This is almost vaguely caving related if you consider that the Mars rover Curiosity, is ridgewalking over virgin rocky terrain.
The rover has been on the planet 446 days now. I do not believe it is a kilometer from the landing site, but is pretty close to passing that in the next few drives. It has had to do a whole lot of zig-zagging to get to the current waypoint. I think it is safe to say that a human would have covered far more terrain in 446 days, especially if he was on a dirt-bike, or even a mountain-bike. Even better a small animal wearing a pressurized suit and a helmet cam. Any future caver on Mars will likely find plenty of building material to make a nice stone house. In my opinion, the first astronaut needs to be a good stone-mason, so he can set up the hut for future explorers. Supposedly, the rover will be camped out at this rock for the next few days: http://www.spaceflight101.com/uploads/6/4/0/6/6406961/8446456_orig.jpg Click on that photo to enlarge it. Check out those odd circles in the rocks to the left. It seems obvious to me that an erosional process took place here that took millions of years, and is most likely common throughout the universe. But there are millions of people that are convinced these rocks magically formed in a few seconds about 328,500 days ago in an event they refer to as Day 4. It would seem such an act that amazing would be celebrated in some festival, but they don't see it that way, or can even agree on exactly how many days ago it was. They feel their omnipotent creator did this on a whim, and interpret it as, backed by solid science. I am not saying that he or she did not do it, but only that it took millions of years, for the rocks to erode, and another billion years for the Martian surface to solidify, and another 20 billions years for the cosmic elements to form a spherical shape, and another 100 zillion years for the cosmic elements to bounce around our galaxy, and that they will do this all again in another cosmic event billions of years from now, and that that process will go on for an infinite number of cosmic events, and that we are no where near the beginning of that space-time equation, and certainly not 328,500 days into it. On a related note, the current news story about the Martian meteorite found in the Sahara Desert lacks credibility. I do not believe it could have escaped the gravitational pull of the planet in the manner which they are proposing. The Locklear Theory is that it came off of Deimos, and that explains the shape of Deimos. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Deimos-MRO.jpg David Locklear overly-opinionated guy, but less grumpy now that I am single --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
