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Mars 1, Japan 0

Posted by michael on from the explosive-space-modulator dept.

davecl writes "Looks like Mars Space Defence may have claimed another satellite. BBC News Online is reporting that the Japanese probe Nozomi, which has already had plenty of troubles, has been knocked out by a solar flare. The scientists in charge say they expect the on board computer to 'repair itself', so it may live to fight another day. A salutary warning for those planning manned missions to Mars."

35 comments

  1. If only..... by zulux · · Score: 2

    ...... they had added a spoiler to the space-probe, and tinted the windows, it would have been at Mars by now. Oh... and added a 'Type R' sticker - to it to make it extra fast.

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    1. Re:If only..... by RabidMonkey · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the Folgers brand exaust and the yellow wiper arms ... oh .. and the blue glowing washer nozzles! yeah!!

      Now thats a stupid-fly space probe. wooord.

      --
      We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
    2. Re:If only..... by babbage · · Score: 2
      Yeah. Racism. Ain't a wonderful thing?

      NB: I don't like those stupid souped up hotrods either, but at least where I live [Boston], it's hardly an Asian-specific thing: I've seen plenty of people of all races doing ridiculous things to their cars.

      But then, as an IT person, I've also seen people do ridiculous things to their PC cases, software interfaces, web pages, etc. Pretty much *all* use of Flash on web sites is as bad as these tricked out Hondas you're hinting at.

      Maybe it's just a male thing to be fascinated by tacky chrome trim on our tools. In any case, I can't see much evidence of women doing this sort of stuff, but I see plenty of guys -- of all races -- doing it.

      </feeding trolls>

      --
      DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
    3. Re:If only..... by zulux · · Score: 2

      Yeah. Racism. Ain't a wonderful thing?

      How do you know I'm not Asian, and making fun of my friends? You assume that beacuse I have somthing funny to say about suped up Honda's that I'm not Asian. That fits the definition of racisim right there - ascribing a negivitve sterotype exclusivly to one race.

      NB

      Ohh, I see I'm dealing with a sophisticated individual here. Wow.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    4. Re:If only..... by babbage · · Score: 1
      I don't know if you're Asian. You don't know if I'm Asian. Oops, your point just evaporated.

      And again, your joke (and the parent for that matter) was unfunny & IMO inappropriate. Not that it's up to me to set taste or anything, but it was playing on an [inaccurate] stereotype in a mocking way, which fits my definition of racism pretty well. But hey, you wanna troll, go right ahead.

      --
      DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
    5. Re:If only..... by zulux · · Score: 2

      I'll save the argument that can't only lead to someone invoking Godwin's rule for later..

      but it was playing on an [inaccurate] stereotype in a mocking way

      It's polite of you to not make a big deal of it, but it's rather unobservent to not notice that it's predomently Asians who lower their Hondas/Toyotas, put stickers on them and pretent that their cars go faster becuse of it.

      I don't think that there is a "lowering out transportation" gene. That's racism. But noticing that Asian-Ameicans do these thing is just making note of a differing culture. White kids who grow up around this culture tend to do the same things with their cars. It's not race, it's culture.

      And pretending it's not there may be noble in the fey PC crowd, but 'round here it's just considered stupid.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    6. Re:If only..... by babbage · · Score: 2
      I see your point, and disagree with it. It used to be an Asian thing, but no longer. My neighborhood is full of those souped up cars, but most of my neighbors seem to be Brazilian &/or Portugese -- the only Asian I've really noticed is my fiance :).

      And driving around, I see Asians driving those cars, but also Africans [actually, I think people from Caribbean countries mostly], Latinos, and Europeans. It may have once been true that this stereotype was accurate -- maybe -- but at least in my area that seems not to be the case now.

