How can we land on Mars when the space shuttle has trouble landing on earth?
596296
Ya I feel that way too, I watched on TV them both blow up the first one I had my two year old kid in front of the tv and said "look honey they are going to space, a couple minutes later she wanted to know why there was fireworks... needless to say I fell apart emotionally when yet another one blew up in front of my eyes, I also saw Regan get shot, the Pope, JFK live on tv! So bad things happened before tv but seems like it really brings things to life.
912759
Hey Visit \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars
105320
It takes a lot of energy to break out of Earth orbit, and thus takes a lot of fuel.  Just to get to the moon, it took a giant, 3 stage, Saturn V rocket.\n\nThe space shuttle was specifically designed to be used in Earth orbit and thus could not carry near enough fuel to escape Earth's gravitational pull.
568351
Nuke it, propel it away with rockets, or just accept it.  \n\nhttp://search.yahoo.com/search?p=protect+the+earth+from+a+major+asteroid+impact+&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&xargs=0&pstart=1&fr=FP-tab-web-t-403&b=11
1069293
Flying a balloon on Mars is not easy. The ground-level atmosphere is (I believe) 1/140 times as dense as ours, and even with 1/3 of the gravity, it may be equivalent to flying a balloon at 25,000 meters on Earth or at 80,000 feet. It can be done, but takes a big balloon. With the fierce storms of Mars, one also wonders how long such a balloon would last. \n    About the lifting power--it equals to the weight of the displaced atmosphere, minus the weight of the gas inside the balloon, required to keep it inflated. Whether that is hydrogen or helium should make little difference, because either gas weighs much less than the air (or on Mars, carbon dioxide) which is displaces. Hydrogen should be available on Mars, if only a little water can be extracted there, which seems likely. Hydrogen was of course used in all the Zeppelins in WW-I and with proper caution is quite usable. \n\n    Oxygen and nitrogen are rather heavy, cutting the lifting power by a factor of about 4: considering how marginal any balloon is on Mars, they are clearly unsuitable.. \n\n    Scientific high-altitude ballooners on Earth prefer helium because of the way its temperature changes as the balloon rises and the gas inside expands, but on Mars a balloon probably won't rise far. Rubber balloons launched to probe the weather are filled with hydrogen, which is much cheaper: they rise quickly and explode at their maximum altitude, but by then all required data have been transmitted by radio.
1036865
Still human being cannot determine simpler and safer way to get to the local orbit, let alone Mars together with long haul voyages, nowadays human's intellect is only good to sell the Moon's 'lands' for the future-based villas and finding idiotic 'smiles' on the Martian surface, unfortunately.   \ncheers
453165
The polar ice caps on Mars aren't water ice.  They are carbon dioxide ice (also known as dry ice).\n\nThe site selection for where they land the probes are based on a number of parameters, including the amount of open area and interesting geological formations in the region that they'd like to take a closer look at.\n\nIn the Rover's case, one of the parameters was spectrographic and IR telemetry readings that suggested the presence of some compounds that normally form in water, and physical features that appeared to be created by water erosion, so that was determined to be an ideal place to look for the presence of water on or below the surface.
445480
If you are talking about the Mars Climate Orbiter, it is because the manufacturer specified the thrust of the attitude jets in pounds but the navigation team though the numbers were in metric units. This caused the navigation team to make incorrect calculations which resulted in the space craft arriving at Mars orbit insertion too low and entering the atmosphere instead of going into orbit.
380156
yes, indeed we can . The recent explorers made the discovery of water in ice form can be a good source of supply of organic  chemistry survivng there. While the scientists are reseacrhing  on the survival conditins of us on Mars are aroud 60 pecent if all the conditions are satisfied. In short answer, yes we can not only set foot on mars but also find a way of living on it.
123187
Humans will probably live on Mars at some point, though it would probably be only temporary.  Now let's look at the problems.\nThe biggest problem would be making Mars a suitable environment for human life.  Terraforming the planet to give it a similar atmosphere as Earth would take thousands of years, if not longer.  The other option would be to build colonies.  And even then there's the question of what to do about gravity.  Because the gravity on Mars is less than that of Earth humans would have a difficult time maintaining muscle mass and bone density.  So, some sort of solution would need to be found.\nNext, let's face it, Mars is terribly far away and has little to offer, except maybe some frozen water.  And being so far away from Earth would probably be very problematic.  It is much more likely that in the future, if humans are to live in space, they'll live in self-sustained space colonies orbiting the Earth.
118183
The Pathfinder went to Mars, not the moon\n\nMars Pathfinder - USA Lander & Surface Rover - 264 kg (lander), 10.5 kg (rover) - (December 4, 1996 - September 27, 1997) \nMars Pathfinder arrived at Mars on July 4, 1997 and impacted the surface at 16:57 UT (12:57 PM EDT) at a velocity of about 18 m/s (40 mph). It bounced about 15 meters (50 feet) into the air, bouncing another 15 times and rolling before coming to rest approximately 2.5 minutes after impact and about 1 km from the initial impact site. The landing site was in the Ares Vallis region is at 19.33 N, 33.55 W and was named the Sagan Memorial Station. A six-wheel rover, named Sojourner, rolled onto the Martian surface on July 6 at about 05:40 UT. Mars Pathfinder returned 2.6 billion bits of information, including more than 16,000 images from the lander and 550 images from the rover, as well as more than 15 chemical analyses of rocks and extensive data on winds and other weather factors. The last successful data transmission was on September 27, 1997, the 83rd day of the mission since landing on the surface. This is the second mission in NASA's low-cost Discovery series.
