NASA chooses the Jezero Crater as the landing site for its 2020 Mars rover mission

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Forward-looking: While it remains to be seen whether or not humans will ever establish long-term colonies on Mars, that doesn't mean organizations like NASA aren't exploring the Red Planet. Today, the space agency published a blog post announcing that it has selected a landing zone for its upcoming 2020 rover mission.

The mission, scheduled to take place in July, will see NASA's latest rover land in the Jezero Crater, a giant "impact basin" just north of Mars' equator. The rover's primary job is to scour the crater for rock and soil samples, which can eventually be sent back to Earth for analysis.

NASA says the purpose of this analysis is to answer "important questions" regarding Mars' unique planetary evolution and astrobiology. Furthermore, it may give scientists some clues about the planet's capacity to support life, due to Jezero Crater's unique history - scientists believe the crater was once home to an "ancient lake-delta system." With a little luck, NASA's rover could obtain samples from rocks in the region that still retain "signatures of past life."

Obviously, there's no guarantee that any such findings will turn up, but from NASA's point of view, it's worth trying. If life ever existed (or still exists) on Mars, the Jezero Crater is simply the best place to start looking for proof of it - for now.

It's also worth noting that, according to NASA, the Jezero Crater mission has been a long time coming; the location wasn't picked at random.

"The Mars community has long coveted the scientific value of sites such as Jezero Crater, and a previous mission contemplated going there, but the challenges with safely landing were considered prohibitive," NASA's 2020 mission project scientist Ken Farley said in a statement. "But what was once out of reach is now conceivable, thanks to the 2020 engineering team and advances in Mars entry, descent and landing technologies."

We'll probably be waiting quite some time for the mission's results, but for now, cautious optimism might be warranted.

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With all the complexity these things have, I've always thought they should have better shielding from the harsh martian environment, but here it is sitting, a priceless piece of hardware, looking utterly naked...

As for the whole Mars craze, I'm betting it will be over not too long after the first manned mission, just as it proves to be of no further scientific interest, and absolutely not viable economically. Anything short of pure teleportation, and the traveling budget will dry out real quick, along with the initial excitement.

People are attracted to the idea of space exploration mainly thanks to the SciFi movie genre. The reality of it is however tremendously more boring and uneventful.
 
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With all the complexity these things have, I've always thought they should have better shielding from the harsh martian environment, but here it is sitting, a priceless piece of hardware, looking utterly naked...

As for the whole Mars craze, I'm betting it will be over not too long after the first manned mission, just as it proves to be of no further scientific interest, and absolutely not viable economically. Anything short of pure teleportation, and the traveling budget will dry out real quick, along with the initial excitement.

People are attracted to the idea of space exploration mainly thanks to the SciFi movie genre. The reality of it is however tremendously more boring and uneventful.

I believe, in a nutshell, you are saying the initial excitement of landing on the moon died shortly after. The public stopped paying attention and we stopped going back. I predict the same will happen with Mars. Initial excitement then it will fade away. If there is a successful manned mission, I doubt we will be back for a minimum of at least a few decades.
 
With all the complexity these things have, I've always thought they should have better shielding from the harsh martian environment, but here it is sitting, a priceless piece of hardware, looking utterly naked...

As for the whole Mars craze, I'm betting it will be over not too long after the first manned mission, just as it proves to be of no further scientific interest, and absolutely not viable economically. Anything short of pure teleportation, and the traveling budget will dry out real quick, along with the initial excitement.

People are attracted to the idea of space exploration mainly thanks to the SciFi movie genre. The reality of it is however tremendously more boring and uneventful.

I believe, in a nutshell, you are saying the initial excitement of landing on the moon died shortly after. The public stopped paying attention and we stopped going back. I predict the same will happen with Mars. Initial excitement then it will fade away. If there is a successful manned mission, I doubt we will be back for a minimum of at least a few decades.
If aliens showed up and started attacking our moon men people would keep paying attention. But wha t else do you expect from landing on an empty boring earth buddy? At the very least, when they land on Mars they should add elements of survival in short episodes. Let them sign a contract with Netflix for a new original reality tv show. Hopefully that will keep peoples attention to this project for a longer time. Send Kardashian and Trump as the science team. Top people of the nation will definitely make it more entertaining.
 
I believe, in a nutshell, you are saying the initial excitement of landing on the moon died shortly after. The public stopped paying attention and we stopped going back. I predict the same will happen with Mars. Initial excitement then it will fade away. If there is a successful manned mission, I doubt we will be back for a minimum of at least a few decades.

It was a bit different with the moon landing, because most of it was fueled by the cold war. American government was pushing to make it a world-wide statement, specifically for Russians. And so they did, while blowing the enterprise out of proportion in the public eye, because that was the political intent, and they were betting everything on it.

And now when it comes to Mars, we are in the world governed by money only, not a political hysteria. I'm saying that everything related to Mars will likely prove to be not economically viable in the long run, and die out.
 
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Bill Nye had a very good commentary on this and backed up the simple assertion that if we can't build a functional & viable moon base, going out to Mars isn't going to be any better. Teri-forming is the only possible exception if the assumptions that there "may" be water in deep sources but that is quite a stretch. Geezzze .... we can't even build a sizeable space station that dosen't need regular re-stocking of supplies so why go to the effort to prove we can fail so far away?

A trip to Mars with a possible landing & return like the old Apollo program isn't out of the question but anything more aggressive simply dosen't stand the measure of common sense or good planning ......
 
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