Space/Science — HabitableZone

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Nick Hoffman — (archived)

(Better to post links to open-file information that everyone can read freely.)

Sure, TEGA is not the best instrument that could possibly have been built. (Almost) Nothing ever is. There are constraints on time and budget, people have ideas with limited scope, sometimes mistakes get made or corners cut.

Phoenix as a concept is flawed - the days of static landers should be over. We have all seen the value of mobility, but Phoenix was built on the cheap, using the remnants of an earlier failed lander.

There are certainly isues with TEGA. maybe those issues will limit the data we get from this mission, but there will be future missions, and each one will slowly evolve. One day, there will be long-lived roving laboraties on Mars, with independent (nuclear) power plants and mining capabilities. Maybe fleets of robots or a whole robot colony...

For now, we are grateful for such grains of information as do arrive, and I'm sure we'll debate their meaning intensely, once they are revealed.

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