Will robots lie?
I have been following the two mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit since they left us almost 2 years ago. I was like a little kid waiting for the first one to touch down January last year. They have been scooting around the red planet for 15 months now sending back all kinds of data. Just last Friday Spirit send back crude movies of small little dust devils traveling across the surface (check it out http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ ).
The one thing about this mission that's driving me crazy is the bad science that is being done with the data being sent back. From the moment the rovers left earth, JPL's scientist stated that one of the main mission goals was to find out if mars has or has had water. Well guess what, if you want to find evidence of water on the sun, you will find it. They believe spirit has found hematite, and since we believe that hematite is usually formed by water on Earth, then this is evidence of past water. The "golden nugget" which is a rock discovered by one of the rovers is supposed evidence of water, even though one of JPL's leading scientist admits "I don't know how it was formed, and it's driving me crazy". This is a whole new world were dealing with. I'm sure Mars has processes we probably know nothing about. Lets just allow the data to show us what ever it may. Not try to find certain data.
I'm not saying there was never water on Mars. For all I know the movie "Water World" was filmed there. All I'm saying is collect all the data, then come up with the theory. Since two out of three missions to Mars has failed (all the way back to the 1950's), I can't help but marvel at what JPL has accomplished here. We are actually controlling robots on another world, we shouldn't allow them to lie to us.
The one thing about this mission that's driving me crazy is the bad science that is being done with the data being sent back. From the moment the rovers left earth, JPL's scientist stated that one of the main mission goals was to find out if mars has or has had water. Well guess what, if you want to find evidence of water on the sun, you will find it. They believe spirit has found hematite, and since we believe that hematite is usually formed by water on Earth, then this is evidence of past water. The "golden nugget" which is a rock discovered by one of the rovers is supposed evidence of water, even though one of JPL's leading scientist admits "I don't know how it was formed, and it's driving me crazy". This is a whole new world were dealing with. I'm sure Mars has processes we probably know nothing about. Lets just allow the data to show us what ever it may. Not try to find certain data.
I'm not saying there was never water on Mars. For all I know the movie "Water World" was filmed there. All I'm saying is collect all the data, then come up with the theory. Since two out of three missions to Mars has failed (all the way back to the 1950's), I can't help but marvel at what JPL has accomplished here. We are actually controlling robots on another world, we shouldn't allow them to lie to us.
posted by Jim Fisher at 11:52 AM
1 Comments:
"Scientists believe the small cyclones are seasonal, perhaps linked to wind storms that occur in the martian spring."--http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20050325.html
I realize that dust devils "seem" to happen more in the spring and summer. But I live in western KS, and guess what. They happen all year long. Just a little wind and different temperatures and some dirt and ta da.
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