You are browsing the archive for Ryan Anderson.
1 April 2008
Google + Virgin Galactic = Mars Colony
Big news! Google has teamed up with Virgin to form Project Virgle: the first human colony on Mars. It’s great to see companies like Google and Virgin looking toward the future and getting involved in space exploration. They certainly have the money to do it, and I think more and more of them are realizing that the publicity and potential revenue are well worth the initial cost. Click to find …
Opportunity Update: Sols 1485-1487
As promised, here is the latest from Opportunity. The goal right now is to drive up to Cape Verde, a 20 foot tall cliff of layered rocks in Victoria Crater. Over the weekend, Opportunity backed up the slope of the crater and re-oriented for the upcoming drive toward the Cape. The following picture, which is a close-up of this fantastic HiRISE image of Victoria Crater, shows where Opportunity is right …
31 March 2008
Opportunity is Going to the Cape!
Hey folks! I’m on-duty with Opportunity this week and it’s going to be pretty exciting. We are in the process of driving the rover over to the wall of Cape Verde to study the layers of rocks there in much greater detail. I will be posting updates all week with the spectacular new pictures that we should be receiving. Stay tuned, it’s going to be a pretty cool week!
27 March 2008
Carnival of Space #47
Welcome to the Martian Chronicles, a blog written by three graduate students at Cornell University who are involved in exploring Mars! This blog is where we share our experiences and excitement about the red planet and space exploration in general. Our focus is Mars, but if something else catches our attention, it will probably show up here too. To learn more about us, check the Authors page. To learn more …
26 March 2008
Why does it cost so much?
We got a question today that I thought I should answer here on the blog so that others who are wondering the same thing can have an answer. The question was: Since the rover is already on Mars and it’s solar powered why does it cost $4 million a year to operate? I’m not doubting it does I just don’t know how projects like this work. Is most of it …
25 March 2008
Rescinded
I don’t have time to write a long post, but I thought I should share the latest about the rover cuts. The NASA administrator Mike Griffin has stated unequivocally that shutting down a rover is not an option. The letter directing the budget cuts to MER and Odyssey has been rescinded, and we are essentially pretending that the last week didn’t happen. There’s still a budget problem with MSL, and …
24 March 2008
Mars Budget Cuts
Exploring another planet is an expensive business. We all know this, but sometimes it hits home harder than others. Today was one of those times. This afternoon at an all-hands meeting of the Mars Exploration Rovers team, we heard about some particularly bad budget news. The situation is this: the Mars Science Laboratory mission is costing more than expected. It is common for this to happen with spacecraft missions because …
22 March 2008
Life != Salt
Bad Astronomy has pointed out a really unfortunate headline over at MSNBC. The short version: somehow the headline writers at MSNBC misinterpreted the recent evidence for salt on Mars as evidence for life… The headline writers clearly didn’t read much more than the headline of the press release. Oops.
20 March 2008
Mining Phobos and Deimos
Visiting the moon is one thing. It’s a difficult, complicated, dangerous, and exciting thing. But it’s also a thing that we have done before. Sending people to Mars is a whole new ballgame. Instead of a few days of travel, future Mars astronauts will likely be looking at a six month trip there, and at least as long to get back, with an extended stay on Mars in the middle. …
19 March 2008
Arthur C. Clarke
I am saddened to report that science fiction author and visionary Arthur C. Clarke passed away today. AP has more information. If you are not familiar with his writing, Clarke was one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction. Of his stories, my favorites are Childhood’s End, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rendezvous with Rama. He had a way of seizing upon an idea, whether simple or complex, and …
