Picture from a Politics Free Zone

PIC from the surface of MARS via Curosity - Many likley wish they could be there to escape the non-stop BS from the POLS....This is what the surface of another world looks like and we need to keep reaching for the stars, not letting the POLS kill off NASA.

America....Kicking arse and taking names

This works......

The Truth Is Out There - A MONOLITH on the surface of MARS

This is one of those " Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot" moments when even the most skeptical of people will look at the picture from the surface of Mars and stare in disbelief...

I've seen the Pyramids of Mars pics and agree there is a lot we won't know about what is what on the surface until we can REALLY explore there but this one tops all others...2001 ? HAL ? It seems that SCI-FI is really SCI-NOW....Damn.

I like the "explainations" but you know that back in the lab, the NASA guys and others are saying, " Crap, we can't cover this one up..."



'Monolith' Object on Mars? You Could Call It That
By Natalie Wolchover
LiveScience.com

Amateur stargazers have discovered an intriguing object jutting out from the surface of Mars. The seemingly perfectly rectangular, upright structure, found in NASA images of the Red Planet, bears a striking resemblance to the monoliths planted on Earth and the moon by aliens in the classic sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The object in question was first spotted several years ago after being photographed by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a NASA space probe; every so often, it garners renewed interest on the Internet. But is it unnatural — a beacon erected by aliens for mysterious reasons, and even more mysteriously paralleled in the imaginations of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, creators of "2001"? Or is this rock the work of nature? [Photo ]

According to Jonathon Hill, a research technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, who processes many of the images taken during NASA's Mars missions, the object in question is no more than a roughly rectangular boulder.

The HiRISE camera that photographed it has a resolution of approximately 1 foot (30 centimeters) per pixel — impressive considering the 180-mile (300-kilometer) altitude from which it photographs the Martian surface, but not quite sharp enough to capture the cragginess of a mid-size boulder. "When your resolution is too low to fully resolve an object, it tends to look rectangular because the pixels in the image are squares. Any curve will look like a series of straight lines if you reduce your resolution enough," Hill told Life's Little Mysteries.

The location of the boulder at the bottom of a cliff near many other boulders suggests it broke off the cliff and tumbled to its current spot sometime in the distant past, Hill said. Such a perilous location is itself an argument against deliberate placement by aliens: "If I was going to build a monolith somewhere, that's the last place I would put it!" he said. "The debris falling from the cliff would cover it up pretty quickly, on geologic timescales."

[Hill added that the height of the boulder is being exaggerated in the photo by a low sun angle. Photographed when the sun was near the horizon, the boulder casts an especially long shadow.

The ufologists aren't necessarily wrong in calling it a monolith — the word simply translates from Latin as "one stone." But this monolith isn't the masonry of Martians.

Journeying to Mars -- on a One-Way Ticket / Pioneers who would open a new world on MARS

To walk on the surface of MARS...how many have dreamed of this as the next major step after we put a Man on the Moon...The movies that recently featured journeys to Mars have reinforced the idea of seeing people on the surface of Mars. The robotic explorers have sent back pictures that seem so close....Now, the logistic reality of "how" to accomplish this task is being seriously reviewed....Anyone looking for a BIG adventure??? This could be the next frontier and not unlike what the Pioneers faced whne they left Europe and went to the "New World" for the rest of their lives.....

Journeying to Mars -- on a One-Way Ticket
Sending astronauts to Mars or other destinations without a ride home could cut the cost of space missions.
By Irene Klotz Mon Nov 1, 2010 Discovery.com

Finished having kids? Perhaps it's time to think about moving to Mars.

Scientists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies figure that sending astronauts -- particularly ones past their reproductive years -- on one-way journeys to Mars is the most economical way to pioneer the space frontier and establish humans as a multi-planet species.

"This is not a suicide mission. The astronauts would go to Mars with the intention of staying for the rest of their lives, as trailblazers of a permanent human Mars colony," Schultz-Makuch, with Washington State University, and Davies, at Arizona State, write in this month's Journal of Cosmology.

"Their role would be to establish a base camp to which more colonists would eventually be sent, and to carry out important scientific and technological projects," the scientists wrote.

Because of the harsh radioactive environment in space, the authors propose people in in their mid-50s or 60s would be the right age to go, Schultz-Makuch told Discovery News. The lifestyle would be tough, but the authors figure the space pioneers would have about a decade to work on a settlement.

The mission would begin with robotic ships, stocked with about two year's worth of food, agricultural kits and tools.

The robots' first job would be to get some power flowing, most likely a small nuclear reactor, supplemented with solar energy. A steady stream of freighters would keep the outpost resupplied until it was able to become self-sufficient, Schultz-Makuch added.

The scientists suggest an initial group of four people be sent to Mars, and had no recommendations about gender. "I suppose two men and two women would be good," Schultz-Makuch said.

The plan would cut sharply cut the cost of a human mission to Mars -- the authors estimate not needing fuel and supplies for a return trip to Earth could save about 80 percent -- while paving the way for future colonization.

An outpost on Mars (eventually colonized by younger people) would also be a way to preserve the human species should an asteroid impact or some other disaster wipe out life on Earth, they point out.

"There are many reasons why a human colony on Mars is a desirable goal, scientifically and politically. The strategy of one-way missions brings this goal within technological and financial feasibility," the scientists wrote.

The plan is likely to raise some ethical issues, but the scientists said sending people to live on Mars "would really be little different from the first white settlers of the North American continent, who left Europe with little expectation of return."

The idea is getting some attention at NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which is collaborating on a study called "The 100-Year Starship" intended to explore how to sustain human spaceflight a century from now.

The study, scheduled to last a year, anticipates a mix of private and government funds will be needed to "ensure continuity of the lengthy technological time horizon needed," writes DARPA in a statement about the project.

Apparently, there are no shortage of volunteers. "I get emails all the time from people wanting to go," Schultz-Makuch said.