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Space Science

Phoenix Headed for Martian North Pole in 2007 175

Posted by michael from the need-some-original-names dept.
jschuur writes "After narrowing down the selections to 4 finalists, NASA has chosen the Phoenix Mars lander design for its 2007 Scout Mission to the planet Mars. Phoenix, a joint project between the University of Arizona and Planetary Laboratory was designed after the doomed 1999 Mars Polar Lander and recycles much of its design and instrument ideas. A staggering $325 million grant was awarded to the University of Arizona for the project, which will also include Canadian participation. Phoenix is scheduled to land on Mars in May of 2008."
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Phoenix Headed for Martian North Pole in 2007 More

Phoenix Headed for Martian North Pole in 2007

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  • Stupid joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:04AM (#6613994)
    Don't you mean the Firebird Mars Lander?

    • Re:Stupid joke (Score:4, Funny)

      by acehole ( 174372 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:11AM (#6614012) Homepage

      Shhh! you wanna get sued?! [slashdot.org]

    • Yeah. Besides, the name "Phoenix" should have been reserved by NASA, or rather by Zephram Cochrane, for the name of the first starship with warp drive.

      Of course, this isn't supposed to happen until after the third world war so I'm sure that all records of Mozilla Phoenix/Firebird and all the conflicts will have been lost by then, seeing as how a nuclear holocaust can easily facilitate such a loss of data.

  • wuh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by selfabuse ( 681350 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:06AM (#6614001)
    obligitory "they're sending a browser/database to Mars?!" comment

    • Re:wuh? (Score:2, Funny)

      by DiscoDave_25 ( 692069 )
      The next instalment of the file sharers plot to dodge the RIAA: Our servers on Mars - subpoena that!
    • Obligatory quote or not, I did almost decide to download the Phoenix browser after reading the headline just to see why they'd want to send it to Mars. Was it because Microsoft wouldn't let them send Internet Explorer unless they included a licensed version of Windows XP?

  • tracking (Score:4, Funny)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:09AM (#6614007)
    ... please let this one incorporate better tracking so they can monitor it all the way to the ground... just in case this like a few other notable Martian craft go plunging into the ground at around 300 mph... we can at least see where and how it hit.

    • Re:tracking (Score:1, Funny)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

      >notable Martian craft go plunging into the ground at around 300 mph

      mph? What's that in bushels per hectare? How ironic that you sneer at impacting craft when you can't even be bothered to write metres per second.

      • Bah, I pour scorn on your criticism when you can't even be bothered to promote the use of attoparsec per microfortnight as a measure of speed!
        • Bah, I pour scorn on your criticism when you can't even be bothered to promote the use of attoparsec per microfortnight as a measure of speed!

          My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I like it!

          (OK, so it's mileage instead of speed...)

      • notable Martian craft go plunging into the ground at around 300 mph
        mph? What's that in bushels per hectare? How ironic that you sneer at impacting craft when you can't even be bothered to write metres per second.
        I guess it's a good thing they've got the (metric) Canadians then eh?

  • The Pheonix rises from the ashes (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't know if that's deliberate or, given NASA's recent history, if it's appropriate, funny, or just plain sad.

    I guess it's a bit of all that.

    • Yes, it's deliberate. Read the Phoenix website.

      The lander itself is not a rehash of the Mars Polar Lander, but a re-use of the Mars Surveyor Program's lander (whose 2001 mission was cancelled) with some of the instruments that were originally built for Mars Polar Lander but ended up not being used until now.

  • Sample Return (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:13AM (#6614023)
    When are we going to see a sample return mission?

    That will be a big advance...
    • The big advance I'm waiting for is the Martian mission to Earth.

      "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

    • Re:Sample Return (Score:4, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @10:51AM (#6615051)
      When are we going to see a sample return mission?

      Phoenix was chosen ahead of a sample return mission. I haven't seen what the exact reason was, but I imagine the tight $325 million cap would have precluded a viable sample return mission.

