re: mars pic

reply to post by RFBurns


Whats wrong with rocks? Rocks are interesting, specially when considered in the context they are found.

If we want to learn about how planets are formed (at least in the last stages) we can only resort to geology, even on Earth biology would not help.

Knowing the geological features it is easier to look for what we know are the best places to have harboured (or still have) life, place like fumaroles, for example. You may argue that NASA has not sent any rover to a volcanic region, but that it's a different story.

reply to post by ArMaP


To each their own. For the billions spent on rocks, and being a taxpayer who pays taxes for these missions, I would expect a bit more than "not scientific" and something worthy of my tax dollars.

I dont mind giving freebies to scientists earning 10 times my annual income, but I would also think that for footing the bill, like millions of other American tax payers, we should see alot more than just the stuff for the scientists. Not everyone in the public who pays for these missions are scientists or planitary geologists.

That is the most biggest problem as to why the public is not interested in the space program as it used to be. When all we get is "nothing here but rocks move along" attitude from NASA, well its no wonder why NASA lost the public interest 30 years ago.

You know, the only real interesting thing that has got my attention with NASA recently is the new MSL rover with the MAHLI camera that will be on board. Other than that, and I am sure there are millions of other American tax payers who feel the same way, we have not been inspired by NASA since 1969.

Perhaps someday, before the new admin cuts them off even more, these rock lovers will get their rocks off before its too late.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by vasaga


I hate that kind of misleading video.

They show you the temperatures at the latitudes the rovers are (near what would be on Earth the tropics) and they show photos from near the poles, making you believe that what we see is lakes and forests because they spoke about "tropical temperatures" (and those temperatures would not be tropical temperatures on Earth, it gets hotter here in Portugal in the Summer).

Considering that the latitude of those "lakes" is something like 80º South, I don't think that could be a real lake, right?

PS: another thing, they point to the high temperatures during the day but ignore that on the same graphs the temperatures for the night are also visible, so a day with a maximum of 35ºC may have a minimum of some -70ºC.

Manipulation is easy.

reply to post by RFBurns


OK, I see your point.

Now, put yourself in NASA's shoes, in what would you spend the money?

Remember, even if it's taxpayer's money they have to convince someone to give them the money, so you can not just ask money for anything you want, it must be something that the money holders consider pertinent (or, to put it in a more conspiracy minded way) not "dangerous".

To me, it look like a cave. You can see a ledge on the bottom of the dark area. It doesn't mean that it is a cave. That opening could have nothing but dirt in it.

reply to post by ArMaP


Long answer, not trying to throw off topic, but only answer ArMap's inquery.

Well at the very least, I would include something to try to keep the public's interest somewhat equal to or near the level of what it was in the late 60's.

The thing is, NASA has ignored the public interest, and has only catered to the scientific interest for all this time. Do you remember the Apollo days when NASA was practically a nightly feature on the newscasts? Not just for the Apollo missions themselves, but they had regular segments on all 3 major networks keeping the public's interest peaked with interviews, tours of the control rooms and showing the public the assembly lines and presenting lots of information on the public level of understanding.

It was that effort that kept the public tuned in. Even after the first few Apollo landings, NASA still made the effort to keep the interest of the public.

Then all of a sudden, in 73, after the return of Apollo 17, WHAM!! Everything stopped, everything came to a shattering hault, and the NASA drive to keep the public tuned in dropped off like going off a cliff to a bottomless pit.

And it wasnt because of budget constraints. Thats one of the biggest coverups of the entire Nixon administration, amongst other things.

During the last couple of Apollo missions, NASA started to slowly decrease their public relations campaigns and started to put out very boaring, and much too scientific "mumbo jumbo" to the public, which that right there started to drive away the general public interest.

That combined with the sudden hault of manned missions to the moon and the sudden death of any future plans to go on to mars, plus the scrapping of the Saturn 5 program, all of this just drove a knife right into the heart of the imagination, the desire and the inspiration for the public.

It has remained stagnent ever since.

These days, NASA is lucky to put up a 2 minute news "clip" about some rock or track trail or hillside on the news. NASA has stopped all live video from its shuttle missions since the early 90's. NASA has even cut off the HAM radio monitoring frequencies. The only thing we see live from NASA these days is the launching of a shuttle or a rocket carrying some satellite up to orbit, or crew swap out and re-supply to the ISS, where that alone is another whole story of a money drain over studies already done via Skylab and MIR 20 years ago.

The public wants more than just round and round and round endless circles up in low earth orbit. They want more than just red saturated images of rocks and craters and hills. They want their space program back.

