NASA Preps Mars Underground Mole

Roland Piquepaille writes "People at NASA never cease to surprise me. Searching for water or presence of past life of Mars obviously needs drilling beneath the surface. So NASA is developing the Mars Underground Mole (MUM), based on a previous device used for the European Beagle 2 mission. But here is the twist. MUM will include sensors which were previously used to collect spectral imagery of Earth from pilotless aircrafts, especially Hawaii, according to NASA. While the Mole will stay on the surface on Mars and drill up to 5 meters deep, it will transmit data via a fiber optic cable to a digital array scanning interferometer (DASI). And the spectral images produced by the DASI will enable researchers to identify possible water, ice, organics and minerals under the surface on Mars. And this MUM will be a small one, weighing less than a kilogram for a length of only 50 centimeters. For more details and pictures about MUM, please read this overview."

Reminds me of...

[Ariane 6]

The cryobot, which my advisor here at UH built for the Martian polar cap, as well as Europa. It was a tube that would be lowered nose-first from a lander onto the ice, and melt its way down using a heated tip in the nose, taking readings along the way. They actually tested it out in the Antarctic, but unfortunately, I wasn't here at the time, so didn't get to go along :(

Come to think of it, some of the guys right down the hall have been working on the airborne hyperspectral imager mentioned in the article; maybe I'll go ask them about this.

Call me cynical . . .

[homeobocks]

It seems as if space exploration has become a veritable black hole for funding. As my grandmother said, "They should fund heaven on earth before going to explore it." Though space exploration *may* have some good effects on research (like joysticks), I feel that we first need to invest in research to, say, cheapen AIDS drugs or provide cleaner water.

Re:Call me cynical . . .

[ergean]

Space eploration is nothing compared to military expenses.
So get out of your hole - there is no haven on earth .

Any evolution in medicine would make us whis we invested more in space eploration. You'll cry for space in 30 years from now. Overcrowd -> lack of resources -> war. So cure more people to wipe them out with bombs.

Any way you have it, we need space exploration more than an instant cure for all desises.

So stop listening to what your grandmother says, and start thinking for youself.
Think about weather forcast, internet, teflon, n's thousand of tv channels, asteroids, aliens and mostly about space.

And what the hell would you do with 1.000 billions you save in 40 years?
Trust me you don't want to know. You have no assurance that the money would be used in a better way.

Re:Call me cynical . . .

[johannesg]

Your grandmother evidently thinks space exploration is useless and should be stopped until _all_ problems here on Earth are solved. That is, until we have no more terrorists, peace in the middle east, cures for all diseases, no more corruption, hate, violence, or spam; no more drug problems, no more traffic accidents, plentiful resources for everyone, and little girls taking care of all the kittens. Presumably she also wants us all to live in a utopian world without government or money, where people are nice to each other from the goodness of their hearts?

Presumably, once we have achieved all that we will finally be allowed to explore the heavens. Can your grandmother provide some sort of timescale? I'm asking, because I want to *see* that first man on Mars. Right now I think the chances of that are about fifty/fifty, but if she has her way I doubt there will ever be a generation that does.

Finally, look up how much money your country spends on defence, how much it spends on healthcare, and finally how much it spends on space exploration. I'm sure there will be readers who can provide these numbers, but I can already tell you that space exploration will be less than a percent of any of the other two.

Re:Call me cynical . . .

[dsanfte]

Presumably she also wants us all to live in a utopian world without government or money, where people are nice to each other from the goodness of their hearts?

What she really says is, "What, they're spending $15 billion on that when $2,000 would clear up all my outstanding debt?!" And she's against it for that reason. So people are always going to be against spending any amount of money unless it addresses their own immediate needs.

Re:Call me cynical . . .

[argStyopa]

I wouldn't call you cynical, only naive.

Space exploration is a perfect example of the "give a man a fish..." paradigm.

The problems of humanity are endless. And frankly, we've solved most of them. Now it's a question of distribution and dissemination.

But does anyone doubt that in 1000 years we're going to be colonizing other planets and spreading the human race across the galaxy? We'll STILL have the same human problems of violence, greed, selfishness, etc. - I think they are endemic to the human animal.

I can see your grandma saying 80 years ago "why are we funding these silly things called airplanes? They are unsafe and barely can stay up in the air - what use are they? Use that money for something important, like feeding the starving."

And she'd be wrong.

Why start being perfectionists there?

[roystgnr]

Perhaps we should all head back to Africa and the Middle East, and not migrate any further until we've turned our species' homelands into heaven. I'm sure if we focus all our efforts on them, we'll accomplish that Real Soon Now too...