      ESA is thinking about a sample return mission at some point around 2011, but funding really depends on the success of Mars Express/Beagle 2.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

  • just for a change... (Score:4, Funny)

    by iainl ( 136759 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:17AM (#6614042)
    Rather than make a firebird gag, lets point out that they are delivering it there because the martians called and requested it.

    Yes folks, they placed an "Order of the Phoenix".

    B'dumph T'sssh.
    • Yes folks, they placed an "Order of the Phoenix".

      Not only that, but they were actually willing to pay 325 million dollars for shipping.
      • > > Yes folks, they placed an "Order of the Phoenix".
        >
        > Not only that, but they were actually willing to pay 325 million dollars for shipping.

        Actually, the shipping was only $20.00. The $325M was just insurance against the shipment being burninated en route by the Martian Air Defense's Tactical Regiment Of Guided Dragons On Recon.

        • > Martian Air Defense's Tactical Regiment Of Guided Dragons On Recon.

          If it was instead a regiment of "Linux Losers" or something similar, the acronym would be MADTROLL.
          Oh yeah, my tuition money was really well spent.
  • Does anyone have a decent estimate of when we will launch a human expedition to Mars? I mean how far off are the space craft from a feasible mission?

    • One of the points of these unmanned probes are that they can do much of what a human mission can complete, but at a fraction of the cost and time.

      • To what end though? Do we need to go to Mars? It's essentially an illogical folly, so it we're going to do it, let's do it right and let astronauts get back to being explorers rather than truck drivers.
      • However, they are still hampered by the fact that they are essentially "dumb" implements. They can't say, by themselves anyway, "Hey, that mountain over there looks like a good place to look for fossils. Let's hop in the rover and go take a look." No, they have to wait for human operators to decide for them, then tell them exactly how to get there, all with a 40 minute round trip communication time. Most of the time in a robotic Mars mission is spent sitting on the surface, waiting for orders.

        Humans can, s
    • There are countless plans to go to Mars. I remember the talk about Bush saying we would go to Mars by 2015 or 2020 and the ensuing discussion about if it was possible. I think it would be if we put the same amount of effort in to it as the Apollo missions. But when we go to Mars, I want us to go to colonize, not visit once and leave. In order for that to happen we need to make it cheap enough to send tens of thousands of people to Mars with the equipment to survive there their entire lives. I don't kno
      • All great colonizations started with explorers. Columbus, Hudson, Ponce de Leon. We should follow the Mars Direct [nw.net] plan and put outposts on the Red Planet, complete with 100KW nuclear reactors and greenhouses. This will prove our technology and provide a beachhead for the impending colonization.

        Howeever, I disagree that a mission to a new star system is more probable than a Mars mission. Congress would never approve the funding, even though their constituents want it.
        • At least half the people in this country don't even know that Mars is another planet like ours, much less that you could actually GO there. You expect them to know why we should be sending people there?

          Explain any of it to these people and I guarantee their response will be "but we have to take care of our problems here in the Fertile Crescent, I mean Europe, I mean Earth, first!" </sarcasm>
      • There are countless plans to go to Mars. I remember the talk about Bush saying we would go to Mars by 2015 or 2020 and the ensuing discussion about if it was possible. I think it would be if we put the same amount of effort in to it as the Apollo missions. But when we go to Mars, I want us to go to colonize, not visit once and leave. In order for that to happen we need to make it cheap enough to send tens of thousands of people to Mars with the equipment to survive there their entire lives. I don't know o
        • Why? What is there that we can't have better and cheaper on Earth? Mars is a rock, frozen day and night, baked by solar radiation; its atmosphere, what little there is of it, is poisonous, the soil is just plain weird - why would we want to live there? It would make Antarctica look appealing.

          There are two questions here:

          1: Why should we, humanity, go?
          2: Why should anyone, as a single person, go?