      I didn't say it directly, but my original post basically agreed with what you're saying now: if there's a pattern, it's not racial, it's cultural and, if anything, perhaps related to male hormones -- related to the urge to tweak out a PC case or dress like a punk / hiphop / hippie or buy toys from places like Sharper Image. Culture culture culture :)

      And I don't know who you are or where you are, but here the observation that this hot rod tweaking isn't particularly Asian is not "pretending" and it matters little if it's PC or not. I see a slight tendency towards being an immigrant thing, but then I've seen it in people born & raised in the US so even that is pretty flimsy. Around here [i.e. my mind], drawing a stereotypical pattern where there is little or no pattern in real life is what's really stupid. :)

      --
      DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
    7. Re:If only..... by zulux · · Score: 2

      Perhaps our minor disagreement is due to our repsective locations. Out here on the west cost, it truly is an Asian-American culture thing. Tweaking cars is in almost all cultures, but a huge spoiler on a Honda almost always indicates a young 2nd generation Asian male, while a raised Ford pickup tends to indicates a young rurual Caucasian.

      I think that perhaps, the Japanese-car scene, here, has been so strongly identified with being Asian, that it has kept it from moving into other populations.

      Being white,I remember the day when all my sterytypes were shattered: I was in line a McDonalds for some of their crappy food, and there was a black gentleman in front of me: dressed nicly with dark slacks, a shirt and a subdued tie. Behind the counter was a scruffy white kid, probably dropped out of high-shool, with big hair and a crappy job. The black man and myself were the same culture, the white kid might as well have been born on a deferent planet for all the similarites we had. What an insight I was luck to have that day - race really doesen't matter.

      I've tried to remember that feeling. It's been hard recently, as a bunch of thugs happened to move in to my neighborhood. They happen to all be black skined. I have to be carefull thay my eyes don't trick me into lumping good people with these animals.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    8. Re:If only..... by paganizer · · Score: 1

      Why, oh why, does everyone have to be such a prickly, snooty, politically correct idiot these days? I'm white, blonde, norman ancestry. please make as much fun of me, my race, my hair, my car, etc as you want. you have my permission.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
    9. Re:If only..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Greetings professor Falcon, shall we play a game?

    10. Re:If only..... by zulux · · Score: 2

      Heh...

      A friend had a sticker on his car that said:

      Warning:
      Able-bodied, Suscesfull and Intelligent Male Caucasion in Car.

      Tended to make the PC folk a bit jumpy.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  2. What Really Happened? by ShavenYak · · Score: 0

    Marvin shot it down.

    --

    Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
    1. Re:What Really Happened? by nucal · · Score: 3, Informative
      From Space.com: Mars has been a major target of exploration since the beginning of the space age. It also has been an elusive target, as demonstrated once again by Mars Climate Orbiter's failure in September. Overall, about two in three missions to the red planet have failed.

      ...

      Greeley notes that "the track record is pretty good" in exploring Venus, but disputes any notion that therefore Mars is an unusually difficult destination. Venus, he notes, is an extremely harsh environment, especially for landers. The higher failure rate of Mars missions, he thinks, is just the luck of the draw.

      or maybe it was Marvin.

    2. Re:What Really Happened? by inspectractor · · Score: 1

      CONSPIRASY THEORY: LOL Looks like a country (possibly U.S.) has found something on mars and does not want anyone else to find out, hence "disabling" all unwanted vessels to that planet. Just a ridiculous theory by me, but wouldn't that be interesting if true?

  3. Slow reboot by bscott · · Score: 4, Funny

    The article says the craft "may repair itself", but that it could take up to six months. I've seen some slow reboots in my time, but even WindowsNT on a '486 only takes a couple of weeks... seriously, what could take that long, when it comes to an automatic function on a computer? Is it just a timeout put in for safety?

    --
    Perfectly Normal Industries
    1. Re:Slow reboot by ka9dgx · · Score: 2
      Actually, we had a 486/50 with 32Mb of RAM, Drive Manager, and NT Server 4.0 as our BDC, and it booted in less than 5 minutes each of the approximately 10 times I had to restart it for upgrades/changes in its 4 year life span. (This was before the advent of patches every day from you know who)

      --Mike--

    2. Re:Slow reboot by lindsley · · Score: 2, Funny

      Since it's a problem with the communication, it's a telco problem. Six months is the soonest a technician could get out there ...