IMO, NASA should put onboard the new MSL rover, a standard, digital full range RGB camera and get "pretty pictures" of Mars, and even if they dont show any blue or pink or purple, make them look that way to at least draw attraction once again to the space program.

NASA should start another public relations campaign like they did in the 60's and bring back the level of inspiration they gave to so many young people of the 60's who are now those engineers and scientists and astronauts, so that the next generations up comming wont be flooded with war and death, but inspired by adventure, discovery and space flight as it was before.




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 4-1-2009 by RFBurns]

reply to post by RFBurns


Well, here in Portugal we only followed the first Moon "landing" as an historic event, the other missions were less talked about, the regime (it was anti-communist but not pro-American, even Coca-Cola was not allowed to be imported) did not liked to give much importance to other countries, we were, as they liked to say "proudly alone".

IMO, NASA should put onboard the new MSL rover, a standard, digital full range RGB camera and get "pretty pictures" of Mars, and even if they dont show any blue or pink or purple, make them look that way to at least draw attraction once again to the space program.

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but do you mean change the photos to make them more "appealing" to the public?

Originally posted by internos
Ron, in my opinion that is Opportunity's Heat shield: during Sol 115 the rover was approximately where you see the red sphere,

Heat sheild? Your kidding right? I mean that would be saying ITS NOT A ROCK and therefore something interesting to look at on MARS...

Which was my POINT actually to the 'its only rocks but I blindly believe in god' crowd.

You know better than anyone that Mike and I have presented this artifact before, but here comes a new member to ATS, finds something he thinks interesting and is immediately POUNCED on by the usual 'rockheads' before he even gets a chance to feel his way around...

Seems to be happening a lot here lately

Personally I don't understand why the 'rockheads' have nothing better to do than to plague all the anomaly threads and state 'its only rocks' over and over again. We got it thanks... now move along.... I don't plague the religious threads and bug ya about those weird beliefs with no facts...

But ATS attracts many people who are actually interested in looking at the possibilities and isn't that what made ATS big in the first place?

You know I found some cool metal springs on Mars...


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Get so close you can see the serial number


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...



So welcome to ATS phrankie79... don't mind the 'rockheads' You get used to them



...

[edit on 4-1-2009 by zorgon]

Originally posted by Christian Voice
reply to post by cluckerspud

 

Again, I made no reference to my faith at all.

Your name says it all.

Originally posted by Christian Voice
I am merely pointing out that Mars is a giant rock in space.
There is not now nor has there ever been any evidence to
the contrary.

You are pointing out? or making an opinion based on information
you clearly don't understand fully?!

Cause if it is nothing more than a rock, then your focus should be
elsewhere, letting NASA know that there are simply wasting money.
Your time and rebuttal are wasted when the source of your point/opinion
are aimed at the wrong people.

Originally posted by Christian Voice
I just don't see the fascination with Mars. And oh my goodness sooooooo
many people on here posting pictures of rocks on Mars. How much free
time does everyone have that they can spend so much time looking so
attentively at these pictures?

You don't see the fascination with Mars?! This site or thread is not about
what YOU find fascinating or not. Funny how you keep coming back to
post. Must be fascinated on some level or do you just need to defend your
virtual honor. Don't worry about other peoples time and what they do
with it. We appreciate you trying to be judge and jury, but kindly move
along to something that fascinates you.

Originally posted by RFBurns
I think its quite exciting that they want to look at the fossils now instead of just more rocks. I would hate to think that students spending years earing their degrees to become planitary geologists and scientists would waste away all that time and effort over plain old rocks!!!

You are quite right...

Mars we now know from repeated visits had LOTS of water... Rovers have drilled with the RAT and found what look like fossils... I actually made a serious thread on those fossils... got three awards but mostly the thread was ignored? Now why is that? debunkers couldn't debunk it? Hmmmmm

Fossils on Mars - A Collection of Evidence
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The skeptics keep screaming to stop the sensationalist titles and show some real research... but when you do it is ignored.... yet two other 'sensational' threads I started the same day as a test... got 16 and 17 pages of replies in a few days while the serious study got 3 pages in the same time frame...

Go figure...

The thing about the Mars Rovers is that they are there to study rocks... I like rocks The Rovers are in fact mining laboratories to study the composition for future colonies

A note from 'one in the know'

On the mining-thing. I can only state that in the broadest of senses mining operations have taken place on the lunar surface and are presently being conducted on Mars (and continue on the Moon). Although the use of terminology, 'mining' has been downplayed (by NASA) and there exists an 'internal memo' .

