Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:44:47 EST
Reply-To: FrankGRUN@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Frank Grunthaner <FrankGRUN@AOL.COM>
Subject: Some NVC Images I find Amazing - A Friday Contribution
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Over the many planetary solar system cycles that I have monitored,
contributed and lurked on the Vanagon list I have never felt the urge to contribute to
the Friday Follies with a light hearted negligible Vanagon content blurb. In
fact the technical content of the list has been underwhelming of late and I'm on
the verge of having to repair my delete key from overuse. However, today I
feel I must share at least one image with the list, as I am concerned that such
beauty or art generated by our species at this time in our history may not be
available to who hopefully share my interest in these events.
I have just returned home from a series of meeting on the future of our
nation's program for the exploration of Mars. Some of you may be aware that when I
am not playing with either the Vanagon or my engine systems, I am deeply
involved in the development of microinstrumentation to search for unambiguous
biomarkers on other planets and to follow the kinds of reactive surface chemistry
that could have erased signs for extant life from up to 4 billion years ago.
The plans for our future NASA Mars program include the development of a moon
base in the time frame of 2015 to 2018 to prepare for the human exploration of
Mars and humans on the surface of Mars between 2033 and 2038. We are discussing
missions to robotically explore the surface and subsurface of Mars and
missions to return samples of soil, rocks and atmosphere from the red planet. Of
course, much of this adventure will be the provenance of the youth of today, now
moving through our schools and colleges in math, physics, chemistry, biology
and engineering. The technical capability and developments are nothing more
than astounding, and I envy the youth their youth in this exciting time for man.
But again, I digress. At JPL, we are inundated with one staggering image
after another being returned by the Mars Observer and Odyssey satellites, as well
as breathtaking images from the JPL rovers Spirit and Opportunity on the
Martian surface. But at this most recent meeting, I sat back to study one of these
images which gives a remarkable photographic record of man's journey to our
neighboring planet. One can see the Opportunity rover, the landing system
impact, the craters examined and (amazingly) the tracks left on the planet's surface
by the progress of the rover. In the URL given below, you can find low to
high resolution pictures of that of which I type! Examine a high res picture and
see the marks of the rover wheels. And if I could reiterate, these pictures
are not Hollywood fakes, but are taken with one of our satellites in orbit
around Mars.... Go out and look in the sky! We are in virtual residence on a sister
planet and the year is just 2005.
URL: http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/24/index.html
You can did around this site for many other breathtaking images and you might
want to take a look at : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov to get a glimpse of other
amazing views.
Feel free to delete at will!
Frank Grunthaner
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