http://www.nasa.gov/centers... - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Chief research scientist. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Anyone want to know something about Mars? You have three minutes to ask. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Dr. Tore Straume - OakleighVermont

Do Martians really talk like Marvin? - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF)

He says we have to go to the moon first. Moon by 2020. Mars by 2030. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

what evidence is their from Mars that it once had a dense atmosphere? - Mark

"It is only 10 years!" - Robert Scoble from iPhone

i want to know the 3 biggest contributions of nasa in the last 10 years. is the US getting a return on its investment? - lew

Moon as a test-run? There's almost nothing there worth anything - KyNam Doan

KyNam: the moon will be a way station. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

What does he think of the mars biosphere guys in the arctic. Cooks, or science that Nasa actually pays attention to? - Jay Shapiro from iPhone

But his bio doesn't say anything about Mars. Says he worked on the effects of radiation exposure. Japan, not Mars. - Kirk Biglione

can Mars be terraformed? - Bob Blunk

Turn on http://www.Qik.com/scobleizer and we will try live video. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Lew - Return on investment? Knowledge! - KyNam Doan

Bummer can't do live video. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

If we can't colonize the moon, there's no way we'll be able to colonize Mars. And it'll be a lot easier to rescue a failed colony on the moon. - Victor Ganata

Ask him what's the most interesting thing he can tell us about Mars. - Bruce Lewis

Can you ask him if we can send Astronauts to Mars before Obama's first term is up, and if current technology will protect the astronauts enough from the radiation - Charbax

Bob he says that is a big job with many uncertainties. He says some don't want us to do that. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Will magnetic bubbles really be sufficient to protect explorers from radiation? - Todd Hoff

Charbox: no. Current plan is 2019 for next human mission to moon. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I believe NASA should send Astrunauts to Mars as soon as possible. Skip the whole Moon thing and cancel ISS and the Shuttle. Priority should be a world collaboration project using Russian heavy lift rockets and going direct to Mars for $30 Billion before Obama's first term is up - Charbax

Does he use Wolfram Alpha? - Benjamin Taylor

The argument is that we are much closer to having the technology to go to Mars today then we were to going to the Moon when Kennedy did the speech in 1961 So why not focus the world space efforts on fitting the Humans to Mars mission in the relatively still recent 1988 Heavy lift Russian Energia rocket technology - Charbax

Will we use nuclear energy on Mars? - Bob Blunk

Todd: he gave me a long answer but yes but it will need a lot of power. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

I have to go. I will answer rest when I get to London. - Robert Scoble from iPhone

Charbax 3 years is an unrealistic timeframe for a safe and prolonged mission to Mars - KyNam Doan

we need to find ways of creating various things - space borne farms, various stations in between Earth, moon and mars. The more humans we can ship off this planet, the greater the impact we will have upon it and the greater amount of goods we can produce to support this number of us. - alphaxion

KyNam: ok, i want to know what knowledge that has had a big impact. everything is a trade. i am not doubting it, but i think NASA has a marketing problem in that I cannot tell you the key knowledge we have gained and its impact. should we spend the next $ on space or sea exploration? and that is just one option - lew

How far ahead is NASA planning? Is anyone thinking about trying to reach any of the exoplanets? Generation ships? A little closer to home, are they sending any probes out to the Kuiper belt to study any of the new dwarf planets? Any missions to the Oort cloud? - Victor Ganata

Cool, thanks Robert. It seems like high magic to me. - Todd Hoff

Basic science is never sexy. If we based all our research targets on market value, we may never have figured out how to make fire. - Victor Ganata

You should definitely try to get a Wimbledon tennis final ticket for Sunday. It'd be really nice to see some live real-time blogging from there. And IBM has TONS of awesome new technologies they are showcasing at Wimbledon, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch... IBM Seer is the best Android application ever made, one of the most impressive mobile phone applications - Charbax

Victor nobody would invest in fire. Too risky. They would invest in a new rock that was more accurate in flight because the was just an incremental technology leap. Low risk high reward. - Todd Hoff

Robert, this is excellent thanks. I'm sure he's a bit shocked - Jay Shapiro from iPhone

KyNam Doan, Obama can announce the Mission to Mars for within his second term then. And the safety should not be the absolute priority. We are 6 billion people waiting for scientific results and there are thousands of Astronauts who would line up to go on a Mission to Mars even if it was very dangerous. - Charbax

Charbax, the thing is, if we sent a mission to Mars and it failed, would we even have any hope of attempting a second venture? - Victor Ganata

There are Astronauts that have been irradiated for years on Mir and on ISS already. So I wonder how much worse the irradiation can be for the Humans to Mars program. As long as the Astronauts can make it through the 6 months journey there, and eventually the 2.5 year journey if they have to come back. - Charbax