          The answer to the second one is easy. Because no one else has. No one else has seen the sky thousands of diffe
    • Although I don't have a time table, the project to send humans to mars IS currently being worked on. My sister is an environmental engineer working for NASA on waste managment/recycling issues for a trip to mars, and she routinely has meetings where numerous national research teams meet up to discuss progress towards this goal.

  • doesn't matter to me (Score:4, Funny)

    by selfabuse ( 681350 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:23AM (#6614066)
    heh, I never liked Arizona anyway.

  • Not so staggering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PaschalNee ( 451912 ) <[pnee] [at] [toombeola.com]> on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:23AM (#6614067) Homepage

    A staggering $325 million grant was awarded to the University of Arizona

    I don't see what is so staggering about this amount. For example, I'm guessing hundreds of millions of $ are spent every year designing cars. Cars that are never more than a few miles away from a local garage. If your sending a device a few million miles away you'd want to be pretty sure it's going to work. Not a inexpensive proposition. There are no Pep Boys on Mars [crossmediaservices.com]

    • http://www.dailystar.com/star/today/30805MARS.html

      Its a staggering amount because its the largest research grant ever awarded to the University of Arizona, and because it will have a huge effect on the local economy. Oddly enough, the Phoenix Project will be built in Tucson, AZ, at the U of A, instead of ASU in Phoenix. Tucson is a whole lot smaller, and this is a big deal contract around here.
    • There are no Pep Boys on Mars

      No, but there are several very close by [crossmediaservices.com].
  • There was I thinking that Phoenix, AZ and the Martian North Pole were going to collide. Damn those Martians and their gravity ray!
  • They are sending something from Tucson (that's "Two Saun", not "Tuck Sun") to Mars and calling it Phoenix. It's not a jab at ASU because that's in Tempe (That's "Tem pee"). Hey, we name our cities with fine names here in AZ. It's 5:32 AM in Phoenix and only 89 degrees so far.

  • Manned Missions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:44AM (#6614160)
    I think they should really be shooting towards a manned mission. Having actual people on the ship makes mission completion that much more important. Do you really think they would have tried that hard to get Apollo 13 back to earth if there was no people on it? Apart from spontaneous shuttle explosions such as columbia and challenger, they would do everything they could to make sure the mission was a success. It seems that people don't care when billions of tax dollars of spacecraft are lost. However, if a few astronauts die, The world comes to a standstill. Having people on the missions would probably make them have a much higher success rate.
    • The problem with this is that it is very difficult to get people back. This is why it makes sense to have a one-way manned mission. It would be a very worthy trade-off to lose a few lives to gain more information about Mars. Unfortunately, American culture is such that this type of mission is not acceptable, no matter what the cost-benefit is.
      • The problem with this is that it is very difficult to get people back. This is why it makes sense to have a one-way manned mission. It would be a very worthy trade-off to lose a few lives to gain more information about Mars. Unfortunately, American culture is such that this type of mission is not acceptable, no matter what the cost-benefit is.

        If you're American, why don't you volunteer?

        If you're foreign, and just blasting America, why don't you get your country to develop a space program and send your ow
        • > why don't you get your country to develop a space program and send your own kids on a suicide mission?

          Or just get some Palestinian children and tell them that Allah is waiting for them there.

          At least they get to live a good bit longer and don't have to blow up with a roller park.]
    • I wish we were doing a manned mission right now. Mars is the closest it will be for 60,000 years, what better time to try then when the launch cost is lowest?

    • Re:Manned Missions (Score:3, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 )
      I think they should really be shooting towards a manned mission. Having actual people on the ship makes mission completion that much more important. Do you really think they would have tried that hard to get Apollo 13 back to earth if there was no people on it? Apart from spontaneous shuttle explosions such as columbia and challenger, they would do everything they could to make sure the mission was a success.

      That's thinking backwards. If you don't have astronauts to worry about you don't have to worry

      • Re:Manned Missions (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @11:46AM (#6615573) Homepage Journal
        In "The Case for Mars," Zubrin talks about the court bureaucrats in China. The emporer had opened up china in the late 1300s and sent treasure fleets to Indonesia, India, Arabia, and even the west coast of Africa. They had seven masts when European ships had at most two.

