Posted by
emmett
on from the all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-europa dept.
Dave writes "According to this article at MSNBC, it looks like NASA might have received faint radio signals from the Mars Polar Lander which had been assumed lost." Don't get your hopes up on this one; the signal could have come from anywhere, and they're running tests now.
Don't get your hopes up. It's probably just an alien or something.
what the signal looks like
by
Jim+Lux
·
· Score: 2
Replying to a commment buried somewhere down below.. As far as I know, the signal is a UHF (400 MHz) very low power (just a few dB above the noise floor) narrow (a few Hz) tone that slowly moves about 50-100 Hz over a about a half hour time span. It could be of earth origin or from any number of other sources. In order to determine if it is from MPL, someone will need to calculate how much doppler shift would be expected from 1) the rotation of earth (this is easy, about 511 Hz, but changing), 2) the rotation of Mars (this is not so easy, because we don't know where on Mars the transmitter is, and that affects the doppler), and the relative motion of Earth and Mars (this is fairly easy) You match up the changes in the frequency of the received signal against the expected doppler changes from relative motion. If it is reasonably close, you are in good shape. If the frequency variations don't match what's expected, you have two choices: 1) It is some other source (most likely).. 2) It IS MPL, but the transmitter on Mars is drifting in frequency (it might, say due to temperature fluctuations, etc. Pathfinder's UHF transmitter frequenciess varied quite a bit over temp) Fortunately, the receiver at Stanford is locked to an atomic reference. You also need to eliminate the possibility that it is some other source (like an out of band (normally in the 300 MHz area) garage door opener that is slowly heating up in the sun, etc. etc.
...and Nasa listens...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5
*CRACKLE* *CRACKLE* *BZZZZZZZZZZT**** *WIRRRRRRRRRRIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIRRR* *DRIBLE* Nasa Scientist: Hmm, wait a minute PHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTT PHHHHT FFFFFF FFFFFURRRRR Nasa Scientist: Yes! Yes! Someone write down the sounds! FURRRRRSSSSS FURSSSSSST PPPPPEHH PPPPPOOO POOOOOOOO POOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS POOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSTT *CRACKLE* *CRACKLE* Nasa Scientist: What did they say? WHAT DID THEY SAY?!?!?! 2nd Nasa Scientist: Uh, he said: "First Post", sir. Nasa Scientist: Humm.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
*in a van down by the river*
by
JustShootMe
·
· Score: 4
MAD SCIENTIST #1: Hey. I've got an idea MS #2: What's that MS #1: Let's fake the Mrs Lander signals! MS #2: Yeah! That sounds great! heeheehee *Mad scientists tweak a few buttons and turn a few dials* MS #1: HEY! LOOK! We ended up on slashdot! YAY! *Mad scientists turn off equipment*
See, boys and girls, someday, you'll end up, in a VAN, DOWN BY THE RIVER! (apologies to Chris Farley, oh, wait, he isn't anymore) If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
-- For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
I found the Polar lander!
by
MattMann
·
· Score: 2
the signal could have come from anywhere, and they're running tests now.
my SETI@home was the one that found it!:)
The correct link to the JPL press release
by
yuriwho
·
· Score: 3
I wonder how much support you could garner for a kind of meta-client. Write a basic framework that could handle any kind of idle-eater, and then let users decide which ones to run. Users could, for example, be provided with a list of potential interests (e.g. Internet Prime Search, Seti, NASA stuff like this, etc.) and just tickmark the ones they wouldn't mind doing.
Let the client grab new processing modules for any task that can be modularized, and you turn the internet into an enormous, general purpose computer.
Of course, the potential for abuse, especially through someone sending their own processing modules, masquerading as the server, would crop up. But if, for example, each module was gpg-signed, this wouldn't be such a problem.
All I know is that this could really open up some incredible power to all sorts of research projects that just can't happen right now for lack of resources. I know *I* would download it.
Johnath
Re:My scepticism slowly vanishes...
by
craw
·
· Score: 2
This is OT, but the money that NASA spends is a small percentage of what the US government spends. If it helps ppl on Earth (and not those in the USA as you wish) then it is money well spent. But my main point is to hopefully put things in perspective.
We just had a good storm here on the east coast of the US. The US government closed down in DC for Tuesday (and I believe for Wednesday). The total cost for the two day shutdown for the Washington,DC area is about $120M. You could practically send up another probe for that type of money.
It's always good to hear that the big Stanford dish is being used again. It's had long periods of downtime. I'd noticed more activity up there recently when I was up that way on horseback. So that's what they're doing.