We should send at least 4 teams of 4 Astronauts up to Mars at the same time, to multiply the chances of success. - Charbax

Charbax, Of course I'm concerned for the lives of the astronauts, but safety refers also to the integrity of the mission itself. 6 months transit time each way + playtime is a lot of time for things to go wrong and blow billions of dollars into space. - KyNam Doan

Yeah, obviously, I don't want anyone killed, but like KyNam Doan, I'm thinking that a failed mission to the Moon would be far less costly than a failed mission to Mars. And we'll definitely learn things about colonizing planets just by going to the Moon. - Victor Ganata

The argument of the Mars Direct mission is of course it's advanced technology and we need to spend $30 Billion developing and building it, but the basic technology of building those Humans to Mars lander and return vehicles (that could also generate fuel for the return vehicles mixing Hydrogen with the Methane on Mars), those technologies are not _that_ much different then the technologies we had in the 70ies for Appollo or the technologies we have with Shuttle and the ISS - Charbax

ask him what he thinks of the Navy's SPAWAR lab finding fast neutrons in their Cold Fusion experiments. :-) - Karim

Going back to the Moon, unless we want to somehow Mine it for some type of ressource, I think would be a total waste of time! we can get 1000x more science out of going to Mars, and it is _not_ much more expensive. Sending a vehicle to Mars is not much different than the one sent to the Moon, it's just a different trajectory and 6 months instead of 3 days of travel. - Charbax

Make it a one-way flight. That should cut down on the weight for fuel and increase the amount of equipment they have to create a base on Mars. Land them at the pole so they have a chance of extracting water and oxygen from the atmosphere and with enough supplies to last years on the surface while they try and figure out how we will survive there. As unlikely the success of such a venture would be you will still get people signing up for it and you know that necessity is the mother of invention. - Sam Pullara

There are astronauts living on ISS for more than 6 months already, they eat and have a fine time up there. So why not simply put them on a trajectory to Mars and that's it. - Charbax

Yeah, but once they're out of Earth orbit, they won't be getting those shuttle visits to resupply and repair stuff. - Victor Ganata

Sam Pullara, what you can easilly do is send more empty ships up there. One other ship could have a lot of Hydrogen, it would mix with the Methane on mars to generate enough fuel to launch the Astronauts back to Earth 1.5 years after they land. You can if you want, land another ship close by with extra food and tools. You simply launch several ships at the same time. - Charbax

I'm all for taking it straight to Mars, was just skeptical about such a short time frame. The one-way trip Sam suggested may be the best bet for "success." Sans family et al + spaceskills, I'd sign up :P - KyNam Doan

Well the Mars Direct plan is essentially a one way trip, until you walk or drive over to the Earth-return vehicle that was sent before or at the same time. Also, you can send the Astronauts now, and figure out later how to send them back. In the US, there are millions of people that have to stay in small prison cells for years and years. Why can't we have a few volunteer scientists up there for at least 1.5 years and maybe more, this shouldn't take 20 years to find a solution before something is done. - Charbax

Does NASA only take flight surgeons/aerospace medicine-boarded physicians? - Victor Ganata

I think NASA should take video-bloggers and broadcast the whole thing live in HD, it'd be the Mars HD channel. Over the years of the project, just ad revenue could finance perhaps as much as half the $30 Billion Humans to Mars project cost. - Charbax

How about robotic collaboration? Why not send the robots first to build some infrastructure collect, process resources. Once we have a very high probability that there are enough resources to build and return humans the humans land in a plush, and luxurious mars pad? Basically, I am strongly in favor of Human - Mars, but dont see it as the rush, we should have some time to do it in style. - Robert Higgins

Prasoon: when he says they have to go to the moon first, he means they need to establish a base on the moon as a jumping off point for Mars. So, if your goal is Mars, you gotta go to the moon first. - Robert Scoble

It was an incredible 10 hours. We tasted wine, talked about philosophy, talked about radiation and how they are building new sensors to sense increases in radiation due to random sun activity so that people in space can seek shelter in time, talked about why humans explore (he thinks we're programmed to explore by evolution), and a bunch of other things. - Robert Scoble

All you need to explore I think is mobility + curiosity + irrationality. Those drives make for explorers. - Todd Hoff

my faovorite NASA JPL geek is my Dad http://www.nasa.gov/offices.... - Sonya

Agree that humans are hard-wired to explore, but desire to build a way-station on Mars will build as people understand that we live on an unpredictable and active planet in an active solar system with an active sun in an active galaxy. The sci-fi movies are right; we are always close to disaster of some sort. Thus, the need for shelter elsewhere. - Brenda Young

put simply, until we have colonies on other planets, our species is already dead. Just a matter of time. - alphaxion