Expert: Marc Ebelini - 8/5/2006

Question
hey i would appreciate if you could help me out, thank you.
if i were to land in mars, how would i communicate home? what state of the art technology would be used?what would power this?
also do you know of any cutting edge technology that could be used for analysis of mars? such as analysing the soil or rocks.

Answer
Sorry but you are asking the wrong person, my area is aviation not space technology. Can only tell you that microwave frequencies are used for space communications. Example, when Apollo went to the moon it communicated to earth using “S” band frequencies that are in the 2 GHz range. The LEM used a VHF frequency to communicate with Apollo. If I remember correctly, pulse width modulation was used.
You need to contact a person that studies geology to answer your question about analyzing rocks on Mars. PBS had a whole hour of the exploration on Mars and how they were trying to analyze the surface. Contact your local PBS station to see if that tape is available.