One Thing I Can Tell You Is You Got To Be Free Words Of Love
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I love this stuff:
Mars Craft Succeeds in Soft Landing Phoenix to Begin Search for Signs of Life Beyond Earth
By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 26, 2008; Page A01
The spacecraft Phoenix landed safely on Mars yesterday, making a hazardous soft landing on the planet's far north with all its scientific systems apparently intact and ready to begin an intensive new search for life beyond Earth.
After counting down the last stage of the descent by hundreds and then tens of nerve-racking meters, officials at Mission Control in Pasadena, Calif., announced that "Phoenix has landed," setting off a joyous celebration by the mission team.
"It could not have gone better, not in my dreams," said Barry Goldstein, NASA's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
The touchdown, at about 8 p.m. Eastern time, was the first successful soft landing on the Red Planet -- using a parachute and thrusters rather than protective air bags -- since the twin Viking missions in 1976. In all, six of 11 similar attempts by the United States, Russia and England ended in failure, so the Phoenix team awaited with enormous apprehension the outcome of the spacecraft's approach and landing.
Phoenix plunged into the thin Martian atmosphere traveling at more than 12,000 mph. Over the next seven minutes, friction -- which raised the temperature on the heat shield to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit -- slowed it enough to deploy the parachute.
About half a mile from the surface, and with only seconds remaining before touching down, 12 small rocket thrusters fired to slow the lander's descent speed to 5 mph. Before it landed, however, Phoenix had to orient itself toward the sun to ensure that its solar panels could pick up enough light to generate the power it will need on the surface.
Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, lead investigator for the mission, said earlier that the entry would amount to "seven minutes of terror" for the scientists.
Like the Viking landers, Phoenix is designed to look for organic material and other signs that life has existed on Mars, or could exist on the planet. Unlike the two rovers that have been exploring the Martian surface for nearly five years, Phoenix is built to stay in one place and use its robotic arm to dig into the soil and ice. The vehicle is equipped with several miniature chemistry labs to analyze the material it digs up.
The lander touched down further north on Mars than any previous lander. NASA scientists think the frozen water on or near the surface may tell them whether the minerals and organic compounds needed for life as we know it exist, or have ever existed, on the planet.
Throughout the descent and landing, NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were receiving data on the spacecraft's progress 15 minutes after events occurred -- helpless to intervene if anything went wrong. Transmissions were sent from Phoenix to the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft, then relayed back to Earth at the speed of light over the 171 million miles between the planets.
Phoenix, named for the mythological bird reborn from its ashes, was assembled largely from parts manufactured for other spacecraft. After two Mars mission failures in 1999, the space agency scrapped a lander mission planned for 2000 and recycled some of the hardware.
One of those failures was the last time NASA tried a soft landing on Mars. The Mars Polar Lander was angling for the south pole when it prematurely shut off its engine and crashed to the surface below. The other failure involved a spacecraft that was supposed to go into orbit around Mars; NASA lost contact with it during the approach, and its fate is unknown.
The 900-pound, three-legged Phoenix lander, which cost $457 million, traveled a circuitous path of 423 million miles over almost 10 months to reach Mars. A rocket-and-parachute landing system -- like that of the Viking landers of 32 years ago -- was chosen because it allowed NASA to better pinpoint the landing location. The system is also a prototype of one that NASA hopes will one day land astronauts on Mars.
The later Mars Pathfinder and the two robot rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, which have been exploring the planet's equatorial region, landed using air bags to cushion the impact. Air bags are not practical for heavier craft such as the Phoenix because the weight of bigger bags reduces the amount of scientific equipment that can be carried.
The Phoenix was targeted at the north polar region because that is where some form of water (in the form of ice) is most likely to be present, and scientists believe that a form of water is necessary for life. They are convinced that surface water flowed on Mars billions of years ago, a conclusion reached by studying geologic features of the Martian landscape. Today, conditions on Mars do not allow for liquid water, in large part because the atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as Earth's.
In 2002, however, the Mars Odyssey orbiter discovered that large amounts of water ice lay just beneath the surface in the permafrost that covers much of far northern Mars. Scientists say the region, which is notably flat and smooth, may have once been the bottom of a large ocean.
They are also intrigued that the surface shows polygonal patterns remarkably similar to some seen in Antarctica. Scientists speculate that they could be the result of cycles of freezing and thawing.
In addition to its sophisticated cameras, soil retrievers and mini-laboratories, Phoenix carried on its journey a mini-DVD created by the Planetary Society called "Visions of Mars." It holds a library of science fiction stories and art, as well as the names of more than 250,000 people.
The DVD, featuring the likes of Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury, is made of material designed to last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Alexis, this is clearly Arizona. That light dot near the horizon, magnified 10,000 times, is a road sign that reads, "Next gas 167 miles".
