NOTES FROM THE ARVIDSON MER MISSION PRESENTATION
Main
reason we are so eager to explore Mars:
There may have been Life at
one time on Mars and there may be evidence of this there today.
The two rovers could have
been named Lewis and Clark because the two Voyages are very similar.
Comparisons:
1803 is when L/C left and left from from
St. Charles. This is the 200th
The Search for evidence of past water/Waterways on Mars is just as serious to the rovers going to Mars, as it was for Lewis and Clark. Both Expeditions were planned to last a long time (three years, and three months) and gathered as much background information as possible before they took their Voyages.
*Both Expeditions built a
vehicle.
*Both Expeditions made much
preparation.
*Both Expeditions were self-reliant and had to repair everything themselves.
*Both Expeditions have to provide your own energy(food for Lewis and Clark, electricity via solar paneling for the rovers).
*Both Expeditions have a part of the team staying in one place and another part of the team going out to explore new areas.
*Both Expeditions send information back and some will get lost(hopefully not for the Rovers). The MER will use technology to radio back information.
*Both Expedition Crew members need to return home in Lewis and Clark.
*Both Expeditions: original
journals of Lewis and Clark are in St. Louis and the
original data of the rovers is also coming straight to
Washington University in St. Louis.
What do you have to have to
live:
To have Life you have to
have: water, air, food, shelter. Mars is
The surface is not so good
for life. Dust storms are really bad. Shelter is a problem in that there
is no ozone(very thin atmosphere overall) to absorb
ultra violet radiation, We would get bad sunburn and cancer. There is
some gravity though (about 1/3 of Earths gravity).
There are theories that a
long time ago the Martian climate was much warmer and wetter. This could
have been caused by a thicker atmosphere of different composition, or increased
internal heating of the planet. Then, something cataclysmic happened and the water,that was there to sustain life, became frozen beneath
the surface. Something happened and totally changed the climate and made
it very cold and uninhabitable.
Mars owns the Solar
System. You weigh about a third of what you do on the Earth.
There are many craters on
Mars from impacts of asteroids and comets. One crater is as long as it is from
St. Louis to St. Charles.
There are lots of canyons on
Mars, Valerie Mariners is bigger than any other canyon in the Solar
System.
Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano in Solar System, is 27
kilometers tall and is more than 3 times higher than Mt. Everest. It also
covers an area almost the size of Missouri.
Rover
Info:
The cost of the entire MER
mission is somewhere in the vicinity of .5 billion dollars. The Rocket cost 60
million dollars and came from Boeing in St. Louis and, of course, this makes
money for lots of jobs locally. There is between a 7 minute and 45 delay for
the data coming from rover. The rover can cover one football field per day. The
Rover is looking for evidence that the planet was inhabitable at one time,
looking for organic molecules, fossils, and any evidence of liquid water etc.
Human beings are by nature, explorers, and like to discover new things. The
rovers are powered by solar panels, these panels are
lot of mass to carry. They can only go a yard per 20 seconds. Whole
mission is for the Rover travel a thousand meters.
He, and his team, is
responsible for using the Imaging Systems and the other rover data in order to
understand the history of the surface of Mars, whether or not water is present
and where and how microbial systems of bacteria were generated and preserved.
What
is the Manager of a Science Team?
A Manager of a science team
archives the data and how the rover is handling the Mission and its serious
search for water.