        Then the emporer died. The bureaucrats though he had wasted funds on a folly of an idea (exploration) when more important things needed to be done at home, like irrigation projects. They ordered the fleets destroyed just as they were about to enter the Mediterranean, and China was subjugated by Europeans who had the will to explore and the courage to accept the risks.

        Why do I bring this up? Because it's ideas like yours that poison exploratory programs. Instead of grand gestures, you want small cheap steps. You speak of needs at home when they can be solved by innovating for the world. Material hyper efficient fuel cells and computers, inexpensive access to fusionable materials, and cheap metals and chemicals are all available in space. We must have the courage and conviction to simply reach out and grab them, and this can be done for a small percentage of the GNP. Merely increasing NASA's budget to the same percentage of the federal budget as it was during the Apollo era and providing a lofty goal will be enough for NASA to land several humans on Mars and more (like develop an economical heavy-lift launch vehicle). We simply have to want it enough.

        • Re:Manned Missions (Score:5, Interesting)

          by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @12:14PM (#6615857)
          Then the emporer died. The bureaucrats though he had wasted funds on a folly of an idea (exploration) when more important things needed to be done at home, like irrigation projects. They ordered the fleets destroyed just as they were about to enter the Mediterranean, and China was subjugated by Europeans who had the will to explore and the courage to accept the risks.

          Perhaps Zubrin should read his history a little more carefully before extrapolating from it. China was not overrun as a direct consequence of failing to explore the World. Its descent from a pre-eminent power started in the late Qing Dynasty which was in 1840. China had become decentralised, its bureaucracy was corrupt and their was a prevalent belief in an impending apocalypse. Note the lack of international reasons for a decline in Chinese power - these were internal structural problems. China had been through them before - but this time there was a difference...

          China ran up against the newly emergent European superpowers, who were expanding their influence in the region. Britain was a more powerful country - China declined.

          Zubrin's example is doubly flawed in that he extrapolates from a situation (albeit badly) where there is a clear winner and a clear loser to a situation where it is impossible to see what could be gained. Mars could never be an economic benefit to Earth, it has nothing of use, its too far away and its too hostile.

          Material hyper efficient fuel cells and computers, inexpensive access to fusionable materials, and cheap metals and chemicals are all available in space.

          None of them are on Mars, none of them require manned exploration, many of them probably don't even require space travel. Cheap metals are available on Earth (commodities and bulk chemicals are continuing to fall in price). There is nothing out there that we need to grab.

          Saying we've got to go and get it when we have no need nor any conceivable need for it (whatever it is) is the economics of the British Empire (or more recently, the Pentagon). It's always someone else's money after all.

          Why do I bring this up? Because it's ideas like yours that poison exploratory programs. Instead of grand gestures, you want small cheap steps. You speak of needs at home when they can be solved by innovating for the world.

          And its that attitude of the seizing the Last Frontier that has produced white elephant after white elephant, whether it is the Shuttle, Concorde, BAM, NMD, fast breeder reactors - you name it. People are so busy convincing themselves that these things will be vital in the future, they forget to ask one question - why?

          We simply have to want it enough.

          Easy question then? Why do you want to send humans to Mars?

          Best wishes,
          Mike.

          • Its descent from a pre-eminent power started in the late Qing Dynasty which was in 1840.

            Yes, but that descent was probably hastened because for some reason China had been completely economically and politically cut off from the millions of Chinese colonists who had beaten the Europeans to the Americas back when China had been a pre-eminent power along with the European empires.

            What's that you say? There were no such colonists? Well, that explains a little more then.

            • Yes, but that descent was probably hastened because for some reason China had been completely economically and politically cut off from the millions of Chinese colonists who had beaten the Europeans to the Americas back when China had been a pre-eminent power along with the European empires.