Most of the world's big radio telescopes are booked up long in advance, but the Stanford dish is in too RF-noisy an area for serious radio astronomy. So it's available for special projects like this.
The Dish has a wonderfully colorful history, shrouded in the early days of the Cold War. Publicly, it was built for 6m radio occultation experiments for the Mariner Venus probes in the early 60s. The transmitter is a truly awesome entity, which was sadly rusting away the last time I saw it a decade ago. The single final amp tube was water-cooled using four truck radiators, and even the feedline was water-cooled -- as low as the losses were, there was so much power going through that waveguide that heat losses could (and did once) melt it.
The Dish also has a long history of satellite rescues, including one of the OSCAR ham satellites. As the Valley grew up and started becoming a broadband RF noise source, the Dish fell somewhat into disuse until a group at STARLAB devised a signal washing system (nice work Ivan and Co.). It has seen quite a bit of astronomical work since.
MODERATORS PLEASE TELL ROB TO SUE THESE MORONS
by
TheDeal
·
· Score: 3
hey these guys are trying to get free advertising space... hey i have a place.. and you can sign up under me... and i make money off of u... and u can make money off of other people.. uhhh hu... if(UnitekTechnicalEducation == Troll) sue(UnitekTechnicalEducation);
Before people engage in all out attacks on the company mentioned in this spam, stop and think that they might not be responsible for it. It could be a disgruntled customer, ex-employeee or whatever. If you feel the need to complain, please try not to flame execessively. Since it was posted by an AC, there is no way to know exactly who did it.
You mean like, say, VMWare? Hell, isn't a virtual machine the ultimate meta client? Running, of course, a streamlined Linux OS. A Java VM is another option. Both take performance hits.
I was brainstorming around this general idea a while ago. The general problems I came up with were:
Security of the host system.
Authentication of the client application.
Criteria for determining "worthy" projects.
Billing, accounting, or payment tie-ins.
First off, distributed computing is very successful in some closed environments -- POW (pile of workstation) clusters in campus environments are common. A friend at a New Zealand biotech firm distributes Linux boot floppies. At the end of the "work" day, their Windows boxes are rebooted with this floppy installed, a Linux machine springs into place, and a gene sequencing client starts munching away -- the real work day. Similar schemes are pretty common.
In a broader environment with less control the problem becomes tougher. The host machine needs to have some guarantee of security. The client should also be reasonably secure and non-spoofable. There needs to be authentication.
In order to select for worthy (or billable) projects, some sort of voting scheme needs to b e implemented. If this is based on dollars or bill-backs, the small size of the individual contributions, with per-month CPU rental rates rating < $20 for new equipment (essentially the lease cost for hardware) -- means that this is not a way to get rich.
Factor in latency, bandwidth, lossage, and storage factors. It's a complicated problem.
This isn't to say it's not addressable. Distributed Net appears to be actively researching several of these areas. It's quite possible that all that idle CPU time will one day be put to use. But not real soon now.
COSM is what distributed.net was meant to be. Adam (Distributed.net founder!) left D.net so his work on cosm would continue unhindered.
If your a programmer, go help them out. At least check out their webpage for more detailed information.
-- You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Offical press release from NASA
by
doomy
·
· Score: 2
Here is the official Press relese from NASA giving details into the MSNBC article. But dont put too much hope into it..
"If in fact the signal were from Polar Lander, two failures would have had to occur. First, the lander's X-band radio that it would use to transmit directly to Earth would have to be broken. Second, there would have to be a problem somewhere in the relay with Mars Global Surveyor that prevented the signal from being picked up and relayed by the orbiter. It is unlikely that a broken transmitter on the lander could be fixed, and unclear whether a problem with the relay could be resolved"
Still... it would..
"Even if the signal were coming from the lander, there is little hope that any science could be returned. However, it would give the team a few more clues in trying to eliminate possible failure modes. "
enjoy. --
-- ...free your source and the rest would follow...
Re:Apparently failure is good for NASA.
by
technos
·
· Score: 2
The 'state' quarters are minted in Philidelphia or Denver. We'd probably lose all the Susan B's the government stockpiled 'in case of world economic collapse.
Blast I've forgotten the article, but it compared the mars mission with a few other things, the one that really struck me is that for the price of the new hotel in Vegas we could have got 7-10 mars landers. Also for less than the price of 1 minute of time on the superbowl they could have put extra equipment on the lander to send back info as it was landing.
NASA is so hard up it can't afford what corporations don't even think about - that fault isn't to blaim on them.
Just remember we are talking about less than 200 Mil in a 8 TRILLION economy.
