oh no! Mars beagle, no contact!

one word. BULLSHlT. we can send a probe to #ing NEPTUNE, orbit EUROPA but we cant #ing get to the planet ONE #ING ORBIT AWAY? we are NOT being told the whole story here.

Did the probes to Europa and Neptune land on the surface? No. That's the hard part. Getting them into orbit is generaly easy (in comparison). The Beagel 2 was a bit of a rush job too from what i remember (at least parts of it). I don't think the airbags were fully tested either. I can't find the link where i read that though.

I highly doubt aliens have anything to do with it. If there were aliens shooting down probes, then why wouldn't they shoot them all down? Why let some slip through? doesn't make any sence in the least.

It's just really hard to get something to land on a planet. You try launching something towards a planet thats 1au away and getting the thing there in one piece on the surface. There are so many factors NASA or the ESA or who ever can't always account for or control. I remember reading that if it was fairly windy when the Beagel was landing, that it could affect how the thing would land. The thing could have landed upside down too, who knows.

jra,

THAT is the point...landing. Although there seems to also be a higher rate of failure just getting to orbit with Mars. I call it the Mars curse. I don't personally think that there is some kind of ET action behind it. But the high percent of failures there is something we are missing. Possibly anamolous gravity effects? or EM activity that makes electronics whack out. And then, of course, every once in a while we don't convert meters to feet. Oh, and then, when we don't do end-to-end testing that gets us. We'll have to wait and see what part of the curse bit the Brits.

Sure bites indiscriminately, though, doesn't it?

Of 34 unmanned American, Soviet And Russian missions to the planet since 1960, two-thirds have ended in failure.

Mariner 4, US: July, 14, 1965. First successful Mars flyby, returning 21 pictures.

Mariner 9, US: Orbited Mars from November 13, 1971, to October 27, 1972, returning 7 329 photos.

Mars 3, USSR: Made the first successful landing on the surface on December 3, 1971, and camera began to scan. But contact lost after 20 seconds and no images obtained.

Mars 6 and 7, USSR: Two landers failed to reach the surface in March 1974.

Viking 1, US: Orbited June 1976-1980, lander operated from July 1976-1982.

Viking 2, US: Orbited August 1976-1987, lander operated September 1976-1980. Together the two Vikings returned more than 50 000 pictures.

Mars Observer, US: Launched in September 1992 on mission to orbit Mars. Lost in August 1993 just before arrival.

Mars Global Surveyor, US: Began orbiting September 1997, still conducting mission of mapping surface.

Mars Pathfinder, US: Rover landed on surface on July 4, 1997, moving on surface and transmitting data until September 27, 1997.

Nozomi (Planet-B), Japan: Launched July 1998 on mission to orbit Mars. Failed to leave sun's orbit and abandoned on December 3, 2003.

Mars Climate Orbiter, US: Launched December 1998, lost September 1999.

Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2, US: Launched January 1999 on mission to land probe to study Martian south pole. Lost on arrival December 1999.

Mars Odyssey, US: Launched April 2001, currently orbiting Mars and conducting mapping mission.

Opportunity and Spirit, US: Two rovers, launched in June and July 2003, scheduled to arrive in January and land on opposite sides of Mars.

Here is a link to Nasa's Mars Exploration page showing all missions and there results.

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

Somebody does not want us messing around on Mars. This is probably part of the Federation quarantine designed to keep our warlike tendencies confined to our own planet. For some insight on this you need to read "Cosmic Voyage" by remote viewer Courtney Brown.

Courtney Brown page

You know I don't think that its an alien presence killing all the Mars missions because viking 1 and 2 both landed on the surface and both operated for 4 years. If a alien force did exsist then why would they let two probes snap pictures for 4 years?

I think that the problem with mars maybe that mars has a fluctuating gravity. I think it is very possible that gravity may not be constant as we think it is today. Just my .02

If man never got to the moon and we have no pictures of the moon?

then why try to get to mars?

Why not AIM for the moon first?

If the robots excually landed on mars then why are they not filled with dust around them ? They seem so clean



Moon Landing a hoax.

Mars landing another hoax.

Originally posted by akummma
If man never got to the moon and we have no pictures of the moon?

then why try to get to mars?

