FINAL FAIREWELL: FANCY A ONE-WAY JOURNEY TO MARS? by Benson Agoha

* WELCOME TO MARS!

If you have ever dreamt of a life in another world, your dream might just be closer to being realised.

An organisation is preparing to put people to mars on a one-way journey to experiment at colonising the red planet. But you need a lot of balls to do it, if you are not a mutant.

The surprising thing though is that over 1,000 volunteers from around the world are said to have volunteered to join the mission. And the numbers are still climbing. Mind you that there is no water discovered anywhere in Mars as yet. And beiing one-way, aint it rather scary.

According to the "Mars Polar Lander" dedicated to efforts to discover water on Mars, `Mars and Water Mars today is too cold, with an atmosphere that is too thin, to support liquid water on its surface. Yet scientists who studied images from the Viking orbiters kept encountering features that appeared to be formed by flowing water - among them deep channels and canyons, and even features that appeared to be ancient lake shorelines. Added to this were more recent observations by Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor which suggested widespread flowing water in the planet's past. Some scientists identified features which they believe appear to be carved by torrents of water with the force of 10,000 Mississippi Rivers.'

* Built by Honneybee Robotics, USA, Curiosity is doing an excellent job on Mars.

The report continues "There is no general agreement, however, on what form water took on the early Mars. Two competing views are currently popular in the science community. According to one theory, Mars was once much warmer and wetter, with a thicker atmosphere; it may well have boasted lakes or oceans, rivers and rain. According to the other theory, Mars was always cold, but water trapped as underground ice was periodically released when heating caused ice to melt and gush forth onto the surface."

"That scenario, however, is just a theory. Regardless of the history and fate of the atmosphere, scientists also do not understand what happened to Mars' water. Some undoubtedly must have been lost to space. Water ice has been detected in the permanent cap at Mars' north pole, and may exist in the cap at the south pole. But much water is probably trapped under the surface - either as ice or, if near a heat source, possibly in liquid form well below the surface."

* Viking Landing Spot on Mars.

But if you are adamant on going to mars, perhaps you should read the report from the mission to Mar's North Polar region by the Phoenix Mars Lander which says..

"Aside from the Phoenix lander’s landmark discovery of water ice and soil nutrients abundant enough for microbe or plant life, other major items topping the news on Martian discoveries over the last several years include: a comparison of 2004-2005 survey photos taken from orbit proves that subsurface water does exist, irregularly erupting to flow down gullies. The same photo comparisons also reveal that the surface is absorbing meteor impacts, leaving craters in such numbers that it could be hazardous for any surface-colonization environments. The Martian atmosphere, being much thinner than Earth’s, allows many meteors to get through to the surface which, entering Earth’s atmosphere, would burn up before striking to form cratering."

* Water in Mars? Not yet say scientists.

* Curiosity Rover has spent four months so far in Mars as at today December 5, 2012.

* Artists Impression of Next Rover Due in Mars in 2020. It looks like Curiosity.


According to reports from NASA "..The space agency on Tuesday announced plans to launch another mega-rover to the red planet in 2020 that will be modeled after the wildly popular Curiosity.

To keep costs down, engineers will borrow Curiosity's blueprints, recycle spare parts where possible and use proven technology including the novel landing gear that delivered the car-size rover inside an ancient crater in August.."