NASA Roundup: What We Know About Mars So Far

August 23rd, 2012 | by Nick

Pasadena, CA – Mission control for the worldly popular Curiosity on Mars excursion has released a preliminary report of the rover’s findings. These highly unclassified and somewhat opinionated documents provide detail on what NASA has already figured out about the Red Planet. Here are a few snippets:

The Curiosity rover has not yet floated away from the planet which leads us to believe Mars has a gravitational pull. Enough gravity, in fact, to keep rocks and Curiosity firmly grounded.

Mars has rocks. Rocks all over the damn place. Many of them a burnt-sienna/reddish color. We will utilize Curiosity’s laser system to analyze the rocks for science. FIRST!

The Curiosity rover is a technological wonder. Fueled on nuclear energy, it contains enough self-propulsion to roam the Red Planet on its own for many months collecting data for our mission. Meanwhile, our Earth vehicles (cars) require extensive hands-on repairs and maintenance on a month-to-month basis just to get us to work and back.

No atmosphere on Mars. It would take a legion of Curiosity rovers to build an oxygen-containing biodome that might be sufficient in sustaining human life. This type of project is easily a lifetime in the making–our kids’ kids might live to see it happen, but will likely never afford the financial expense necessary to experience it.

Seems to be plenty of uninhabited territory here. Nothingness. This excursion is turning into a blatant misappropriation of government funding that could have easily went towards aiding the less-fortunate beings of the planet we currently reside on (Earth) instead of analyzing an enormous ball of red rock. No telling yet whether the government is planning to deport the nation’s homeless to Mars instead of providing more sufficient government aid for their disabilities and misfortune on the home front? Foreclosed-on families are living on the streets in America.

Curiosity will complete a two-year mission on the surface of Mars– tooling around, analyzing dirt and junk just to make sure nothing ever lived there. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.