Bubble-up on Mars

So, by the end of the day I'll have the first new Science Chaser in about two years up, and the rest of the week will see me putting together another three while I try to get this thing to a radio near you.

But in the meantime, here's a strange radio ad promoting pop on Mars.
http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/old_radio_commercials/Bubble_Up.mp3

Started in 1917, Bubble up was one of the first pop companies around selling lemon lime fizzy drinks. And that includes all those space cadets in the fifties and sixties who believed that they'd be the next Commando Cody, Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.

Now I think the only beverage companies that use space as a sales gimmick are beer companies, and I that hasn't been for a long time.

Favorite robot of the day - Le Petit Prince

A robot that searches out the best place for it's little vegetable symbiont is my pick of best robot of the day.



But what if instead the plant wasn't a passenger, but actually part of the robot itself? The plant would be a central feature in it's bio-feedback system, controlling the robot to work with the rest of a cybernetic grove that migrate along the high Martian plateau.

A new species of green intelligence for the old planet of Barsoom. Now that's a grove-intelligence construct that I want to see.

found via core77.com

Prohect Nomad - Robotic Riding Cats!

So, when we do finally go Mars, I think we have the new rover.

Project Nomad by Canadian designer Jason Battersby, is the dream of every 80's kid who wanted a Battlecat.

Picture this mechanized cat jumping, stalking and running down Martian antelope game. Just give me another two ft in height, green skin, a couple tusks and another set of arms and call me Tars Tarkas.

The concept is that the vehicle would eat grass/algae/dung/road kill to power itself. I love it, but to make it through the first few decades of terraforming on Mars, it will probably need to a fuel source, probably bio-waste/algae growth from the founding colonies.

With a partial atmosphere already, maybe the exhaust could be used as part of a terraforming project, like the giant nuclear steam trains of Ian McDonald's 'Desolation Road."

When the first rains fall along the northern Martian plains, and altered gorse and sage grass takes hold, this cyber predator will be carrying the first nomads across a marvelous desolation.

And then they'll go feral.

Found via coroflot

Methane on Mars - Old news, but good news

Great NASA scienceprop on how a blip of gas is changing the way we conceptualize the red planet.

Sure, everybody knows about the methane on Mars... but if you haven't figured out by now, this blog is mostly about us, not you.

Coming up tomorrow - how not to pitch a science story for a local current affairs radio show.
Here's a hint: try not to say menopausal whales more than three times in one sitting.

NASA video found via Colony Worlds

WATER ON MARS! WATER ON MARS! WATER ON MARS!

From The Mars Phoenix site:

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon at the "Wonderland" site. While digging, the Robotic Arm came upon a firm layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm went into a holding position. Such an action is expected when the Robotic Arm comes upon a hard surface.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days so scientific data can again be saved onboard overnight when needed. Because of a large amount a duplicative file-maintenance data generated by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team is taking the precaution of not storing science data in Phoenix's flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of every day, until the conditions that produced those duplicative data files are corrected.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our three-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success."

Planning a trip? Don't forget to check the weather

As we've blogged about before, the Phoenix lander has landed on the red planet. And now, since their main contribution to the Phoenix was a weather station, the Canadian Space Agency is providing updates on the latest Martian weather conditions.

More fabulous pictures - From Above and Below

Two more amazing pics from Mars.

This is the shadow of the instrument and optic mast.












And this is a shot of the Phoenix descending to the surface of Mars,
courtesy of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.


From NASA:

NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body.

From a distance of about 310 kilometers (193 miles) above the surface of the Red Planet, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed its HiRISE obliquely toward Phoenix shortly after it opened its parachute while descending through the Martian atmosphere. The image reveals an apparent 10-meter-wide (30-foot-wide) parachute fully inflated. The bright pixels below the parachute show a dangling Phoenix. The image faintly detects the chords attaching the backshell and parachute. The surroundings look dark, but correspond to the fully illuminated Martian surface, which is much darker than the parachute and backshell.


The first time one spacecraft has photographed another during descent around another planet.

Fantastic.

Photos courtesy of NASA - the future soon doesn't have a robotic space fleet... yet.

Where the Phoenix is landing on May 25th

Way up in the northern polar lowlands is where our hero meet its destiny.