Geoff, thanks for posting this. I have a friend at JPL who devised the landing system for the rovers. I must congratulate him, as I'm sure he was lurking there somewhere when Phoenix landed.
All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007
For all I know, Ringo might be a yogi disguised as a drummer! - George Harrison
... but perhaps a less worrying prospect than previously thought:
British U.F.O. Shocker! Government Officials Were Telling the Truth
By SARAH LYALL Published: May 26, 2008
LONDON — They were shaped like cigars, saucers, coffins and amorphous blinking blobs. They hovered in a menacing manner, traveled at impossible speeds and vanished into the netherworld, or, in one instance, a hedge in Cornwall.
A few carried humanoid life forms, or so it seemed. A few materialized courtesy of the observers’ possibly having had a drink too many, as in the case of an unidentified flying light cluster witnessed loitering in the sky by the patrons of a pub in Kent.
Whatever they were, these phenomena reported to Britain’s Ministry of Defense over the years and made public this month were almost certainly not actual alien aircraft piloted by actual alien beings.
“The government has been telling us the truth,” declared David Clarke, a senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, who has a side interest in U.F.O.’s. “There are a lot of weird things in the sky, and some of them we can’t explain, but there’s not a shred of evidence for a single alien visitation.”
Which is, frankly, a letdown, as is the government’s prosaic explanation of why, for decades, it has meticulously documented reports of U.F.O. sightings. “We only check the sightings from the perspective of making sure that our military airspace has not been breached, and we pretty much never have airspace breaches,” a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity — not because she works with Agent Mulder in some shadowy basement office, but because that is government policy — said the ministry had begun making the files public because it had been inundated with U.F.O.-related requests under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act.
The files from 1978 to 2002 were released this month. Some older files have already been declassified and made public; the rest will be released over the next few years. Available on the Web from the National Archives at ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk, they cover hundreds of sightings but are hardly the X-Files. Much of the material consists of one-page forms carrying details like how big the supposed aircraft was and what, if anything, it seemed to be doing.
A citizen who gives her profession as “meals on wheels operator” describes her shock and awe at the sight of a smallish “Vulcan-shaped object” hovering in the sky. Another witness says she was roused from bed by a brilliant light emanating from a U.F.O. “the size of a milk-bottle base.”
“Some time on a Monday evening during the break in watching ‘Quincy’ — I checked my watch — I noticed an unusual happening in the sky,” one correspondent wrote. And from Cornwall, a report arrived from a 28-year-old motorist who observed a bright yellow light “which bobbed and weaved” over the road, an image recalling Tinkerbell’s mode of travel in “Peter Pan.”
“The light changed to a purplish color, prior to its exit into a thick hedgerow,” the report reads.
The files include random newspaper clippings of questionable journalistic rigor. A 1986 Daily Mirror article reports that the light “from a glowing red object” suffused the cockpit of a Royal Air Force jet carrying Prince Charles, seriously unnerving the pilot. As an aside, the newspaper noted that “Prince Philip has been a keen U.F.O. follower for the past 36 years.”
There are long letters asking big questions. “When is a flying saucer not a flying saucer?” muses one correspondent. “And is the mothership man-made or from a distant planet?”
In the old days, the United States systematically compiled reports of U.F.O. sightings, too. But its last program, known as Project Blue Book, was closed down in 1969 after government officials concluded that if something was out there, it was not anything they wanted to investigate.
Some U.F.O. enthusiasts said last week that they believed the British government had not released all of its files and was concealing the truth about a massive cover-up it had long perpetrated on the British people.
But Joe McGonagle, a self-described U.F.O. researcher here, said the documents showed that far from concealing anything, the government had failed to investigate the sightings properly in the first place.
“A lot of people imagined that there was this vast U.F.O. project with lots of people working on it, when in reality it was a civil servant spending 25 percent of his time on it, filing reports,” he said.
It is not as if the authorities have always failed to take the issue seriously. In 1950, the government convened a secret committee, the Flying Saucer Working Party, to investigate sightings of U.F.O.’s. It concluded that U.F.O.’s were optical illusions, weather phenomena, airplanes seen from strange angles and the like, which has been the government’s line ever since.
In 1979, the House of Lords debated the matter at the urging of the Earl of Clancarty, who believed that man was descended from aliens who crawled from the earth’s core via special tunnels or flew in spaceships 65,000 years ago.
He was not the only noble believer.
“I should like to tell your lords about some of the sightings I have seen,” said the Earl of Halsbury, “beginning at the age of 6, when I saw an angel.”
Lord Gainford said he had seen a U.F.O., which he described as “bright white ball with a touch of red followed by a white cone,” at a New Year’s Eve party in Scotland. Some children saw it, too, he added, and they “had been drinking soft drinks.”
