As you probably know, the Phoenix has landed on Mars. No problems so far. I assume the best place to track the data as it comes back is the NASA mission page for Phoenix. Here are the mission goals:
--Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars
--Characterize the Climate of Mars
--Characterize the Geology of Mars
--Prepare for Human Exploration
More like this
Those of you who know me know that I'm unhappy living here in Arizona.
People love to speculate that Mars was once a great place for life to form, and claim that there is plenty of evidence that there used to be oceans and rivers there. But this isn't true.
"Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, to the stars." -Barney Oliver
Ethan Siegel calls Mars "the obvious first step in our journey to the stars" and "part of our dreams for reaching out into the Universe." Last year thousands of people applied to join Mars One, a proposed colonization effort slash reality show that plans to put
freudian glitch... i thought you had written "human exploitation"
Just noting that those are the goals of the entire Mars Exploration Program extending far beyond the Phoenix mission. Phoenix isn't intended to complete them.