Tthe Mars Rover (Spirit) is actually a micro-mining laboratory, complete with (2) spectrometers (see: marsrovers.nasa.gov... ) and other processing equipment/instrumentation. The Lunar Ranger utilized alpha-scatter identification capability along with LLRI capability used to determine soil composition (see: history.nasa.gov... )

Use of terminology, e.g., 'mining', could be considered (by some countries) to constitute a violation of the International Space Treaty. Thus, NASA is real-careful about use of terminology that could be considered a breach of 'Policy and Protocol'. I can give you this stuff as it's 'public information'. You have to look between the spaces/lines for more info and draw your own conclusions.

Now frankly you can take that or leave it as you see fit... as I won't reveal the source...

But if you want to see rocks... well go look at the fossil page I just linked to and here are the 'just rocks'

Vesicular Basalt and Scoria
Panoramic Camera :: Sol 732



marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Now for comparison of color here is the same Vesicular Basalt on Earth... a specimen from the Nevada desert (which looks a LOT like the rover terrain on Mars)



You can get so close and personal with the Rover cameras you can see the shiny reflective glassy surface of the basalt (Scoria is a glassy volcanic rock with lots of air bubbles)


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Here we have some drilling to slice open one of the "Blueberry" hematite spheres that cover an area the size of Oklahoma (the target area for Opportunity landing)

Drilling for Blueberries


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Blueberry Fields Forever


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Here is the landing site for Opportunity... the colored area is the field of hematite from spectrographic and infrared analysis analysis from Earth


Image credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University

This mosaic of infrared images shows the abundance and location of hematite at Opportunity's landing site, Meridiani Planum. On Earth, hematite is a mineral that typically forms in water.

Sulphur-rich soil on Mars puzzles scientists

Spirit doing a little trenching in the Martian sea beds, dragging its broken wheel through the salt beds of the now dry seas... much like the salt flats out here in the Nevada deserts

Spirit Sol 788


marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...


So to all the 'rockheads' some of us here (a lot) are interested in looking at rocks... and looking for anomalies...

Get over it

reply to post by zorgon


Looking at rocks is fine. I am an old rock hound myself, but there are people here not looking at rocks. They are bound and determined to find something more spectacular. By the way, again I'll say people will see what they want to see. I still haven't seen any fossils from Mars. The pics you posted did not look like fossils to me.

I like marsian fish btw.

Oh well, please move on...

reply to post by phrankie79


Sorry for only answering your question now, I got sidetracked.

I think it's just the result of the strong shadows on the Rovers' photos (I suppose that has something to do with the fact that the light is less absorbed by the atmosphere and all the photos are taken in a strong sunlight).

Any thing large enough to create a shadow will create a dark shadow, so things look more "abrupt" (I could not find a better word), with superficial shadows that look like deep holes, as you can see in this photo.

Although that looks like just a rock that broke off the face of the bigger rock, the shadow is very dark and gives it a different look, but as we have other references we accept that this is just a shallow shadow.

I am very interested with any news that comes from the 'red' planet, but I'm afraid I'm only a novice researcher in this subject and can only provide my own ideas and thoughts.

Historically 55% of Mars landings have ended in failure. Really, 55%? With the billions, if not trillions of dollars we spend on mars research, you think the world's most accomplished and intelligent scientists could come up with a better figure than that. You wanna know my theory?

Mars landings have been a bit more successful than a 45% success rate. NASA just needed to cover up a few of the expeditions so they can have their own 'private' looks on the planet and not have the public aware of these experiments. Its only a logical explanation when talking about topics like whether there is life on mars or not; topics that would literally change life on our own planet as we know it.

Personally whenever I see someones avatar it genrally give you an isight to that person, how ever small it does this. So whenever you see avatar with "insert religion here" you will know without a doubt that person has already been conditioned to that certain belief control system. That shows a 'stunt' in their ability to comprehend anything outside that circle. Case in point with the christian fella.

The other 'expert' that you find on these threads are usually self opinionated (me never?!) "OH THAT COULD NEVER BE THAT" person. Both you can simply ignore...be it you may only have 20 ignores (what's up with that??).

THANK YOU to the OP, I like many others are grateful for your time and efforts, and just dump those debunker skeptical reptile brain controlled nuff nuffs over board, as they can't hurt you with their predetermined mind kill set. I think there was/is life on Mars, and much of this info has come not from our NASA , but whistle blowers and insiders , and with a little help from people such as you that find the time to see the greater picture, rather than a 3rd density Earth bound time dwellers that think sleep work eat screw (repeat) is what we are about as a Terran race.

wZn

reply to post by zorgon


see now zorgon my question to you regarding NASA Mars images is: if they gave us BS from the moon photos, why wouldn't the same be said for Mars photos?

In short, how do we know ANY NASA image is legit?