486442
It will cost about $1 billion to get to Mars. The atmosphere is carbon dioxide. You can't breathe it. There is no weather on Mars. THe Size of MArs is about one-eighth the size of Earth.
527140
Probably something lighter than steel since you have to ship it up there.   I'm not sure what the surface of mars is made out of.  If its made out of rock you probably don't need much of a foundation at all.  If it is made out of mud or sand you'l likely need to have a long wide plate that will distribute the load of your building over a larger area.
402667
I do not know all of them, but there were at least a half dozen Mariner, Viking, and Soviet probes that were sent to Mars in the 70's.  There have been three landings.  The Sojourner rover landed in 1997; and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed in 2004 and are still going strong.
297672
what is good about landing on mars? we dint make a penny from landing on moon,,,, just a money waste
1006732
As a previous poster correctly said, they have to launch at just the right time depending on where they are going.  For the upcoming launch, the space shuttle is going to the International Space Station.   The ISS orbits Earth (as all satellites do) so they have to launch the shuttle at the right time so that it's near the ISS when it (the shuttle) reaches orbit.  The ISS orbits Earth about once every 90 minutes, and the part of Earth it passes over keeps changing as Earth rotates, thus leading to a narrow launch window for the shuttle.\n\nBy the way, when the shuttle is orbitting Earth (this goes for the ISS, too) it doesn't zoom around in space they way they do in Star Wars or anything.  In fact, usually it doesn't have any rockets firing at all, it just orbits Earth, with the only force on it being the force of Earth's gravity.  The shuttle does have little rockets on it to make small changes in its trajectory, and to allow it to dock smoothly with the ISS.  My point is, if the shuttle were on the other side of Earth compared to the ISS, the shuttle wouldn't be able to dock with the ISS since the shuttle doesn't zoom around.
1119919
Looking at your question I would say that there are a number of ways to colonise the solar system.\n\n1.) The first step is to get a reliable transport method that would get humans and materials off the earth and into space - preferably into earth orbit. It would also have to work the other way.\nThe space shuttle is an engineering disaster - it's ridiculous that the heat resistant tiles have to be applied by hand. The chinese are using oak as an ablative sheild  \nPossible replacements for the space shuttle are: \na.) A dual launch system like Space Ship one. Where a carrier plane carries the space pod into the upper atmosphere and launches it there. The space pod will then head for space.\nThe technology exists for the atmospheric ram jet the pod rocket engines need to be advanced to get to orbital height.\nb.) A ground based laser array burning the chemical fuel on a space pod.  Technology still required laser development and fuel development.\nc.) A magnetic rail track accelerating a space pod and launching it from a high mountain - feasible with current technology. Or shooting pods from a giant cannon - the idea was first mooted in Jules Verne's the first men to the moon - very feasible.\nd.) The ideal would be a beanstalk between the earth's surface and a geo-stationary asteroid. Though materials with the necesary tensile strength have been found, they are fractions of a millimeter long, the technology needs to be developed to create 36 000 kilometer long strands. \n\nThese earth to space craft (except for the beanstalk) would have to be aerodynamic to get through the atmosphere. They may have wings or fins.\n\n2.) The space station to tranship cargo and people between space and the earth. The technology is available. The best design would probably be a donut ring or a cylinder that could be spun to create gravity. To work better than the existing space station, better solar cells need to be developed and ecological engineering would be a must, otherwise all air and water would have to be imported.\n\n3.) From the space station to the planet and asteroids and back space ships will be required. We have the technology to build rocket motors such as used on Voyager and Discovery. For cargo deliveries it might be more economical to build solar sails that would use sunlight to power the craft. Solar sails require  development of polymer sheeting. These craft would be creatures of space - they don't have to be aerodynamic. These craft could land on airless asteroids and if their rockets are powerful enough they could land and take off from airless planets and moons.  On the moon is a large supply of Helium 3 which is the perfect fusion fuel - for more efficient craft the development of helium 3 motors and power sources would be required.  \n\n\n4.) Moon and Planetry landers and launchers. These would be craft carried by the spaceships to their destinations. The design would depend on whether their target has an atmosphere and what kind of fuel is available. We have the technology to build this type of craft. Once a colony is established on a planet, it would need some kind of launching system to efficiently lift stuff out of the planet's gravity well.  The earth launchers are a possibility.\n\nMining of Cruithane would not be hard using current technology. Explosives (even nuclear bombs) could be used to break up the asteroid. Solar mirrors can be built, to refine the ore on site or melt the asteroid. If rocket motors are attached to the chunks of nickel iron - the material can be moved to where it is required. If the ore is required on earth at this stage the only delivery method is to attach parachutes to it and drop it - which could be a bit disasterous.     \n\nI don't think the frozen planets, like Sedna, Pluto & Neptune are colonisable. Their surfaces are deep frozen gases. Even a small bit of heat may cause disasterous sublimation. The tundra pipeline technology is an attempt to build a structure