MARS Phoenix mission canceled "NASA lost contact with it", page 3

reply to post by NavalFC

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Ok for the last time I will respond to you Captain!lol..

#1: How do you know if theirs even a storm or anything blocking the solar panels? Do you see it threw your super duper powerful telescope? I think not!

2: Lets say if their was something blocking the solar light and rays. How do you know they don't have a sophisticated technology that acts as a back up power source while the dust settles?

This is NASA and they do have some of the most intelligent people on Planet Earth working for them, and millions upon millions of dollar in funds to create some new technology to get the job done.

OH! I forgot! You work for them. Disregard this post.

Originally posted by king Pop!p
reply to post by NavalFC

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Ok for the last time I will respond to you Captain!lol..

#1: How do you know if theirs even a storm or anything blocking the solar panels? Do you see it threw your super duper powerful telescope? I think not!

2: Lets say if their was something blocking the solar light and rays. How do you know they don't have a sophisticated technology that acts as a back up power source while the dust settles?

This is NASA and they do have some of the most intelligent people on Planet Earth working for them, and millions upon millions of dollar in funds to create some new technology to get the job done.

OH! I forgot! You work for them. Disregard this post.

Wow..LOL.. Now I really know you havent done your research at all!!! There isnt anything blocking the solar panels! The martian winter is setting in in which the region of mars where the lander is GETS ALOT LESS SUNLIGHT. You need sunlight for solar power! Less sun = less power = not enough juice to run systems!!! Do you ever research ANYTHING?

2.The only back up phoenix had was its batteries which relied on solar enegry to charge them.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth

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Acutally, the two rovers spirit and opportunity ticked on a LOT longer than expected, the NASA Mars Phoenix was launched Aug 4 2007 and was supposed to last for 3 months after a sucessful landing - It operated for 5 months. Sure hope they get what they were looking for.


Mission goals
--Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars
--Characterize the Climate of Mars
--Characterize the Geology of Mars
--Prepare for Human Exploration

The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

Nasa were talking about this on the BBC show the sky at night just last week, and they explained what was going to happen this month with Phoenix.

They said that the Probe, had lived way longer than expected, however the time has now come, where they have to start closing down the experiments on board, the reason given was, the area the Probe was in, the temperature was dropping, and they expected it to go down (if i remember right )to over -200,

They said as the temp dropped, things would break and the Probe would not work again, they were hoping to last until December, but it did not seem likely, they also had a problem with sticky soil sticking to their experiments, and the more they tied, the less power output they could achieve, and they stated then, the mission was all but over, I believe they said 4 months more than they had expected?

So its not a conspiracy, just time catching up, they did say and i thought this was way cool, that the Probe will be encased in the Martian ice for ever.

You can watch that episode Here....>Rise of the Phoenix

You can find all the Programs here,The Sky at Night, with Sir Patrick Moore. Great show.

reply to post by king Pop!p

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Answer to #1 -- They still have the MRO and ESA stll has the Mars Express to help tell them these things. Plus, I bet even the Poenix lander saw the bigginnigs of the dust storm. But the dust isn't the problem ask much as the darkness of winter is.

#2 -- There are power plants available that use radioactive decay to provide power, but Phoenix doesn't have these and used solar panels instead -- most likely for budget reasons. NASA must fight for every dollar it gets and it probably didn't get enough money for Phoenix to include radioactive decay power generators.

...and it isn't only the dust storm that killed Phoenix; the fact that winter is cloing in -- and the Phoenix is located near the North Pole -- means that there is very, very little sunlight to power the solar generators.


Back to money and NASA's budget (because that is the REAL reason these missions are limited)....don't forget if they planned on the mission running for years, then they would need to pay all of the people back at NASA to run the mission for years -- and that again costs more money than NASA is given by congress. NASA needs to show strict (and cost-effective) budget numbers to Congress before money is appropriated, and ways to do that is to limit the length of a mission, and put relatively low-cost equipment on the probe.

The University of Arizona, who ran the Phoenix mission, was involved in an intense competition before winning the award -- and they won partly because they said they could do it for $325 Million. They, too need to have a definite "End date" to a mission for budgetary reasons.

