A robotic chemist prepares to explore the red planet
Posted 07.24.2012 at 3:59 pm
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Curiosity Rover Illustration
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently released the much-watched "Seven Minutes of Terror" video, which describes the harrowing descent to the Red Planet that the Mars rover Curiosity will undergo on August 5. Now, from the same lab, comes a look at the chemical tools Curiosity will use to search for signs that Mars could have once sustained life.
Curiosity sets itself apart from other rovers like Spirit and Opportunity by having the ability to act as a robot "geochemist," the video explains. Piloted by a team back on Earth, scientists will steer Curiosity into a nearby crater, then search and test layers for evidence that life could have evolved at one point in the planet's history.
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Hooray for the red planet!!!! May Curiosity roam those rust covered hills!
The US taxpayers have already spent tens of $billions sending probes to Mars, and none of them have ever found any evidence of past or present life. Does anyone seriously believe sending billions of taxpayer dollars worth of additional spacecraft to Mars will find anything different?
I'm sure the only people that think these redundant, billion dollar Mars boondoggles are a good idea are those that don't pay any federal income taxes. The Mars Climate Orbiter cost taxpayers $330 million and it ended up burning to crisp. The Mars Polar Lander cost about $250 million and just ended up making a smoking hole in the surface of Mars.