NASA's Next Mission to Mars

NASA hosted a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Oct. 28, to discuss the upcoming launch of the agency's next mission to Mars and the first devoted to understanding the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet.
MAVEN is scheduled to launch at 1:28 p.m. EST Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. MAVEN's data will be used to study the history and change of Mars' atmosphere, climate, and planetary habitability.

Briefing participants were:
- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, Headquarters
- Lisa May, MAVEN program executive, Headquarters
- Kelly Fast, MAVEN program scientist, Headquarters
- Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
- David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

[beanbeanbeanbeanbean]

Agreed. Mars looks like it did have water in the past and I love watching these missions to explore it. I hope some day we can send missions to Europa because I heard it has an ocean under its ice.

[ackbarfan]

I cannot wait to go see MAVEN launch! It is going to be the first launch I have watched live in person!

[TheCarlosroberto]

acho que deveriam mandar um Robot para Marte, para plantar ou samear alimentos, fazer test!

[josephfisher]

How did you get tickets? I couldn't figure it out.

[RufftaMan]

If you mean the launch, I'm pretty sure they will broadcast it live on NASA TV, which is available on their website or U-Stream (which is where i normally watch it).

[RealEstateStars]

Dr. Kelly Fast....I know her! Brilliant woman and wonderful person.

[namexox]

Next mission to Mars sounds great and learning about its atmosphere sounds interesting, but I wonder if there are deep natural underground caves at Mars to discover which could be turned into sealed manned environments and space terminals for future deep space base missions etc.

[BaronVonTrousers]

Mars holds the best chance for evidence of past life that we can get to right now. While I'd love to see us doing more with the outer solar system I think Mars is still a awesome place for us to be going.

[stewartsavage]

Good point, but we wouldn't need a Magnetic field if we used Silica to produce vast Glass domes??Maybe In 400 years that would be possible

[ackbarfan]

You can purchase tickets for Kennedy Space Center. They include prime viewing for all rocket launches out of Cape Kennedy. The link is rather long so I will send you another message shortly. The best thing is, you buy one ticket and you get to watch any rocket launches, you get access to the Astronaut Hall of Fame, you can see OV-Atlantis, and many other exhibits and attractions at Kennedy Space Center!

[livamilAVA]

there's a program where u can sign up for the human-mars expedition, and everyone is entitled to go, if u pass the tests etc. not only from russia or china....

[MonkeyspankO]

NASA kickstarter?

It sounds silly, but I think many people would want to contribute.

[BaronVonTrousers]

The general idea is that if you can establish a base on the Moon that would provide a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system. Think of it this way. If you have people with a semi-permanent presence on the moon you can have them build a rocket. Launching a rocket from the moon would be much cheaper than building and launching one from Earth because the gravity is less. It's all about cost. Personally I think the private space industry is the future though.

[zyrcon]

mr Bruce, your prosthetis is slipping...

[KevinMillard]

i think if they plan on populating mars its a very bad idea, even the idea of terrorforming mars is not a good idea and has 100% chance if failing.seeing if there are past connections between us and the people that once lived there. ok thats a cool idea but we need to put more effort into getting to another planet that we can populate this planet is pretty burnt out and stands a large possibility of becoming the next mars if you get my drift.

[IntelInside]

Let's build a moon base first-then work on terraforming Mars

[TheCarlosroberto]

Teremos que ir para Marte com urgência.A terra já está com uma população enorme.temos que nos unir mundialmente, para alcançarmos outros planetas.

[stewartsavage]

We have to send a payload bay full of seeds, lets get this thing terraformed before we can't

[TheCarlosroberto]

A coisa é seria.não vai haver alimentação no futuro, aqui na terra, teremos que comer mihocas, se quisermos sobreviver.rsrsrs...

[Insomn]

Granted, it's not the coolest thing in the solar system, but we might be able to barely survive on it, which is appealing.