nothing pretty or fancy, but very functional.
Perhaps the teams for the various Mars rovers are now trying the same approach; if so, I think they would be better off to announce it as such and post the sign up for a mailing list in all of their press releases. I find that the mailing list method (and I don’t mean Facebook and Twitter) is the most convenient, because it comes straight into my email inbox with no effort required on my part — and they will always be and stay in chronological order, so if I get behind on a busy week I can catch up later without having to reconstruct anything. Once I’ve read each report I drag it into my folder for that program, which becomes a complete, searchable program history.
I wish all off the science programs would do this (and do it well). It gives the actual facts straight from the horse’s mouths. Currently, I think too many people get their “facts” from third-party blogs. So, perhaps these nothing-sensational press releases are a step in the right direction, but the whole thing needs to be presented better.
Steve
Maybe it’s time to start sending cheaper probes that can be used as test vehicles that could develop into human landers with each two year generation and not worry so much about making the next big science discovery quite so much.
DTARS,
I’m not sure I’m following you. Are you suggesting starting with a simple design and upgrading it over time in a modular fashion so that it “grows up” into something more sophisticated over time instead of trying to build a newer, better, bigger machine from scratch for each mission?
If so, the idea certainly appeals to me, but you’d have to be able to make some very prescient decisions in the early stages so as not to get stuck in dead-end situations as new requirements evolve as we learn more.
If not, then what exactly are you suggesting?
Steve
Well a decade or 2 ago lolol I read a book called the case for mars, so long ago I forgot lolol using those concepts we should start flying versions of that human landers fuel making systems with vehicle return. maybe you reduce the scale for sample return, or fly a full scale hab and land it to test system capabality.
The science is secondary goal. like the rover we just landed, that capability is important. You make those prescient decisions in the early stages as you suggest and try to build on them. if you have to reset and design so what! you have learned and you have a continuing goal and a growing plan to human mars landings in the not so distant future.
Has noocsq says use robots to test and get on with it.
Build and test a railroad to mars starting now using money from each science flight to mars to test it.
The basic drawings in zubrins book sure seem like a good place to start designing from, to me.
example
send a dragon to mars and modify it to land.
then make a much fuel as possible given its size and launch to mars orbit.
then scale it up
plan a pilot small railraod to mars and get on with it.
do a similiar aproach to the moon as well.
Small robots and scale up
Steve
Not planning and building and flying because we fear dead ends yells NOTHING.
PS
The Tick pilots have flown back to LEO for a week off. most of the structure is in place and the shell is well underway to being ready for interior upfitting. I’m left behind to make sure the equipment and work site is in good shape for their return.
“Not planning and building and flying because we fear dead ends yells NOTHING“
For what it’s worth, it’s been my experience that 20 people can tell you why something won’t work for every one person who’s thought about how it might be made to work. Part of the challenge is trying to find and listen to the ones while not upsetting the 20’s. I find it a challenge, but it’s worth it, because that’s how I learn new things.
I’ve also found that some of the best ideas have come from people who thought something through because they didn’t know it was impossible, and then they found out that it wasn’t impossible at all and the experts had it wrong. I think good ideas are like ore in rock; until you look carefully you don’t know where you’ll find the good stuff.
Steve
George,
Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan was, in my opinion, a significant step forward in how we think about HSF. I suspect that it’s mostly the time duration that keeps people from getting more interested in attempting it.
Generally speaking, I think Mars Direct (as outlined by Zubrin) has one strength and one weakness that most shape its chances of succeeding. The strength is that Robert Zubrin actually designed and built a pilot plant (on Earth) and ran it which demonstrated clearly that his ISRU return fuel production will actually work in a Mars-type atmosphere. This put his proposal head and shoulders above what anybody else was suggesting for Mars (or has since I would say). Talk is cheap, but Zubrin actually convinced his employer (at the time) to put up the money and resources to test the theory. The one weakness in Mars Direct, in my opinion, is that to accomplish anything more than producing fuel from the atmosphere you have to actually send people to Mars.
There are aspects which are simply too complicated (at this time anyhow) to do either robotically or with the teleoperation delays involved. For example, multiple vehicles, after flying all the way to Mars, have to be physically brought together from wherever they landed, and in some cases mated together (in some plans). This might be possible robotically, but the development and testing for it might well exceed that of all of the other tasks combined. It sounds simple, but it’s not.
My only other comment is the same old one — what are the plans for actually doing anything on Mars? Assuming that you could place and connect up all of the people and/or robots and equipment that you wanted, what is their purpose? There has to be more to it than just getting there, but I don’t see near as much written about that as how and when to get to Mars. What is our purpose/task list for the first mission, the second, the tenth? I’d really like to see people’s ideas on that.
Steve
I checked on the drill for 2016.Might hit some methane.No instruments to detect though.Just heat transfer.