NASA Gives Green Light to Threatened Mars Rover

Who: Doug McCuistion, the head of the Mars Exploration program over at NASA (which stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for science and Mike Griffen, NASA's administrator.

What: Announced that the NASA trip to mars will happen. As of now, the estimated cost of this trip is around 2 billion dollars. However, the cost might get higher.The trip is being called the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). This mission is continuing despite ongoing technical and schedule difficulties.

When: This trip is curently scheduled for October 2009. However the next optimal date is in 2011. This trip is not likely to get canceled states Ed Weiler. A meeting with the Mike Griffin is scheduled in January.

Where: As mentioned before, the trip is from a NASA base to Mars.

Why: In order to progress in life you have to explore. Explore your envirnment as well as the ones around you. This includes exploring places outside your planet. Mars happens to fit into this category. This will help us figure out if there is life forms on planets other than ours. 2 billion dollars are in this project. That is because it is very important to our future.

Opinion: I think progressing in science is nessasary in order to improve life and not only make our lives more enjoyable, but also safer. This project will help us learn if we are really the only ones in the universe. We will at least learn that there is other life out on Mars. One small step for man and one huge step for science. I hope that one day we will be able to say that for sure, we are, or we are not the only life in the universe. Who knows maybe be will find something too extreme to call life at all. You will never know if you never try. I think that they have come up with a wonderful idea for exploring Mars and I am on their side.

Citation:

Berger, Brian. "NASA Gives Green Light to Threatened Mars Rover" FOXNEWS October 13, 2008. October 13, 2008 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,436182,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/space