Do you feel my dilemma buddy?!

wZn

The part I think looks interesting is what looks like a pathway right above the "statue". Too straight compared to other parts of the area. Looks like an opening at the top of it and some debris from a possible cave-in of it?

Arrows pointing to what I'm talking about. I was going to highlight it in color, but can't do a whole lot with my hands right now thanks to a very annoying nerve condition:

Christian Voice, I have to agree with what others are saying. Your name, avatar and signature clearly point to you basing your opinions using your beliefs more than anything else.

Life on other planets wouldn't dis-prove "God". I believe there's a "God" myself and also believe in life elsewhere. Now think about this for a second. If you were God (your Christian God), and you had the entire universe at your disposal and created life on one little planet and left the rest void, wouldn't that be a HUGE waste of space?

You also have no way at all of knowing for a fact that life hasn't been or isn't currently on Mars, yet you keep stating that as a fact.

[edit on 4-1-2009 by nightmare_david]

[edit on 4-1-2009 by nightmare_david]

It's funny, I never expect anything from anybody just because of his/her name or avatar, and I think that this is not important for this thread, that was about a specific Mars photo, not religious opinions, screen names or avatars.

So, why don't we keep to topic?

Having said that, this photo was discussed several times before, but the rock from the opening post was not (as far as I know), but the "path" was discussed, and, to me, it looks like all other cracks on the rock face, there are several visible on that photo.

PS: ImageShack thumbnails do not work on ATS.

Here's what I see in the pic. I see a hole in the rock wall that has had water flow OUT of it. See how the rock striations go left to right, and the dirt and debris come out of the hole at a 90 deg angle? Good. And how it's smoothed AWAY from the hole?


Now we get to the other item. To me, it looks like a plant. Again, we see it has nothing to do with the way the grain of the rock is going, and it has spines on the top of it. I am going to ignore the little blobs around it- they seem to be camera artifact. To be honest, it looks like tiny water droplets- but what do i know. The fact that it's centered around that stalk, and it's spread across the the rocks is interesting, but I saw the same in the sky shot, too.

Amazing how one can find stuff when they look- and look with a slightly skeptical eye- than can someone with Achurchmatism -oops, i mean astigmatism...

On a personal note- you know it all churchies need to shut up and go somewhere... like back to your padded rooms. You're making the REAL Christians look bad.

Originally posted by watchZEITGEISTnow
see now zorgon my question to you regarding NASA Mars images is: if they gave us BS from the moon photos, why wouldn't the same be said for Mars photos?

No dilemma... you just have to understand that NASA has three levels of information...
A) The public release level which has the pretty pictures and the tall tales...
B) The scientific level... information available to research agencies, universities, etc... and
C) The DoD secret level

The trick is to read between the lines and assemble the truth

Don't forget the two Mars rovers are in remote areas. I could set a Rover into the heart of the Atacama desert in Chile and you would swear it was a lifeless Marscape (In fact NASA has a facility there )

The Rovers also come equipped with algorithmic software that 'eliminates' anomalies by encoding them. Since it is a federal offense for us to possess those algorithms who knows what they cover...

But the programming doesn't get it all, though Cornell U recently sent an updated set of algorithms to the Rovers

But the best data on the cool stuff is not in the pictures, but in reams of pdf files on myriad of NASA sites and boring documents on military sites

Documents like...

SP100 Class Nuclear Reactor on the Moon 1991
Gary L. Bennett and Ronald C. Cull
NASA Office of Aeronautics and Exploration Technology
Washington, D.C.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

or...

ACTIVE SHIELDING CONCEPTS FOR THE IONIZING RADIATION IN SPACE
Contract NASw-502 Final Report Rev. 31 Jan. 1964

Space Sciences Laboratory
Missile and Space Division
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
Philadelphia, Pa.

Final Report
Contract NASw - 5 0 2
Period Covered: 1 Sept. 1962 - 31 Aug. 1963

Abstract:

Studies have been made on the problems of shielding a spacecraft from
ionizing radiation.Protons having energies between 100 and 1,000 MeV were taken as the radiation that should be excluded from the spacecraft's crew.
An electromagnetic field system using a toroidal shaped spacecraft with a
confined magnetic field is shown to be the lightest among those treated.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

But here at ATS stuff like that gets put into Skunkworks to be forgotten

University of Wisconson/Madison Fusion Rockets 1992
Los Alamos Project Looking Glass
US NAVY the 'other' space program also flew a tether satelite
MIT - Levitating HE3 Fusion confinement units...

All that stuff... real and documented.. but no one cares... and yet they scream "SHOW ME EVIDENCE"

:shk: