The past two weeks have seen a phenomenal amount of activity both on and around Mars, with the Mars Express spacecraft successfully entering orbit and the NASA Spirit Rover firmly on Ares firma. This is only going to increase as the Opportunity Rover closes in on the Red Planet and Spirit begins to ramp up its mission.

It should be no surprise that the traffic on New Mars has almost tripled as a result, and almost all of the increase has come from a surge in posts and new reigstrations on this site's forums. If you're looking for intelligent, informed and timely discussion about serious Mars issues on the Internet, the New Mars forums have become the first place to visit.

For those visitors who find it difficult to keep up with the hundreds of posts that are made every day, New Mars is today introducing a weekly magazine named 'Ares Express' which will highlight the best and most unusual threads on the forums from that week, as well as a summary of Mars news and links. We hope that Ares Express will eventually be written almost entirely by forum members, who will nominate and describe their favourite threads. For the first issue, however, New Mars editor Adrian Hon has taken the reins.

This Week on the Forums

» Spirit and Opportunity (current thread, archived thread)

Just as Spirit and Opportunity have grabbed the headlines across the world, they've also received the most discussion from our forum members. So many posts were made in the original thread that it was 'locked' to ensure it didn't become corrupted. In total, over 350 posts have been made about the rovers in less than two weeks. Regular contributors include Josh Cryer and New Mars Staff Writer Stuart Atkinson, who often provide us with a running commentary during NASA webcasts. Within the thread are up-to-the-minute links to the latest news, images and information on the rovers, as well as posts displaying the infectious enthusiasm that Mars advocates are well known for.

» Beagle 2

Coming up second is the ill-fated Beagle 2 probe. Discussion has unsurprisingly dropped off recently, but a contentious editorial by Jeffrey Bell in Spacedaily declaring Beagle 2 as a 'fortunate failure' succeeded in reviving the thread by dint of enraging the contributors.

» Send Astronauts One Way: A Planned Suicide Mission

The title says it all - is such a mission possible, and how would it be 'better' than a return mission? A lot of lively - yet civilized - debate ensued.

» To the moon first..., Bush's New Space Policy and Bush Sets Wrong Goal?

Covering President Bush's announcement of NASA's $1 billion budget increase and his new plans for the agency. While most members appreciated the extra money, many were not happy about NASA's new direction.

» A bet

Some time ago, two of the longest serving New Mars members, clark and Josh Cryer, made a bet about on a manned mission to Mars being announced within the next four years. I believe the winner will be bought a membership to the Mars Society by the loser, as well as possibly a meal (although I can't remember the exact details any more). Suffice to say, there were high stakes! When the bet was made, I agreed to be a 'fair and impartial' judge, but with Bush's recent announcement it seems pretty clear that clark is set to win. In fact, clark is already planning on what to do with his winnings... but more on that in next week's issue.

Forum News

This week also saw a great deal of goings on behind the scenes of the forum. Most importantly, Josh Cryer was appointed as a forum moderator with full administration powers and responsibilities. The forum software was upgraded to Ikonboard 3.1.2a, bringing with it a host of bug fixes and a few new features. Reassuringly, the forum database was backed up so that in the event of a disastrous loss of data, the forums could be quickly restored without any hitches.

Mars Links

Spaceflight Now offers complete coverage of the NASA Spirit Rover's activities. Official information and images can be found from the JPL Mars Exploration Rovers site and the Exploration Rover Mission homepage.

Signing Off

That's all for this week - next week we should have more coverage of Spirit's latest activities and another roundup of the hot topics on the forum.

Adrian Hon is the editor of New Mars and a graduate student at Oxford University. Adrian has been heavily involved with the Mars Society since it was first founded and is a member of the Mars Society UK Steering Committee and the Chair of Youth Outreach.

Comments
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I think this will be an especially good way for members to catch up with the Forum after a prolonged absence.

Looks good.

Hey, this is really freaking cool Adrian!

BTW, those who wish to see the actual bet can go to the link Adrian made, and go to the bottom of page 7. A link to the thread where the actual bet was really made can be found in the post above that.

Heh, a backup per week for the forum should be enough for now.

Congrats on all the forum traffic... Don't forget MarsNews.com is another great source for news on the rover missions!

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