spacenews.com/nasa-loses-contact-with-maven-mars-orbiter/
Little known but a lotta science could be lost if they dont fix this. The follow is a little nerdy.
NASA has lost contact with a Mars orbiter that has circled the planet for more than a decade, collecting science data and serving as a key communications relay.
In a statement late Dec. 9, NASA said it lost contact with the
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft three days earlier. Telemetry showed the spacecraft was working normally before passing behind Mars as seen from Earth, but the spacecraft did not resume communications after emerging from behind the planet.
i
feel two ways about this.
one big reason we did this MAVEN mission was to try to find out the heck happened to Mars atmopsphere(80-90 % of it is gone over billions of years0). why? theory is one day a long time ago, Mars looked like Earth in thaat regard and my have had primitive life. In the Goldilocks Zone, it had liquid water (lakes, rivers, oceans) on the surface, and in theory it could support life like us. Why? one day we (humans) might have to live there when/if we screw-up this planet. It still in the Goldilocks Zone, but nearly all of its air has been gone for billions of years.
OTOH, we spent $500 million and $20 some milllion a year to operate it (stilll like a tenth of a manned mission for only ten people let alone thousands in a colony).A decade later yhere are some good theories about loss of its magnetic fied
Hope they fix this and keep the science going (where did the atmosphere go?). I am stilll twisted up mentally as to (1 is this the best use of our time and $$?, AND(2 let's agree whether we are f***ing up this planet to the extent one day we'll have to leave it.
go where? billions of people? trillions of $$?
Scientifically, I just dont see us moving to Mars. A great story but compelling enoung to give Musk or Bezos,or whoever, a few trillion $ and/or multiples of that to, say, terraform Mars?
I think not. Better story is figure out where all Mars air went, and if it can it happen here. hope the space kids can keep working on that. Any more ranting, ill go to the FCBO politics forum.