In case of Slashdotting...

[fname]

This site is getting a little slow, so here it is:

NASA Preps Mars Underground Mole

Posted by michael on Friday July 16, @08:45PM
from the better-hope-they-don't-strike-oil dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "People at NASA never cease to surprise me. Searching for water or presence of past life of Mars obviously needs drilling beneath the surface. So NASA is developing the Mars Underground Mole (MUM), based on a previous device used for the European Beagle 2 mission. But here is the twist. MUM will include se

OMFG Insightful?

[PatientZero]

He posted the text of the summary ... which is directly above his freakin' post! Funny, absolutely, but insightful?

I think the moderators themselves need a systems upgrade.

Re:OMFG Insightful?

[Quinn_Inuit]

I was reading awhile ago on some /.er's journal that funny mods grant no karma, but getting modded down from funny costs you karma. This person (whose name utterly eludes me, I'm sorry) advocated modding people up as insightful or something to get around the karma trap. It's possible that whoever modded this person was operating on that theory [said without comment on the value or lack thereof of the theory].

Re:In case of Slashdotting...

[fname]

Of course it's redundant, that's the joke! Are you related to the guy who moderated this "informative?"

A small MUM

[Anonymous Coward]

And this MUM will be a small one, weighing less than a kilogram for a length of only 50 centimeters.

Indeed, that is even shorter than my MUM, and quite a bit lighter too!

Prediction

[PatientZero]

While drilling one of the many holes, the Mole will uncover a crystalline life form that lives in the underground Martian water table. The salt-based life will attempt to communicate with it with flashy lights, but of course the NASA "scientists" will be oblivious to the obviously higher form of intelligence -- besides, they've got a schedule to meet. In a desperate attempt to save their unique species from extinction, the life forms will seize control of the Mole and proceed to attack and destroy the other Mars Rovers using its drill.

Finally, Beagle II will appear from out of nowhere, disable the Mole, negotiate a peace treaty with the new life, and usher in a new era of human-alien cooperation.

Re:Prediction

[Giggle Stick]

Will the Beagle declare that the Solar System will have "Peace for our time"?

Re:Prediction

[TheGavster]

Wait ... don't we bring the crystalline life back to the ship, where it multiplies out of control, becomes sentient, and breaks out of containment? At least with its superior intelligence, it cares not for us and goes about its merry way ...

I for one welcome our new crystalline overlords.

Re:Prediction

[Blastercorps]

That sounds like at least one episode of Star Trek.

Happy Martians

[Anonymous Coward]

Today Martians sighed in relief as their underground civilization is 6 meters beneath Mars' surface.

Not Cool Enough

[hondo77]

International Rescue had this figured out a long time ago with a much cooler mole [davidszondy.com].

Re:Not Cool Enough

[isorox]

But will this mole be delivered by Thunderbird 2? If it is will it be driven by an ex-austronaut puppet or a 15 year old kid with teenage angsts?

Underground Mole

[lewko]

Moley, moley, moley, moley, moley... [the-reel-mccoy.com]

hmm

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So we sent a dog... now a mole... whats next? A swallow?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

African or.... Oh I give up.

Some things are just too easy.

(In Soviet Russia, example.com points to slashdot.org)

Dental Drilling Technology

[qaguru]

Useless trivia: The original Beagle drilling technology is is based upon a Hong Kong dentist's idea. The name of the guy is Dr. Ng.

How Many Moles?

[MooseByte]

I wonder how many of these little robo-critters they could deploy in a single landing? Sure seems like a swarm of the little buggers spreading out for not only redundancy but increased geographical coverage would be a big plus.

Looks like that base station each is tethered to would put a kink in that idea though.

And of course if the subterranean residents interpret the swarm as an invasion, Lucy's gonna have some 'splainin to do...

interferometer

[excesspwr]

Servo's had one for years.

5-4-3-2-1 NASA are GO!

[batmanuel]

This is a job for The Mole
http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.com/the%20mole.h tm [martinbowe...lworld.com]

Re:5-4-3-2-1 NASA are GO!

[Madcapjack]

This is a job for The Mole

Don't you mean that this is a job for Molier, and his niece Moleen [lizardlounge.com]?

.

For those not on the in on this one, Molier and Moleen are two mole like creatures involved in the archaeological dig of an ancient underground city (they team up with Dr. TJ Taroo). Listen to the radio play at the link. You won't regret it!

A _real_ mission??

[acceber]

Now, let's wait until a real Mars mission comes to see if MUM really works.

Is that implying that the Mars exploration mission of Spirit and Opportunity was NOT a REAL mission? Spirit and Opportunity has been one of the most successful missions that NASA has ever undertaken, those rovers have surpassed their use-by-date by more than 3 months!

