Pre-Owned Lander Now On Mars!
Campfire’s intrepid space correspondent, former creative director Andrew Kessler, is in Tucson AZ covering the Mars Phoenix mission. A key operation of the Mars Lander, which arrived on Mars last weekend, will be the deployment of a robotic arm that will dig below the Mars surface looking for signs of Martian life.
Kessler is actually employed by NASA, working under Peter Smith, who instigated the Phoenix Mission. Andrew is writing a book about the project, and also reporting for Popular Mechanics and consulting on a Discovery special.
One of the unique aspects of the project is the reuse of a lander from a cancelled Mars exploration project in 2001 (the Mars Surveyor), lending a certain post 2008 recession budget consciousness to the entire enterprise. Perhaps the Pentagon could learn a few lessons from NASA when it comes to effective penny pinching.
Images and data will be flowing back for the next 3 months as the lander analyzes the ice under the surface for signs of life. We’ll keep you posted on any exciting news from the Mars front via Andrew.
The Mars Phoenix Project’s Twitter account has 8,894 Followers, with MarsPhoenix following 0.
Technorati Tags: Andrew Kessler, Campfire, Events, Mars, NASA, New Journalism
May 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Watching the landing on TV the other day, with all the tension and various points of celebration, left me a little teary-eyed. I miss getting excited about space missions. Is it not hip to do these days?
May 29th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
If Kessler’s on the case, it’s gotta be hip.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Stand by for hipness. We are go for hipness.