NASA asking congress for $325 million is much easier than them asking congress for the $750 million or $1 Billion dollars some other missions have cost. If they didn't keep costs low, they proably wouldn't be given enough money to send a probe to mars every two years like they have been doing, and hopefully will continue to do.


Oh...and one more thing...
Why the heck is this on the "Alien and UFO" forum? Shouldn't it be on the "Space Exploration" forum?

[edit on 11/11/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

Good article on the Phoenix in the Discover Magazine, read it here.
blogs.discovermagazine.com... nomy/2008/11/11/this-time-phoenix-wont-arise-from-the-ashes/

link to arizona in article
phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu...

reply to post by DroolsAlot

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From NASA's site.
The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

We are now told all goals have been achieved. Can we conclude:
1. That biological life has been found?
2. That it is intelligent ?


[edit on 11-11-2008 by abcmanx]

Originally posted by abcmanx
reply to post by DroolsAlot

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From NASA's site.
The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

We are now told all goals have been achieved. Can we conclude:
1. That biological life has been found?
2. That it is intelligent ?

Phoenix was not:
1. Looking for life
2. Looking for intelligent life

As your quote says, it was:
1. Studying water in the arctic
2. Looking to see if the soil/ice boundary has conditions suitable for life.

The data has been gathered. A couple of important things we have confirmed:
1. There is water ice in the soil
2. There is water snow in the sky
We will learn more as the data returned is further analyzed.

[edit on 11-11-2008 by Phage]

reply to post by grifta

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Grifta, Seriously, this is NOT an issue of a "loss of power", it's a political story that is an absolute nightmare for NASA.

The country is spending a lot of resources on "needs here on Earth", such as bailing out criminals on Wall St., funding a pathetic war nobody believes in, and giving oil companies their largest profits in history.

A machine that has MULTIPLE failures AND cost the taxpayers 420 million bucks is the issue.

And nobody should be pissed more than the PEOPLE. We deserve more than this and the only way progress on this front can be rehabilitated is by privately funded sources.

Even then, there will be no guarantee they will be allowed to access the needed resources to realize such plans... It's hard not to promote or slink down to conspiracy-ville with this story - NASA has made a grave mistake with Phoenix at a time when public interest in astronomy was at a high point that has dwindled in the years/decades since moon exploration.

reply to post by chetinglendalevillage

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Estimated cost of a single B-2 Bomber: $737 million (total program cost $2.1 billion each)
en.wikipedia.org...

Total federal and state spending on welfare programs was $434 billion in FY 2000.
www.heritage.org...

Total California budget for 2009: $143 billion.

$420 million is chicken feed.

[edit on 11-11-2008 by Phage]

first we get mystery...
www.astroengine.com...
then NASA gave us this...
www.smh.com.au...

The president was briefed, and Obama was said to have been briefed during this period.

next we were given grave news about the future....
www.latimes.com...

Finally - death of Phoenix.
A loser machine if ever there was one.

reply to post by GrayFox

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good question - this news story floated around - first it was a devastating discovery, too much salt for life, then we were told it wasn't as bad as originally told...

Then the media went silent on the matter. That's why most readers, like you and me, can't answer this question you've asked.

Thank NASA. The fix is in and WE paid for this to happen.

reply to post by chetinglendalevillage

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You're confusing the media with NASA.

It's irrelevant that the media doesn't care enough to print stories about the perchlorates on Mars. NASA and University of Arizona scientists are still talking about these perchlorates and the possibility that Mars may still be able to harbor life.

The raw data returned from Phoenix is still being investigated. Don't forget, the raw data from a probe such as Phoenix doesn't provide immediate answers -- it only provides clues. It can take months or even years to piece those clues together to figure out if the soil around the lander is capable of harboring life (which, by the way, isn't the same as saying "it contains life").

The information coming from these scientific studies of the data from Phoenix and other probes isn't necessarily a "secret" -- the information is usually out there somewhere. However it is very rare that mainstream media cares enough to print articles about it. Don't blame NASA scientists, blame the media.

[edit on 11/12/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

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