[Molitoth]

Originally Posted by Reerun_KC

Its time to put a man on Mars

The MSL mission has four scientific goals:
Determine whether Mars could ever have supported life.
Study the climate of Mars.
Study the geology of Mars.
Plan for a human mission to Mars.

To contribute to these goals, MSL has six main scientific objectives:
Determine the mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.
Attempt to detect chemical building blocks of life (biosignatures).
Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils.
Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) Martian atmospheric evolution processes.
Determine present state, distribution, and cycling of water and carbon dioxide.
Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic radiation, cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons.
As part of its exploration, it is measuring the radiation exposure in the interior of the spacecraft as it travels to Mars, important data for a future manned mission.