Why is the ESA so stingy with Mars Express pics?

Ok...so the Mars Express orbiter has been up in orbit around Mars for about 6 months now.

Ths pictures that have been released are amazing--the camera on the Express is really something. Already we've seen some very interesting riverbeds, volcanoes, and other Martian features.

Strangely, if you check the ESA website, the Express images released total a whopping 87 pictures.

87?

Six months in orbit, and they've got 87 pictures? Something is way not right with this. NASA's rovers return more than this daily, on a regular basis. Understandably, these are 2 different missions from 2 different space agencies. Still, this amounts to less than 1 picture per day.

What gives? What has the ESA been looking at for the last 6 months? Do they really expect anyone to buy off on the idea that they sent this thing there only to get one, albeit stunning, picture per day?

Personally, I think they're finding all manner of things interesting on Mars, and just aren't sharing their data with everyone else--at least not anything very contreversial or groundbreaking, at any rate.

They probably want exclusive rights to analyse and debate - once they are done, its the rest of the worlds turn. Perhaps after a few "modifications".

[Edited on 5/18/04 by xenophanes85]

I know, I went there yesterday and was upset by the lack of pics...... Are they publicly funded by the EU?

Maybe they found trees *G*

yeah, I dunno why they arnt letting more images out...
I wish they would, I have a few areas I wanna look at in detail.

It is a mystery to me why there are so few images available. It's not as if Beagle was the prime mission objective.

The ones that have been released are pretty stunning, much better than those that went before. I was reading that ME has the ability to detect water up to 5Km down, you'd think we'd be drowning in data by now.

I wonder how much cooperation there is between NASA and the ESA, for years NASA has had a monopoly on the data available, and if some are to be believed, the Brookings report still drives their willingness to expose us to what's out there.

It's only recently (last couple of years) that water on Mars has become a fashionable possibility - along with all that might suggest or imply for current or past life on Mars.

I have no problem with life - water-based or not - on other planets, nor does the idea strike me as being threatening to the world at large. Sometimes it seems to me that ancient man was more open to the idea than we are, so much for evolution.

At least let's allow the possibility of organic life on a planet whose environment is not so far away from some of earths less hospitable places. Those bushes sure look like plants of some kind.

I agree Trevor, the science of Earth life has become so "right", that anything else that is an exception (terrestrial or extraterrestrial) is quickly made "wrong" or somehow explained to follow the laws we have made. Take for example the animal classification system - they had to change it to accomodate animals they never saw, like the platypus, the egg laying mammal. Unless humans will know all that was, is, and will be, Science will NEVER be complete and unchanging. What if ther is life on Mars? What if its something totally different than Earth life? What if it doesn't need oxygen? What if it doesn't need water? They are basing the plausibility of life on Mars on the laws of Earth life. Can someone tell me how that is scientifically correct?

[Edited on 5/25/04 by xenophanes85]

Come on guys, its obvious. JPL control the release of data...

The Beagle "Is In The Pound" and MARSIS has been "Wing-Clipped".

"We'll never see a image of the face" (my prediction on the Physics Forum, under the name "Nommos Prime (Dogon)" - January 2004).

the conspiracy theory is that mars has life art bell announced it last week on his show that nasa will soon announce that mars has life and they like to bbq

Well, at least they're doing something good with their weekends. Hmmm...this would seem to support the increasing amount of methane in the atmosphere!

Okay... so how does an underfunded American government agency control the EUROPEAN Space Agency? As I recall, we Americans didn't contribute anything to it. It was built in Europe by Europeans and launched in France.

America was too busy scrambling to get its own Mars expedition on its tiny budget. So how, pray tell, could they influcence European organizations that didn't want to be influenced?

Who says the US is influencing the ESA?

That's not to say that they couldn't - there must be a degree of cooperation between them as fellow manufacturers of space hardware and software.

Q, the ESA is wondering because NASA, part of the US, is known for cover-ups and over exxadurations with phonies. You can't believe everything you see!

Guys, JPL tested (the apparent failed airbags) on Beagle 2 Lander, they also “knobbled” MARSIS (which they, again, tested – not the Europeans);
www.physicsforums.com...
www.physicsforums.com...
I'm the "Nommos Prime (Dogon)" bloke...

I got a heap more, if you guys want it…

MARSIS “Going The Same Way As Beagle 2”

MARSIS Schedule WAS pushed back by JPL/NASA.

From;
marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov...
U.S. Participation During Orbiter Operations. From;
marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov...
“U.S. scientists on the instrument teams will be working with their European colleagues on the overall science goal of this mission: to understand the possibilities for past or present life on Mars by conducting a thorough search for water. U.S. scientists will help research by understanding what geological structures and minerals on Mars might have been formed by water, the extent of subsurface water, and what the atmosphere can tell us about the martian climate and how much water might have been lost to space in the past.”

From;
spaceflightnow.com...
“Simulations carried out four years ago by the radar boom's manufacturer, Astro Aerospace, California, USA, indicated that the deployment should be smooth, without significantly swinging back and forth. However, the radar team has now advised ESA that a new and refined analysis of the boom dynamics indicates that a sort of "backlash" might take place before the boom locks into its position.”

JPL IS VERY Involved.
From;
www.marsis.com...
www.marsis.com...
“Co-Principal Investigator - JEFFREY PLAUT "JET PROPULSION LABORATORY" Earth and Space Sciences Division plaut@jpl.nasa.go Pasadena – California
and;
Experiment Manager - WILLIAM T.K. JOHNSON "JET PROPULSION LABORATORY"
Planetary Radar Sounder Office wtkjohnson@jpl.nasa.gov Pasadena – California”

Antenna Deployment Proceedings;
www.marsis.com.../marsisstatus/antennadeployment

An Update On Beagle 2 Lander "Hijacking"
OR;
Nommos Prime (Dogon) "Getting Too Close...?";

From;
www.marstoday.com...
“Notwithstanding that Mars is a very harsh mistress--missions fail with rueful frequency --it is now clear the cards were more heavily stacked than usual against the diminutive Beagle 2, and long before it was launched toward the red planet .
Courted for its support during development, the public is now being shut out of the post-mission report. This is ostensibly on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and an ongoing legal spat between two of the program participants.
That sounds like a thin excuse. Even just the recommendations from the joint European Space Agency/British National Space Center (BNSC) failure review team make for uneasy reading. There is, however, more than a waft of suspicion that the underlying motivation is to avoid numerous red faces among the various players.
If there are legal or proprietary concerns about a name here or an assertion there, then black out the offending words. But publish the rest, warts and all. Withholding the whole report is wrong.”

For those who came in late, see previous Physics Forums’ Links regarding my “outrageous” Beagle 2 Lander “hijacking” theory.

I said “this whole episode would be buried”, and BURIED it is…