Why not AIM for the moon first?

If the robots excually landed on mars then why are they not filled with dust around them ? They seem so clean



Moon Landing a hoax.

Mars landing another hoax.

Thanks for sharing your opinion negating the awesome achievements of others...remember, that's all it is - your opinion, ok?

There's a big difference between cruising by, and landing a craft remotely on a planet millions of miles away.....

Let's not forget.....Pathfinder landed, and went out fine...so big props to NASA on that one....

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by lilblam
We gotta remember, it's stupid taking a $400-million dollar chance, isn't it? If they are gonna spend this much money, they better be damn sure it'll work, it's not you '69 Chevy, it's a sophisticated, EXPENSIVE piece of fine-tuned and well-tested equipment that is almost SURE to work... unless...

Unless of course they found something and it scared the living sh*t out of them... now they have to cover it up because what they found cannot leak into the public... maybe they decided to never try going to Mars again too.. just like the Moon. Whatever they found on the moon, they never came back for another look since then... Didn't armstrong publically (or some other astronaut) admit that he was told by some aliens to "stay off the moon" etc etc? Hmm...

Or wait.. they already KNEW what's on Mars of course, silly me. They knew exactly what they'll find and they PLANNED this whole fiasco of "losing contact" when in reality contact may still be secretly maintained but the public thinks a big accident happened... bah so many possibilities... one thing is for sure: They are all lying/deceptive/cover-upping bastards who'd say anything the people at the "top" tell them to say. So chances are, it's a coverup/lie as usual. Would you like that to go? Want coke with that? Salad on the side?

Hey...word up lilblam...

"they" that went to the moon

"they" that lost crafts on Mars previously

are not the "they" that just suffered a failure

so whatever "they" you are referring to as a singular collective body do not exist

An over abundance of verbage doesn't cover up that you're not quite sure what you're talking about.

I didn't say I KNOW! By "they" I mean any organization with enough money/influence/reason to create a space ship that costs $400 million that can go out and land on another planet. ANYONE who falls into that category receives government funding and is under government control, and of course large corporations. But we all know that elites aren't known for their humanitarian tendencies, well they won't admit that but it's their actions that count. So "they" are no doubt lying about stuff, but not because "they" chose to necessarily, but because "they" received orders from someone high up. That someone high up gives orders to EVERYONE who sends anything to space, so it doesn't matter who "they" are, they all receive their orders from one source. That's the truth

Oh yeah, an overabundance of verbage on "their" part (news articles etc) also doesn't mean that is the truth.

[Edited on 26-12-2003 by lilblam]

You people will find a conspiracy in anything!

Landing on Mars is a very difficult task, hence the hight failure rate. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no aliens on Mars killing the probes.

Originally posted by Zzub
You people will find a conspiracy in anything!

Landing on Mars is a very difficult task, hence the hight failure rate. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no aliens on Mars killing the probes.

That could be true also.. I dunno. But let's not ignore possibilities either

Agreed, I don't want to close my mind to all the posibilities, but I'm pretty sure the high failure rate of mars missions is due to the difficulty of the task, not any third-party intervention.

If there is life on Mars, it's underground and I'm completely wrong.

Well,

So far as the success of the Vikings disproving the notion of 'conspiracy' goes...

My understanding of this theory is that one of the Viking orbiters detected what could be interpreted as 'structures' on the Martian surface. Prior to this detection, NASA would have had no evidence suggesting that alien life may have existed on Mars... Thus, if there is a group out there sabotaging all of these missions, they would have had no reason to do so before about 1976.

Also, if, again, my understanding of the Mars Urban legends are correct, it's not so much live, active aliens who are trashing these things but, instead, people on earth who do not want the public to see any data that relates to the possibility of Martian artifacts or life. Notice that the probes that have 'gotten through' are really incapable of looking for life (either past or present).

Personally, I think that the real reason we have so many screwups has less to do with the difficulty of the missions and more to do with bureaucratic maladministration (like how, in the quest for 'better, cheaper, faster', NASA started using off the shelf military technology that wasn't intended for long duration space flight). When NASA has been shown to repeatedly lie about its own errors -- I believe the "we used the wrong measurement system" line was discredited years ago -- I am forced to think that a certain amount of groupthink is sending these craft to their doom.