That's just it... It's all about security...
by
Nugget94M
·
· Score: 2
You're exactly right that security and authentication are some of the most signifigant hurdles between the current state of distributed computing and the future we all envision where no cycles are ever wasted.
Jeff lawson has put together an excellent treatise on the subject, outlining the specific pitfalls and challenges we see in this area. Recommended reading if this subject interests you.
Re:That's just it... It's all about security...
by
KMSelf
·
· Score: 2
Thanks. Cool reference. I'd run across the Netrek authentication concepts a while back. There's also a paper on doing authenticatable distributed computation at the COAST website somewhere. PS format, IIRC.
Where did you get your figured from? Someone posted here a while back and included a link to a well-documented webpage that stated that fully two thirds of all missions to Mars have been failures. That's a far cry from your number.
We've spent billions and billions of dollars (as have the Russians) shooting stuff at Mars, with very few successes.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
-- "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
According to the article, it took weeks to make out the signal because it was so weak. It may turn out to be nothing, but if extra number crunching would help, I'll bet SETI@home participants could spare a few hundred thousand CPU-years to help pick up the signal.
The press release from the JPL says that, now that they know what the signal should look like in the data stream, analysis should only take a few days. It would take considerably longer than that to modify the SETI@Home (or distributed.net, etc) clients and distribute them widely enough to be useful.
This isn't a bad thought, though -- perhaps in the future, projects such as this actually could make use of distributed processing on the internet. However, this strikes me as unlikely because, considering how cheap processing power actually is these days, projects like this one don't generally spend very long on any one problem, and so benefit greatly from being able to change the running algorithms at will.
Anyway, I wish the JPL teams the best of luck on this one. Who knows, maybe they'll even figure out a way to fix the relay to Global Surveyor. At any rate, it would be a great relief to everybody involved just to know what actually went wrong with the mission.
--
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
Apparently failure is good for NASA.
by
ehanneken
·
· Score: 2
Check out the poll on the same page as the article. The question is, "In light of the Mars failure, what's your view on space spending?" As of this writing, 65% of the respondants voted to increase NASA's budget. Such is the nature of government.
This is one of the few potentially viable options I see, though there are still a lot of questions to answer for.
One problem is that $20/mo is about the rental cost for, again, new hardware. The average age of installed base is probably in the range of 2-4 years. My own PII/180 is adequate for my own tasks, but is about 1/3 to 1/4 the speed of a new system -- would I get only $5 to $7 per month of credit?
The pricing angle is one that I'm not settled on -- depends on supply and demand. If companies could instantaneously add and remove compute power, the base HW costs would probably work out about right. The convenience value of being able to add and remove capacity rapidly and without physical deployment requirements might make higher rental rates possible, but you've also got to figure overhead and a percentage for the business itself. The business case is slim. Possible, but slim.
YANI -- Yet another harebrained idea: the emerging ASP market coult be modified slightly around this concept. Essentially CoWs, but rentable. This is a more likely doable option IMO.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
--
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Re:Lemme get this straight ...
by
Jburkholder
·
· Score: 2
Uh, no... I would guess that some one is setting up Unitek to be mailbombed and DoS'ed.
Re:The Slashdot Source Release Procedure (C)2000 R
by
Jburkholder
·
· Score: 2
FYI - this was actually funny the first time I saw it today when it was correctly formatted. This is just lame. (hint, use blockquote tags)
so
your indents
keep
in place no one likes a sloppy coder
"could have come from anywhere"
by
konstant
·
· Score: 5
emmet sez..
Don't get your hopes up on this one; the signal could have come from anywhere, and they're running tests now.
Yes. It could be from some typically mundane source like outer space aliens. In my opinion, there should be regulations to restrict interstellar subspace communications to a few designatede bandwidth. With all the noise in this solar system I have difficulty contacting Command Zorb (weebles upon him!) in the Delta Quadrant. How am I supposed to receive my orders clearly when my brainwave transmissions are suffering from interference? For example, yesterday I was speaking with Commander Zorb (long may he froop!) in my head when an outer space alien interrupted with a comment that I should kill my family.
-konstant Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-- -konstant Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Maybe it coulb be used anyway
by
vido
·
· Score: 2
Suppose the main antenna and/or relay is the only broken elements.
If we can anyway tell when there is signal/no signal, that means we can also try to set up a rough binary information transfer...
And maybe, if that signal was really from the PL, we can get some information from it.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get your hopes up. It's probably just an alien or something.