              So where are the great flourishing Chinese colonies in the areas they discovered before deciding to turn their backs on the rest of the World? Where are the Chinese colonies in India and East Africa? Why is evidence

          • Maybe YOU should read some history befor you post. On the other hand, it probably won't do you much good. More data won't fix your faulty capability to use logic.

            Declining China lost to superpower Europe.

            China was in decline because of isolationism.

            European nations became superpowers because they were engaging in exploration.

            So what was the point you were trying to make?

            England did not become a superpower because of the wealth created by its explorations, but by developing the technology to do that exp

  • Top 10 Reasons to Send Phoenix to Mars (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @08:48AM (#6614177)
    10. That old 1981 pontiac is now so rusty that even the junk yards won't take it.

    9. Cyclops and Wolverine have been fighing over her for 26 years no. Enough is enough, get her out of the picture.

    8. As part of the deal for acquiring the Phoenix Suns, the Martian sports magnate had to buy the whole city.

    7. The NHL Phoenix Coyotes got tired of all the ribbing about having a hockey team where there is no ice. The Martian poles way outfreeze Canada. Put that in your back-bacon, Maple Leafs!

    6. They wanted to keep those 133 degree summer temperatures. All they have to do now is replace the "+" with a "-".

    5. It's part of a plot by Scottsdale to take over the state.

    4. "Project Phoenix" [seti-inst.edu] wants to shut down by finding Phoenix as the example of life on another planet.

    3. It's punishment for the city name violating one of J.K. Rowling's book title trademarks.

    2. Get rid of it already, it is too confusing to remember whether or not the O goes before the E.

    1. "Because it blocks my view of Tucson".

  • Was this better than alternatives? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adlai ( 469308 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @09:31AM (#6614433)

    Personally, I think there are a couple of things worth noting regarding this decision. 1st -- although $325 million is a bit "staggering", it's interesting to note that this is the first mission competition that really was a winner take all competition. 30 proposals were submitted, 4 made the finals, and then one winner was picked. I have to think NASA will be doing a lot more of this, since it's got to be more economical in the long-run.

    2nd, one of the losers was the extremely cool ARES [nasa.gov] Martian Airplane proposal. I'm biased because some of the people in my lab were on the science team for that proposal, but I think it would have pushed both the scientific and engineering envelope more than Phoenix will. Was NASA being too conservative (like I think), or simply prudent? I think it's probably hard to tell right now. I sure hope ARES has a shot in 2011 if they run another Scout competition, since I think it'll remain a cool idea even then...

    See this story [hamptonroads.com] in the Hampton Roads paper if you are more interested about ARES' s rejection/want to see a picture of the prototype.

    • Maybe the fact that they are recycling components from a prior mission had something to do with the decision. Remember, the startup to completion time is drastically reduced if you can use components which are already on the shelf.

      If I'm not mistaken, one of the current ESA missions to Mars uses components and planning from a previous European space mission, drastically decreasing cost and time to flight. Maybe someone can find the link on that.
    • What advantage does a airplane have to an orbiter? Were they just trying to get a closer look? What kind of remote-sensing coverage could an airplane get on the planet when Odyssey's GRS can see the entire planet? How many instruments could be loaded up on an airplane? How could you fly it remote control with a 20 minute lag?

      It seems to me that an opportunity to actually land on the planet, where GRS shows there to be water and perform wet chemistry experiments is a lot more interesting. This is a

  • Proof of alien life... (Score:4, Funny)

    by pir8garth ( 674943 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2003 @10:13AM (#6614772)
    Proof of alien life was captured on film [arizona.edu]; much to the surprise of the people at NASA, a careless martian forgot to throw away his bottle of Aquafina...
  • "Battle of the Planets" references?

    I'm surprised at you people! And we gave you T-Shirts and everything!


    -FL

  • Phoenix, a joint project between the University of Arizona and Planetary Laboratory was...
    That should read:

    Phoenix, a proposal of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory was...

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