If that wasn't a real Mars mission, then what exactly is considered to be a real Mars mission?

Re:A _real_ mission??

[agentk]

I think Roland means "real" as opposed to the plans and proposals and simulations he describes.

obligatory stupid joke

[rritterson]

so, MUM's the word?

What Roland Piquepaille really means & REAL LI

[Anonymous Coward]

"...please read this overview."

TRANSLATION:

...please support and increase Roland Piquepaille spam and advertising [weblogs.com] clickthrough rates.

If you really want more details and pictures about the Mars Underground Mole [nasa.gov] then you can

• read this SpaceDaily four-part article on Mars Drillers [spacedaily.com]
• read the Mars Underground Mole PDF with diagrams, photos and tables [usra.edu]
• look at a whole range of Mars-related projects from the 2003 Sixth International Conference on Mars [usra.edu]
• read a Deutsche Welle interview with German Aerospace Center Chairman Sigmar Wittig [217.160.138.152] - DLR [www.dlr.de] developed the Mars Express mole that inspired the MUM project
• read a National Space Society two-part interview [oasis-nss.org] with Dr. Brian Glass [oasis-nss.org], MUM co-investigator
• read about a MUM inspired student project [olin.edu] or
• watch a NASA Mars Underground Mole Quicktime movie animation [nasa.gov].

It's much better than supporting craven self-interested people who are just after advertising like Roland Piquepaille, blog spammer [slashdot.org].

I volunteer..

[One_6453]

..my girlfriends mum.

Similar to failed mission

[gerardrj]

Isn't this similar to that failed mission (the one with the english/metric issue or something like that) where two probes were to crash in to the planet, then drill down some distance to take samples?

Similar, But Completely Different.

[DumbSwede]

The goal is similar, but the method is totally different. The first method was part of the cheap-better-faster mantra. <strained analogy>The first mission would be akin to drilling for oil by hurling the oil-dereks from the sky at several hundred miles per hour </strained analogy> The first mission involved no drilling, only the momentum of the crash to burrow some small distance underground. It was to rely on very hardened electronics to survive the crash, but no moving parts. There are ele

It fails it..?

[Penguinshit]

NASA is planning on using drilling technology similar to Beagle 2.

What technology is that -- running headlong into the planet at high speed? Seeing as how we never heard whimper one out of Beagle, I don't think that's such a good plan...

Look out martians

[xsupergr0verx]

NASA sends an earth MUM to find their underground civilization, and then scold them all for having long hair while reminding them to wear a sweater outside, it's freezing!

Should send it with something else

[Killshot]

Since it is so small and basically will only do a few experiments, they should send some other small inexpensive probes along with it to do some other experiments. It is a long expensive trip, might as well make the most of it.

"from the better-hope-they-don't-strike-oil dept."

[akad0nric0]

No kidding. I'd hate to see our troops bomb the crap out of, then occupy Mars under suspicion of "weapons of mass destruction".

Thats some neat stuff

[KI4BBO.org]

Wow, a underground mole? Thats some pretty neat stuff... I wonder what they are going to find, or what exactly they are looking for :P

From the article

[Fear the Clam]

But MUM could have other shapes, just like this cheese-shaped lander shows.

Sense of humor at NASA

[zaren]

They're sending devices that they'll basically be planting in the ground, and they're named MUM and DASI? Either they've got a sense of humor, or a green thumb. Maybe next they'll send the TULIP - Tunneling Underground Life Investigation Probe, or maybe the ROSE - Roving Observor / Sentience Explorer...

Weight?

[goodster]

And this MUM will be a small one, weighing less than a kilogram for a length of only 50 centimeters.

Just being picky... Is that its weight on Earth or on Mars?

premature waste of money

[Archfeld]

should not be sending anything but orbiters until we have the tech to survive longer..We should be building SG:Atlantis 'type' agrifarms and de-salinizations plants off the continental shelf now, and when we can survive down there long term, THEN WE START INTO SPACE with people for real, until then we should be building orbital factories for crytalline growth tech and other industries that could benefit hugely from either low/null grav, no pressure, or things that just are too scary to do at home..try the shadowline on Luna. Oh well sounds really straight foward and easy so it can't possibly be so, and will prolly never happen :( In the US, too many greedy companies hoarding info and tech, they'd rather go under and bankrupt with the assets than share any profit.

Underground Moles and...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA Preps Mars Underground Mole

As opposed to what kind of moles exactly? Flying moles?

PS. I didn't RTFA and I'm sorry if this has already been answered in the article.