Replying to a commment buried somewhere down below.. As far as I know, the signal is a UHF (400 MHz) very low power (just a few dB above the noise floor) narrow (a few Hz) tone that slowly moves about 50-100 Hz over a about a half hour time span. It could be of earth origin or from any number of other sources. In order to determine if it is from MPL, someone will need to calculate how much doppler shift would be expected from 1) the rotation of earth (this is easy, about 511 Hz, but changing), 2) the rotation of Mars (this is not so easy, because we don't know where on Mars the transmitter is, and that affects the doppler), and the relative motion of Earth and Mars (this is fairly easy) You match up the changes in the frequency of the received signal against the expected doppler changes from relative motion. If it is reasonably close, you are in good shape. If the frequency variations don't match what's expected, you have two choices: 1) It is some other source (most likely).. 2) It IS MPL, but the transmitter on Mars is drifting in frequency (it might, say due to temperature fluctuations, etc. Pathfinder's UHF transmitter frequenciess varied quite a bit over temp) Fortunately, the receiver at Stanford is locked to an atomic reference. You also need to eliminate the possibility that it is some other source (like an out of band (normally in the 300 MHz area) garage door opener that is slowly heating up in the sun, etc. etc.
*CRACKLE* *CRACKLE* *BZZZZZZZZZZT****
*WIRRRRRRRRRRIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIRRR*
*DRIBLE*
Nasa Scientist: Hmm, wait a minute
PHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTT
PHHHHT
FFFFFF
FFFFFURRRRR
Nasa Scientist: Yes! Yes! Someone write down the sounds!
FURRRRRSSSSS
FURSSSSSST
PPPPPEHH
PPPPPOOO
POOOOOOOO
POOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
POOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSTT
*CRACKLE* *CRACKLE*
Nasa Scientist: What did they say? WHAT DID THEY SAY?!?!?!
2nd Nasa Scientist: Uh, he said: "First Post", sir.
Nasa Scientist: Humm.
MAD SCIENTIST #1: Hey. I've got an idea
MS #2: What's that
MS #1: Let's fake the Mrs Lander signals!
MS #2: Yeah! That sounds great! heeheehee
*Mad scientists tweak a few buttons and turn a few dials*
MS #1: HEY! LOOK! We ended up on slashdot! YAY!
*Mad scientists turn off equipment*
See, boys and girls, someday, you'll end up, in a VAN, DOWN BY THE RIVER! (apologies to Chris Farley, oh, wait, he isn't anymore)
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
my SETI@home was the one that found it! :)
is here
no sig.
OTOH...
I wonder how much support you could garner for a kind of meta-client. Write a basic framework that could handle any kind of idle-eater, and then let users decide which ones to run. Users could, for example, be provided with a list of potential interests (e.g. Internet Prime Search, Seti, NASA stuff like this, etc.) and just tickmark the ones they wouldn't mind doing.
Let the client grab new processing modules for any task that can be modularized, and you turn the internet into an enormous, general purpose computer.
Of course, the potential for abuse, especially through someone sending their own processing modules, masquerading as the server, would crop up. But if, for example, each module was gpg-signed, this wouldn't be such a problem.
All I know is that this could really open up some incredible power to all sorts of research projects that just can't happen right now for lack of resources. I know *I* would download it.
Johnath
We just had a good storm here on the east coast of the US. The US government closed down in DC for Tuesday (and I believe for Wednesday). The total cost for the two day shutdown for the Washington,DC area is about $120M. You could practically send up another probe for that type of money.
Most of the world's big radio telescopes are booked up long in advance, but the Stanford dish is in too RF-noisy an area for serious radio astronomy. So it's available for special projects like this.
They're trying again Wednesday. Stay tuned.
hey these guys are trying to get free advertising space... hey i have a place.. and you can sign up under me... and i make money off of u... and u can make money off of other people.. uhhh hu... if(UnitekTechnicalEducation == Troll) sue(UnitekTechnicalEducation);
Before people engage in all out attacks on the company mentioned in this spam, stop and think that they might not be responsible for it. It could be a disgruntled customer, ex-employeee or whatever. If you feel the need to complain, please try not to flame execessively. Since it was posted by an AC, there is no way to know exactly who did it.
I was brainstorming around this general idea a while ago. The general problems I came up with were:
First off, distributed computing is very successful in some closed environments -- POW (pile of workstation) clusters in campus environments are common. A friend at a New Zealand biotech firm distributes Linux boot floppies. At the end of the "work" day, their Windows boxes are rebooted with this floppy installed, a Linux machine springs into place, and a gene sequencing client starts munching away -- the real work day. Similar schemes are pretty common.
In a broader environment with less control the problem becomes tougher. The host machine needs to have some guarantee of security. The client should also be reasonably secure and non-spoofable. There needs to be authentication.
