New Mars Forums

Five years ago on March 5th, 1999, MarsNews.com was begun by myself and Dustin Green to provide the latest news and information about the planet Mars.  It started out as a project of the Mars Society's Puget Sound chapter.  Later that year, I was given an "outstanding volunteer" award by Robert & Maggie Zubrin for my efforts to increase the visibility of the Mars Society by maintaining MarsNews.com.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of MarsNews.com, we have re-launched the website with lots of new information and special features.  Among the new improvements for MarsNews.com are the Mission Status Center, a one-stop location for information about current missions; the NewsWire Database, boasting links to news articles about Mars going all the way back to 1996; the Mars Weather Center, providing daily updates on the atmospheric conditions of Mars; the Mars Event Calendar with several types of Mars-related happenings, and much more.

MarsNews.com also includes complete overviews of all previous, current, and planned Mars missions, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, Mars Express, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking, and Mariner.

We even have descriptions of failed missions like the Mars Polar Lander, Mars Observer, and Russia's Phobos 2.

For all this and much more, you can visit the website at:
[http://www.marsnews.com/]http://www.marsnews.com/

Best wishes,

James Burk
Founder and Editor
MarsNews.com

I have emailed my article on the CEV and its past efforts to Adrian!  If you'd like a preview, I've posted a small portion of it on my [http://www.projectconstellation.us/news/]Project Constellation weblog.  The full article should appear on this site within the next few days

ESA's Mars Express orbiter captured an image of Spirit's landing site about a week ago.  The image shows the exact location of Spirit is awash in a shade of green.  Don't believe me?  Look at the image for yourself.
[http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=34531]http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=34531

The same area was acquired by Odyssey in this false color image:
[http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V03415003_C321.html]http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V03415003_C321.html

Don Davis is an independent space artist / researcher who has processed
color images for Malin in the past.  Here is his processing of the Gusev
landing site into "true color" from Odyssey data
[http://www.donaldedavis.com/BIGPUB/DD_V03415003.jpg]http://www.donaldedavis.com/BIGPUB/DD_V03415003.jpg

What are your comments on this?

With the news of Spirit's recovery, that has become our top story, but we will keep the Mars Society paper on the main page throughout today.

Currently, we seem to be the only outlet on the web running the policy paper; even the Mars Society website doesn't have it yet.

Why does the computer keep rebooting? If it's only a software failure, a reboot should fix it (anybody who uses Windows understands that)  If it's a hardware failure, why would it cause the computer to reboot? Also the computer is rebooting at different intervals, as if there are multiple things wrong. Two of the three data returns today came back without any prompting, and contained random "fill data" along with real telemetry. What's up with that??

Did anybody hear if they got back the Mossbauer and APXS measurements from the rock Adirondack? That rock is pretty peculiar... look at the left side, seems like it's covering up another rock. Look at the right side, are those horizonal holes or just shadows? There's also a patch on the right side that has a weird rough texture.

How about the last panorama of the lander... the colors (like almost every other panorama) are totally skewed red. The colors of the lander wiring, NASA logo, etc don't look anything like the pre-launch photos. Also take a look at the plastic ramps.. they seem to have reflections in them that are bluish-white! Could it be the blue sky reflecting off them?

I hope we get answers to these questions soon...

Part 1 is now up, focusing on Mars Direct and featuring guest Harold Miller, the lead Webmaster for the Mars Society.

Also hope you enjoyed our April Fools prank

MarsNews.com has begun a weekly radio program called "Radio Free Mars" with the blessing of the Mars Society's Radio Free Mars task force.

We're producing a two-part series focusing on the Mars Society.  Part one will be out this Tuesday, April 1st and our guest will be Harold Miller, lead webmaster of the Mars Society (no april fools here).  We'll also have an in-depth look at the Mars Direct mission plan popularized by Dr. Robert Zubrin.

For part two, due out Tuesday, April 8th, our guest will be Rocky Persaud, President of Mars Society Canada and commander of the first expedition to the Mars Desert Research Station.  He also visited the Flashline Arctic Research Station, and therefore the focus will be on the Mars Society's analogue research program.

