More James Cameron news: Harry of AICN has a wide-ranging conversation with the director which, if you can get past the usual Knowlesisms, reveals that Project 880 is in fact Avatar, and that Cameron has been working with NASA on a “Live Video Stereo Motion Image” (3-D) camera for the next Mars Rover.
Category: Mars
The Apollo Creed.
“‘We must deal with our short-term problems while not sacrificing our long-term investments,’ Griffin said. ‘The space program is a long-term investment in our future.'” While nodding to the funding issues created by Katrina, NASA unveils its ambitious plans to return to the moon by 2018. The plan, involving a lunar-lander like CEV that can carry 4 to 6 astronauts, basically seems to be a hybrid of the Space Shuttle and “Apollo on Steroids,” and has been designed with future missions to Mars in mind. In general, I’ve been impressed with NASA head Michael Griffin despite Dubya’s faulty emphasis on space-weapons (and I generally agree with his take on NASA funding), so if he thinks this rocket-hybrid is the way to go to get to the moon and beyond, I’m all for it.
Martian H20 and Planet X?
Some intriguing new finds right here in our neighborhood: The ESA posts some very nice images of a frozen Martian lake, and astronomers have found a large object (and its moon) orbiting our sun outside Pluto.
Life on Mars, Death from Space.
“I’d give it a 50-50 shot that you could find it somewhere underground. But then that’s a guess.” The NYT surveys the current thinking about prospects of Martian life, and how astrobiologists plan to go about proving or disproving its existence. (To wit, the European Space Agency plans to send an tricked-up rover to the red planet after 2011…hopefully, it’ll get past the Dubya Pentagon’s rash of Moonraker weapons.) Update: In somewhat related news (to the second story), Slate‘s Fred Kaplan assesses the Pentagon’s overly enthusiastic vision for ground-based future tech.
Ice, Ice, Baby.
Alright, stop, collaborate, and listen — Images sent back by the ESA’s Mars Express show the remants of icebergs once floating in a Martian Sea near the equator, and suggest that large ice blocks may well still exist just underneath the dusty surface (increasing both the chances of life on the Red Planet and the prospects for a successful manned mission.) Word to your mother.
Caverns of Mars.
After perusing “methane signatures and other possible signs of biological activity,” two NASA researchers claim there may well be life presently existing in subsurface Martian caves. We’re talking mitochondria, not Morlocks…but still, such a discovery would be exciting stuff, to say the least.
Blue Planets, Red Planets.
The two NASA rovers have completed one facet of their mission, and the results are exciting: There was in fact water on Mars. And where there’s water, there’s…sea monkeys?
Ares or Bust.
Via a frequent reader, Explore Mars Now, a website which attempts to visualize red-planet-viable spacecraft using existing technology. Well, it’s already more realistic than Mission to Mars.
Opportunity Knocks.
NASA scores another success on Mars with the flawless landing of the Opportunity. And, in other good news, scientists have determined the Spirit has memory issues, and have upgraded their prognosis from critical to serious.
Back in Business?
The good news: The confused and constantly-rebooting Mars Rover pipes up after a two-day vacation (although apparently it still has major issues.) The better news: The Mars Express confirms the existence of water on the red planet. Houston, we’re still a go.