WASHINGTON: NASA’s future plans to explore Mars may end up using astronauts as space messengers.
The new idea surfaced as a special team looking for a new Mars robotic exploration plan released a preliminary report Tuesday.
One of the option calls for a Martian robotic rover to collect rocks on the red planet. Later, astronauts in a newly built spaceship would be used to pick them up from a cosmic delivery point somewhere between Earth and Mars and return them home.
The report gives the space agency several options with no specific timing for future missions and no decision is expected until next year. The new plan is needed because budget cuts earlier this year killed two future robotic flights. The space agency has so far explored Mars with orbiters and robots, like the rover Curiosity that landed last month.
The ultimate goal has been to get a robot to collect rocks and Martian soil to send to Earth for more detailed scientific examination.
Separately, NASA is working on new missions for astronauts to explore away from Earth, with an ultimate goal of sending them to Mars sometime in the 2030s.
The NASA team proposed combining both dreams, getting astronauts involved in Martian exploration earlier. But they wouldn’t exactly go to Mars itself. The astronauts would go somewhere between Mars and Earth and pick up the rocks left by a spacecraft that carried them off Mars.
That plan takes advantage of the new rocket and spaceship system for astronauts that should be ready in the next decade, said NASA associate administrator for sciences John Grunsfeld.
It also would lessen contamination worries about the Martian rocks. Scientists want to make sure that the Martian samples could not bring alien germs to Earth and that Earth organisms don’t contaminate the Martian sample, Grunsfeld said.
And it would help the mission to land humans on Mars because it “looks a lot like sending a crew to Mars and returning them safely,” Grunsfeld said.
The planning team looked at a few options for a Mars sample return mission:
— Send a bunch of spacecraft to Mars — a rover, a launcher to return home, an orbiter — in several launches.
— Package all those spacecraft into one or two launches that would save money but increase risk of failure.
— Send a bunch of small rovers to look around different spots of Mars to find the best samples and then design a system to collect and return those rocks.
Before that can happen, NASA still has to decide what robotic or orbiter mission it wants to send to Mars in 2018, if any. It’s a time when Earth and the red planet will be close and save money on fuel costs. Grunsfeld said NASA only has about $800 million budgeted for that, which is not enough for a major rover.
The next big leap: Astronauts may go beyond the moon
The next big leap: Astronauts may go beyond the moon
‘The Wrecking Crew’ — Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista head enjoyable romp
RIYADH: Angel Manuel Soto directs this odd-couple action-comedy with a confidence and flair that — along with the chemistry between its central performers and its better-than-you’d-ever-expect script — just about raises it above the slop swarming the streamers.
Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista play estranged half-brothers Jonny and James Halle. Both have the same father — a not-much-liked private detective called Walter who’s just been killed in a hit-and-run in Hawaii (where they were raised and where James, a Navy SEAL, still lives). Neither brother is particularly upset to hear the news of Walter’s death, but when Yakuza henchmen attack Jonny in his Oklahoma home (where he’s a maverick, heavy-drinking cop) demanding a package sent by Walter (a package he hasn’t yet received), he decides to return to Hawaii for the first time in years to attend the funeral and investigate further.
Jonny’s reunion with James is less than cordial, but he does meet James’ wife Leila and their kids for the first time. Leila is a child-psychologist — not afraid to call the brothers out on their emotional shortcomings, nor to try and help them fix their fractured fraternity.
The brothers’ investigation uncovers a plan to build a casino on Hawaiian home lands (an area held in trust for Native Hawaiians). The developer is the extremely wealthy Marcus Robichaux (played with gleeful pantomime-villain campness by Claes Bang), who — it turns out — had hired Walter to investigate his wife, who had hired Walter to investigate her husband.
Now our heroes know who they have to bring down, they’re into far more comfortable territory (both for the characters and, you suspect, the actors). Yep. Forget the dialogue, it’s action time.
Cue multiple scenes of high-octane mayhem expertly helmed by Soto in what’s essentially a slightly updated (emotional healing!) throwback to the dumb-but-fun action blockbusters of the Eighties and Nineties. The nostalgia isn’t hidden, either. The soundtrack starts with Guns N’ Roses and ends with Phil Collins. And there’s a shoutout to Jean-Claude Van Damme in between.
There’s a plot here too, but, honestly, who cares? Momoa and Bautista get to flex their considerable muscles, show off their ink, and make a few wisecracks. No one’s watching this for a clever twist, right? Watch it hoping for a couple hours of entertaining excitement and you’ll be well satisfied.
