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Re: NASA Mars mission funding - better spent on paleo?

In the story I saw this morning, a reporter mentioned the previous Polar Landing Mission, which crash landed on Mars. He said that the analysis done on that accident identified many causes, but that the root cause was that it was underfunded. If I am recalling the correct crashed probe, the reason it crashed was that the rockets or parachutes didn't fire or deploy at the right time because one system on the probe measured altitude in feet and the other system on the probe measured it in meters. Similarly the mirror on the Hubble Telescope didn't work right at first because ?NASA (or the mirror manufacturer) decided to save money (even though it was in the budget) by not testing the mirror on the ground before mounting it in the Hubble and sending it into space. The repair mission to regrind the mirror, of course, cost a wee bit more. The point here is that these incidents were not the result of underfunding, but rather sloppiness.

As for what to do with the $400 million? I know a dinosaur quarry that could have a really nice new visitor center rebuilt over it for just a small fraction of that sum.

I agree that sending people to Mars is a foolish endeavor. Way too costly for limited benefits. In talking with non-scientists, most of them balk at the cost of that kind of project "for what?" People seem to understand that unmanned vehicles are better scientifically and more cost effective, although they think the unmanned missions are also too expensive.

Then again, if by some lucky break, the lander finds definite evidence of life, it will be one of the great moments in history. Quite frankly, I'd rather see the money spent on the Europa probe. That place is by far the best bet for finding life in our solar system.

Dan

hammeris1@bellsouth.net wrote: 
Well, like everyone else I'll monitor the landing tomorrow night and follow the progress 
of the mission, but let me assure all paleontologists on this list that this mission is 
not by any stretch of the imagination "approved of" by all 
physicists/engineers.  Many of us feel the knowledge gained will be minimal, and the 
facts found will do little more than make a lot of philosophical speculation that cannot 
be proved until a much, much more detailed examination of Mars can be made in the 
somewhat-far future when robotics will be advanced enough such that a large payload 
landing craft can be practically built to go there.  There is no real practical method of 
a 'manned' landing there - the hassles of dealing with the environment would undermine 
any work of value that could be done there - I don't think the general public really 
grasps just how hostile Mars is to human life, and the enormous costs required to protect 
a human being in a suit there.  Anyway . . .

. . . at the risk of driving some go-there-at-any-cost-damn-the-practical-gains 
people out there crazy, could some of you describe what the funding for this 
mission could have accomplished for your field if it had been distributed to 
projects here?  I believe the figure is around $400M (above and beyond the 
original estimated $325M.)

There is SO much on our own planet that we know little or nothing about, with much more 
"immediate" impact on our lives and who/what we are and where we came from let 
alone the planet we live on, that spending so much time/effort/resources at this level of 
our technology seems not much bang for the buck.  Of course, this arguement could go on 
and on about curing social ills, etc., but I'm just talking about this particular corner 
of the issue.

The discovery of the monster pliosaur last year has a much more profound impact 
on my life (and alot of others) than a few scraps of soil chemistry on a dried 
out dead husk  hundreds of millions of kilometers away could ever have.

What would be the "top ten" for more funding on the Mesozoic, so to speak?
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