But, as someone else pointed out, NASA did not send up Beagle2/Mars Express. However, if there was a third party interested in sabotaging Mars efforts, they could just as easily undermine the ESA as they can (possibly) undermine NASA. Ultimately... the failure rate for ALL space agencies going to Mars seems extraordinary -- especially when it is noted that some of these failures involve orbiters and landers that parachuted to the surface (not just powered landers like someone above said).

Hi OIMD,

Hope you had a good Christmas.

The "wrong measurement line" hasn't been disproved. That's what happened.

The problem with the theory that "they" (who ever the heck they are) are trying to cover up data revealing life on Mars is that as the number of "theys" (countries, organizations, etc.) that get bit by this grows, the theory becomes less plausible. Not every culture views these issues the same, so, say, trying to get the Japanese (who love to save face) to go along the party line that they just screwed up in order to cover up some greater secret starts stretching it.

We're getting a longer and longer list of "theys" on this Mars deal.

I try to stay open-minded on this whole Mars failure rate thing. I don't personally believe it is ET interference, but I will grant that the rate is way too high and starts crying for explanation...so I'm not ruling anything out yet. But I think a vast conspiracy is at the bottom of my list due to the logistics involved.

The way I see it IF there are other thing's stopping some probes from landing but allowing others through, you have to look at where the planed LZ are. The probes that got through may have landed on part of the planet that isn't used, like landing in the desert here. Other probes might have been heading for well used parts so had to be destroyed.

Originally posted by Valhall
jra,

THAT is the point...landing. Although there seems to also be a higher rate of failure just getting to orbit with Mars. I call it the Mars curse. I don't personally think that there is some kind of ET action behind it. But the high percent of failures there is something we are missing. Possibly anamolous gravity effects? or EM activity that makes electronics whack out. And then, of course, every once in a while we don't convert meters to feet. Oh, and then, when we don't do end-to-end testing that gets us. We'll have to wait and see what part of the curse bit the Brits.

Sure bites indiscriminately, though, doesn't it?

agreed, there missing somthing.....

or they could all have been rushed to the point of failer

True, DMSoldier. Haste could be the common factor.

But that sure would surprise me. It's really going to be sad if we learn the Brits didn't learn from our embarrassing mistakes (i.e. not checking, double checking and rechecking code, not performing end-to-end tests, etc.). We're just going to have to wait for the movie...lol.

But like I said before in this thread and some one else states as well, this could be some kind of gravity anomaly, or fluctuation that we just haven't detected yet. This would also go along with the last poster's idea that there might be good landing zones. Maybe they have something equivalent to our South Atlantic Anamoly. In fact, when you consider they don't have tectonics, it becomes more plausible that they may have areas of weird gravity or EM.

Are the landing in the same spot as were the other "rover" landings landed?

Two years ago, following the detection of a strongly magnetized ancient crust on Mars, David J. Stevenson, professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) published a theory that "Mars probably has a liquid, conductive outer core and might have a solid inner core like Earth," in a review article in the journal Nature in 2001. However, if Mars had a core like earths then it would possess atleast a small magnetic field which it does not. The lack of a modern day magnetic field on Mars has until recently been explained away by saying that the core of Mars is completly solid.

According to the data returned by the Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, and the Mars Pathfinder scientists discovered that the core of Mars was completly liquid. If the core is completely made of liquid then the only way to not produce a magnetic field is for the liquid not to be spinning. This none spinning hot liquid would be greatly succeptable to the pull of the suns gravity. If this is true then just as the sun and moon act to create high and low tides on earth the gravity of the sun pulling on a completely liquid core could cause high and low gravity tides by displacing mass to one side of the planet.

This is the reason I beleive so many missions fail, because we do not yet know how to perdict when the gravity will be high, low, or as expected.

Lets say we send a probe up for orbit and it comes in at a high gravity time then the altitude for orbit would need to be higher than orginally calculated and if its not the probe will never achieve orbit and crash to the planet.

Wouldnt that be noticeable by the orbiters currently around mars though? Or the orbits of Phobos and Deimos?