In order to select for worthy (or billable) projects, some sort of voting scheme needs to b e implemented. If this is based on dollars or bill-backs, the small size of the individual contributions, with per-month CPU rental rates rating < $20 for new equipment (essentially the lease cost for hardware) -- means that this is not a way to get rich.
Factor in latency, bandwidth, lossage, and storage factors. It's a complicated problem.
This isn't to say it's not addressable. Distributed Net appears to be actively researching several of these areas. It's quite possible that all that idle CPU time will one day be put to use. But not real soon now.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Bad news is: The signals aren't coming from the Mars Polar Lander.
Worse news: All those SETI@Home processor cycles were for naught. The signal is from aliens.
Even worse news: They're giving us 6 months to vacate before they blow up the planet.
Good news: They've offered to return to the Mars Polar Lander!
"What do you mean, invalid parameters? 9000Gigs of RAM and it can't answer a simple question!" -- Earthworm Jim
What your talking about is already being done.
http://cosm.mithral.com
COSM is what distributed.net was meant to be. Adam (Distributed.net founder!) left D.net so his work on cosm would continue unhindered.
If your a programmer, go help them out. At least check out their webpage for more detailed information.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Here is the official Press relese from NASA giving details into the MSNBC article. But dont put too much hope into it..
"If in fact the signal were from Polar Lander, two failures would have had to occur. First, the lander's X-band radio that it would use to transmit
directly to Earth would have to be broken. Second, there would have to be a problem somewhere in the relay with Mars Global Surveyor that
prevented the signal from being picked up and relayed by the orbiter. It is unlikely that a broken transmitter on the lander could be fixed, and
unclear whether a problem with the relay could be resolved"
Still... it would..
"Even if the signal were coming from the lander, there is little hope that any science could be returned. However, it would give the team a few more
clues in trying to eliminate possible failure modes.
"
enjoy.
--
The 'state' quarters are minted in Philidelphia or Denver. We'd probably lose all the Susan B's the government stockpiled 'in case of world economic collapse.
.sig: Now legally binding!
NASA is so hard up it can't afford what corporations don't even think about - that fault isn't to blaim on them.
Just remember we are talking about less than 200 Mil in a 8 TRILLION economy.
Jeff lawson has put together an excellent treatise on the subject, outlining the specific pitfalls and challenges we see in this area. Recommended reading if this subject interests you.
We've spent billions and billions of dollars (as have the Russians) shooting stuff at Mars, with very few successes.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
According to the article, it took weeks to make out the signal because it was so weak. It may turn out to be nothing, but if extra number crunching would help, I'll bet SETI@home participants could spare a few hundred thousand CPU-years to help pick up the signal.
Check out the poll on the same page as the article. The question is, "In light of the Mars failure, what's your view on space spending?" As of this writing, 65% of the respondants voted to increase NASA's budget. Such is the nature of government.
This is one of the few potentially viable options I see, though there are still a lot of questions to answer for.
One problem is that $20/mo is about the rental cost for, again, new hardware. The average age of installed base is probably in the range of 2-4 years. My own PII/180 is adequate for my own tasks, but is about 1/3 to 1/4 the speed of a new system -- would I get only $5 to $7 per month of credit?
The pricing angle is one that I'm not settled on -- depends on supply and demand. If companies could instantaneously add and remove compute power, the base HW costs would probably work out about right. The convenience value of being able to add and remove capacity rapidly and without physical deployment requirements might make higher rental rates possible, but you've also got to figure overhead and a percentage for the business itself. The business case is slim. Possible, but slim.
YANI -- Yet another harebrained idea: the emerging ASP market coult be modified slightly around this concept. Essentially CoWs, but rentable. This is a more likely doable option IMO.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Uh, no... I would guess that some one is setting up Unitek to be mailbombed and DoS'ed.
emmet sez..
Don't get your hopes up on this one; the signal could have come from anywhere, and they're running tests now.
Yes. It could be from some typically mundane source like outer space aliens. In my opinion, there should be regulations to restrict interstellar subspace communications to a few designatede bandwidth. With all the noise in this solar system I have difficulty contacting Command Zorb (weebles upon him!) in the Delta Quadrant. How am I supposed to receive my orders clearly when my brainwave transmissions are suffering from interference? For example, yesterday I was speaking with Commander Zorb (long may he froop!) in my head when an outer space alien interrupted with a comment that I should kill my family.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
If we can anyway tell when there is signal/no signal, that means we can also try to set up a rough binary information transfer...
And maybe, if that signal was really from the PL, we can get some information from it.
....32.rf... OUCH ...3..2x.?....
Yeah, someone who monitors the posting of these messages ought to start a little traceroute and inform the correct authorities.