None of their accounts were as detailed as that of a 78-year-old ex-soldier in Aldershot. His story, which he told to a U.F.O. investigator, can be found in the newly released files.
Out fishing in 1983, the man had just poured himself a cup of tea, he recalled, when he was approached by two four-foot-tall beings wearing pale green overalls and large helmets. They led him into what turned out to be their ship — “I thought, Christ — what the hell’s that?” he said — and, apparently considering whether to subject him to extraterrestrial experiments, suddenly announced: “You can go. You are too old and infirm for our purposes.”
“Anxious to avoid causing offense,” the report said, the man asked no questions, even obvious ones like, what planet do you come from? Instead, he returned to the riverbank, where he finished his tea (by then cold) and resumed fishing.
He was reluctant to tell his family, the report says: “I knew my wife would say ‘No more fishing for you, old man.’ ”
I have definitely got to start hanging with the Earl of Halsbury. (Lord Gainford I disregard, as he obviously needs the support of small children to make his points.)
All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007
For all I know, Ringo might be a yogi disguised as a drummer! - George Harrison
Out fishing in 1983, the man had just poured himself a cup of tea, he recalled, when he was approached by two four-foot-tall beings wearing pale green overalls and large helmets. They led him into what turned out to be their ship — “I thought, Christ — what the hell’s that?” he said — and, apparently considering whether to subject him to extraterrestrial experiments, suddenly announced: “You can go. You are too old and infirm for our purposes.”
I imagine that came up a lot, or at any rate the infirm part.
I wish I could say I've seen a/an "UFO", but haven't. I also would like to see an extraterrestrial and ask a few question. BUT!!! I think our planet (not speaking of the people in this forum, of course) is to "war-like" and to ignorant for them to want to land and say "look - We exist, you're not alone."
If anyone is out there, and is capable of reaching our planet, then they are thousands of years, probably millions, more advanced than us. If we're lucky, and they're friendly, I expect they'd just want to observe evolution. If they're not, they could probably destroy us with one swipe.
One Thing I Can Tell You Is You Got To Be Free Words Of Love
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I think biology, probability, and physics are all against UFO's existing. There are obviously all sorts of fascinating things out in space, including whole realms of matters we can't even guess at yet, but humanish creatures in mechanical contraptions aren't going to be among the things to turn up.
Geoff, Geoff, haven't you watched Star Trek? There are honey cloud creatures, and giant amoebas out in space-- all kinds of things, not just scantily clad women in silver bikinis.
Actually, it is fascinating to speculate on extraterrestrial life. I'm a little concerned that SETI hasn't turned up anything yet. You'd think if there were other civilizations, we'd get a sniff of their transmissions-- unless their technology is too sophisticated for us to pick up. Life is actually pretty easy to evolve (they've managed it several times in the lab), but the accidents that might lead to a particular kind of intelligent rat building a spaceship are rather more statistically remote. And then we've got to time it. 3 billion years of development to get machine-building humans, and we've had a space-capable society for about 45 minutes?
Still, I like Rodenberry's vision of a universe filled with fun things. He might be right-- but getting us and them in the same place at the same time might be tricky.
All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007
For all I know, Ringo might be a yogi disguised as a drummer! - George Harrison
I have to agree with Geoff on the 'Transportation" part of it. We can't even agree between Einstein (you can't travel faster than light) and Roddenberry warp travel. It would be nice if it could be done, but I think we're just not there yet (knowing how to do it, IF it exist.) On the other part, If there is a tree on some sort of planet out there somewhere, that is some sort of "life" to me. Also, finding SETI is like our own car radio, we just have to find the correct "station" that they are broadcasting on and look at all of those radio channels. And maybe they sent a signal back in 1492, when we didn't have about radio. The acting in "CONTACT" wasn't great, but I loved Jodie Foster "dad" in this movie - "if we're alone, it's an awful lot of wasted space." Call me "wishful thinking", I call it "continually learning".
Life is actually pretty easy to evolve (they've managed it several times in the lab), but the accidents that might lead to a particular kind of intelligent rat building a spaceship are rather more statistically remote. And then we've got to time it. 3 billion years of development to get machine-building humans, and we've had a space-capable society for about 45 minutes?
Exactly: the UFO hypothesis rests on the argument that the chemical and biological evolution of earth was duplicated independently on an alien world and to such an extent that it not only produced a species that thought like we did but evolved a technological capability that we would recognize as such at approximately the same time as us. A coincidence like that would be truly staggering, even in a galaxy with perhaps a hundred million Earth type planets. Then there's the distances involved and the whole speed of light problem.
Personally I'm all for the Roddenberry sort of thing myself, and not just because of all the women in scantily clad bikinis (good selling point that, actually), but I don't think a Star Trek sort of future is at all plausible. Not that any consideration like that stops me from watching the old '60s show: I've got a complete set of it on DVD.
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