Make sure you watch live footage when the Phoenix lander, which is very close to the future soon's heart, starts a new era in Martian exploration.

Tune in March 25th, 7:53 p.m. EDT.

Russian's prepare for Mars by redesigning the air we breathe

When the Russians split from their NASA counterparts, they really split.

In a new experiment, Russian cosmonauts are breathing a low-O2, high argon atmosphere
during a simulated Martian tour.

But what about nitrogen? Apparently nitrogen is really needed, and argon works better in closed eco-systems. Why? Unlike nitrogen, argon doesn't bond with O2.

Stable, cheap, and maybe ready to go.

Watch the video.



found via Colony Worlds

Back to the Old School Space Programs - Russian monkeys on Mars

Bion capsule

The Russians are simulating 17-month long Mars missions with monkeys.

From the BBC:

The Sochi Institute of Medical Primatology, at Vesyoloye near the Black Sea, has a proud history of involvement in the Russian - formerly Soviet - space programme.

The institute will select macaques that may eventually fly to Mars before humans do. After two years of experiments the most suitable 40 monkeys will be sent to the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, where scientists study aerospace biomedicine.

Experiments on the monkeys will be carried out at the same time as the Mars-500 project. That project - due to start early next year - is aimed at simulating the conditions of interplanetary flight. Volunteers will have to spend 17 months in a mock-up "spaceship" in Moscow.

These monkeys will continue in a long tradition of Soviet space monkeys. And one of these cosmonkeys is still alive.

Kosh is a 16 year veteran of the Russian space programme. This guy went to space in 1992 for a two week trip - and he is still healthy and in fighting form.

"Old man Krosh is about 60 years old, if we translate his monkey age to a human life span. He is very active. He responds well to food and is aggressive with his female partners," says Ms Shaginyan.

"After rehabilitation he produced offspring. And that's proof that spaceflight did not harm his health," she added.

Do you think the new space chimp movie will have Russian cosmo-apes

The sensual defrosting of Mars

It's late, I had to deal with a terrible day of tape and have to get up at 4 am.

But who cares when there are pictures of Mars like this!

Mars' Shifting Sands

As spring now dawns on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, sand dunes near the pole, as pictured above, are beginning to thaw. The carbon dioxide and water ice actually sublime in the thin atmosphere directly to gas. Thinner regions of ice typically defrost first revealing sand whose darkness soaks in sunlight and accelerates the thaw. The process might even involve sandy jets exploding through the thinning ice. By summer, spots will expand to encompass the entire dunes. The Martian North Pole is ringed by many similar fields of barchan sand dunes, whose strange, smooth arcs are shaped by persistent Martian winds.

Image Credit: NASA, HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona)

NASA photo via Warren Ellis

Six for Science

And here we go:

1. Guess how old the solar system is? At least an order of magnitude older than the bible

2. A new bigger and more dangerous species of spitting cobra has been found, just in time for the holidays.

3. Mountains on Titans. Now all we have to find are some sirens....

4. The aliens can see you, so look busy.

5. You can buy a million dollar stud, but it doesn't mean he will breed true. I'm talking about horses.... what were you thinking?

6. Keep you eyes on Mars, because on Jan. 30, 2008, the red planet might receive a Tunguska size impact.

Wanna see what it might look like?

Lasers on Mars - LIDAR and the Mars Phoenix Lander

The Mars Phoenix Lander is on its way, but do you know what it is going to do when it gets to Mars?



Dr. Tom Duck, from the Atmospheric-Optics Laboratory at Dalhousie University, is the primary scientist involved with the LIDAR.

This news-story was shot in the fall of 2006 with the help of Meredith Brooks.

Martian dust storm: Is this the end of our two intrepid heroes!?

Martian dust storm

Hope not.

A dust storm that has been blowing across the surface of Mars since the end of June is causing a little energy crisis for our two "can't stop-won't stop!" rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

From New Scientist:

The dust has reduced the amount of sunlight falling on the rovers' solar arrays, cutting their power. Though each started out with about 900 watt-hours of power per day at the beginning of their mission, Opportunity is now subsisting on just a third of that, and Spirit is making do with 400 watt-hours of daily power.


But they are still chugging along. One of the rover-techs says that the dust storm does have one benefit - Opportunity is cleaner than it has been in three years.