We will most likely have additional guests from the Mars Society in the future... maybe even the big kahuna Dr. Zubrin (although I haven't asked him yet and only want to approach him when the show is ready)

All our weekly hour-long programs are archived as MP3 files available for downloading & streaming on our website.

http://www.marsnews.com/radio/

Thanks,

Jim Burk
Editor-in-chief, MarsNews.com
& Host, Radio Free Mars

Tuesday, April 1st
Harold Miller

Part 1 of 2 in our series exploring the Mars Society

This program will feature a comprehensive look at the Mars Direct mission plan, popularized by Mars visionary Dr. Robert Zubrin, author of "The Case for Mars". Our guest will be Harold Miller who is Dr. Zubrin's longtime colleague and the webmaster for the Mars Society, a grassroots organization founded by Dr. Zubrin. In addition, Miller has maintained a separate website covering Mars Direct prior to the founding of the Mars Society in 1998.

http://www.marsnews.com/radio/

Radio Free Mars is a weekly Internet radio broadcast covering all aspects of Mars and features interviews with newsmakers and special guests in the field of Mars Exploration.

http://www.marsnews.com/radio/

Here is information about this week's program:

Tuesday, March 18 - Francis Knize
Francis Knize filed a "Correction of Data Request" to NASA using the Data Quality Act to attempt to get better data from the Mars Odyssey mission.  Knize has been a longtime television producer and has created documentary programs on topics from ancient civilizations to paranormal & ufo phenomenon.

Our guest for next week's program will be Richard C Hoagland, the Principal Investigator of The Enterprise Mission and author of the best-selling book The Monuments of Mars, now in its 5th edition.

Thanks,

James Burk
Editor-in-chief, MarsNews.com
& Host, Radio Free Mars

I would like to let you know about the Mars Data Project. It's a new community effort to analyze raw data from Mars missions and advance the public's understanding of the planet Mars. To assist with this task, MarsNews.com is producing a series of low-cost CD-ROMs containing real raw data from NASA Mars missions along with software tools and "how to" articles to process the data into high-quality images.

Volume One of the Mars Data Project was released on December 20th and is now shipping. Volume Two will be ready in March. Both volumes are ISO9660 compatible and will work on Windows, Mac, and Unix computers. For more information, visit the project's website at:
http://www.marsnews.com/data

You can purchase the CD-Roms for $9.99 plus shipping. Credit card orders can be placed on the website with a Paypal account or by check/money order to: Mars Data Project, 1020 212th Ave NE, Sammamish, WA, 98074.

Bulk orders are also available -- at $6 per CD for orders of 5 or more, and $5 per CD for orders of 20 or more. Contact me for details at: jburk@marsnews.com  It's an ideal way for chapters to raise funds, by selling the CDs at the retail price of $9.99.

Thanks for your support of MarsNews.com and enjoy your personal exploration of the Red Planet.

--

Jim Burk
MarsNews.com

I would like to let you know about the Mars Data Project. It's a new community effort to analyze raw data from Mars missions and advance the public's understanding of the planet Mars. To assist with this task, MarsNews.com is producing a series of low-cost CD-ROMs containing real raw data from NASA Mars missions along with software tools and "how to" articles to process the data into high-quality images.

Volume One of the Mars Data Project was released on December 20th and is now shipping. Volume Two will be ready in March. Both volumes are ISO9660 compatible and will work on Windows, Mac, and Unix computers. For more information, visit the project's website at:
http://www.marsnews.com/data

You can purchase the CD-Roms for $9.99 plus shipping. Credit card orders can be placed on the website with a Paypal account or by check/money order to: Mars Data Project, 1020 212th Ave NE, Sammamish, WA, 98074.

Bulk orders are also available -- at $6 per CD for orders of 5 or more, and $5 per CD for orders of 20 or more. Contact me for details at: jburk@marsnews.com  It's an ideal way for chapters to raise funds, by selling the CDs at the retail price of $9.99.

Thanks for your support of MarsNews.com and enjoy your personal exploration of the Red Planet.

--

Jim Burk
MarsNews.com