http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/ Engadget Comments for Britain's "Bridget" rover hopes to explore Mars http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 3:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 3:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
gio: What on earth do you mean? NASA is the american space angency and it's not exactly "good enough to trust" if you're another superpower with your own space program.]]>Jun 12th 2006 3:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
Fair do's in my opinon, space exploration is not NASA's sole responsibility, ]]>Jun 12th 2006 3:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
Great job U.K.

pEace.
]]>Jun 12th 2006 4:04PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
Besides, it's not like the Brit space bot is equipped with a wedge or diamond-blade saws to demolish Spirit and Opportunity BattleBots-style. Although...]]>Jun 12th 2006 4:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 4:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 4:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 5:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 12th 2006 5:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
Dispite it's sizable airbags, Bridget also sports giantic underpants to keep any life on Mars from becoming attracted to it. ]]>Jun 12th 2006 7:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
First of all, Air has nothing to do with life. There are Hundreds of Thousands of species On Earth that are Anaerobic and would absolutely Die if exposed to "air". In fact... Oxygen is inherently Unstable on its own and was Not part of the original makeup of our atmosphere.

That means that the first life forms on earth thrived in Carbon Dioxide.

Secondly... As you well know a plethora of life has been discovered in the deepest bowels of the earth and In fact, most of the species on earth live in a Low-Zero light habitat (Under Water) and so a "Sun" (or any other star) would not really Have to be present. In fact, we have an example of Exactly that In our solar system.

Look to Europa. It is Far outside the "green zone" of our sun and yet all evidence points to the existence of liquid water under the surface ice. "How in the world can there be liquid water if it is Sooo far away from the Sun you ask?" the answer seems to lay in the Tidal Forces exerted by Jupiter. The aggressive warp created by those forces excite geothermal heat and thus raise the temp of the moon.


Thirdly... Tidal forces also have little to do with life on earth since Most of earths species live Underwater and at depths where those tidal forces exerted by our unremarkable moon are not felt (or at least to not any meaningful degree that we can measure. Again the only way Tidal Forces would come into play would be ocean currents or provide an alternative source of heat for the celestial body.

Perhaps a more accurate "list of ingredients" would be "an atmosphere" (of any sort). Substantial Organic Material (mostly Carbon). Semi Stable weather patterns, being Past the "Impact phase" of the solar system and last but not least.. Time.

Just a slightly more in depth theory. (No bashing intended)

-Ben

]]>Jun 12th 2006 10:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/
Of course, N.A.S.A. would have been set back for years had it not been for a certain German WWII engineer of oppression: Dr Wernher von Braun - the brains behind the V1 and V2 rockets.

The Hubble Space Telescope could not have been completed and launched had it not been for assistance from the European Space Agency (E.S.A.).

Due to the unique way that Europe is made up, many of the member countries have their own space agencies as well, all contributing to the cause. If you add up ESA's own funding and combine it with the funding of the member countries' own projects, it more than doubles NASA funding.

At the end of the day, NASA is a military institution. Projects such as the GPRS satellite tracking system are owned and operated by the US Military, and could, at any time, be de-activated, plunging countless millions of people who rely on it around the world into disarray. ESA however is launching a non-military and more advanced counterpart called Galileo.

Japan, China, India and Russia all also maitain well-funded space programs.

I'm sure if everyone pooled together we'd get a lot more done, and it is only in very recent years that some of the beaurocratic walls preventing this have started to crumble. An example of this is that Hubble's replacement, the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) is a joint project between NASA and ESA and is due for launch in 2013.

So good-on Britain for continuing to exercise it's intellect and vast engineering expertise to come up with some of the important gubbins that goes into large multi-national space projects.

Long live peaceful co-operation!]]>Jun 13th 2006 4:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 13th 2006 5:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/12/britains-bridget-rover-hopes-to-explore-mars/Jun 13th 2006 9:50AM