  4. one subsystem by foolish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    only one communication subsystem was rendered useless, and they have hopes that a slow testing process will 'wake up' the system eventually if the radiation spike wasn't too hard on the electronics.

    the probe was hardly dstroyed.

    but then again this is /., why would a submitter actually read the article they are submitting.

    --foolish

    1. Re:one subsystem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but then again this is /., why would a submitter actually read the article they are submitting.

      If /. stories suck so bad, why are you reading them? Seems like you're living up to your nick. What a boob.

    2. Re:one subsystem by belbo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, just because you Americans can't build Mars probes worth a dime, it doesn't mean nobody else can. *grin*
      This brave little probe was supposed to reach Mars in 1998 (read the article!), it's a bit of a marvel that it still works at all.

      belbo

      --

      --
      "Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."

    3. Re:one subsystem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      No wonder they can't get real sex- geeks with this kind of attitude have a lot to learn about women.

      I think that this dude might do better.

  5. Space Propulsion Engine Technology for Sale ! by geekster_2000 · · Score: 0

    Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics

    Rumor in Silicon Valley -

    Inventor of 3D volume holographic optical storage
    shopping his concept for Space Propulsion Engine
    using Propellantless Mass to US and other countries.

    for further look at biography background goto

    http://colossalstorage.net

    he is working in top secret and he says no physicist or scientist he has ever studied or researched had this approach and knows his concept will work to give near light speed travel thru Galaxy with 500K/Miles per Hour to start or 138 miles/sec. Nasa fastest time are 25,000 mile/hr or 3.9 miles/sec

    he says it is a mankind first concept !!

    1. Re:Space Propulsion Engine Technology for Sale ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what the fuck is a "mankind first concept"? how about you learn to speak een-gleesh there champie...

  6. Defense by wsloand · · Score: 1

    It's just the martians defending themselves. They don't really like visitors very much.

  7. CONSPIRASY THEORY by inspectractor · · Score: 2, Funny

    LOL Defense, or how about this: A country (possibly U.S.) has found something on mars and does not want anyone else to find out, hence "disabling" all unwanted vessels to that planet. Just a ridiculous theory by me, but wouldn't that be interesting if true?

  8. I'm curious... by tomzyk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm curious to know how many rockets/satellites have been sent into space and successfully completed their missions by countries OTHER than the United States. Seriously, it seems that all that I hear about is Japanese satellites failing to reach their destination or Chinese rockets failing to get into a correct orbit (or even LAUNCH) or Russian solar sails being destroyed on lift-off.... Is NASA really that far ahead of the rest of the world in space (rockets and probes) knowledge and technology? Or is it just that the media only decides to report on failed missions around the world now-a-days?

    --
    Karma: NaN
    1. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA far ahead? Far from it! They've gotten their asses handed back to them by Mars several times (and each time the press was gleefully all over it): Mars Observer, Mars Polar Lander, Mars Climate Orbiter.

    2. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russian probes are the only ones to have landed on venus and sent back pics. There were some pictures in Carl Sagans Cosmos in fact. Why dont you learn to do a little research before spouting the mindless dribble from your brain.

    3. Re:I'm curious... by tomzyk · · Score: 1

      Wow. That was a pretty harsh response. I simply stated "that all I hear about" is failed missions from other countries. I have no interest in researching this information. A simple "yes, it's the media to blame" would have sufficed.

      --
      Karma: NaN
    4. Re:I'm curious... by tomzyk · · Score: 1

      Yes, in my opinion, NASA IS far ahead. They are the only ones that have successfully sent a human to the moon's surface... multiple times too. They have also put many probes into space to study our solar system, our sun, our galaxy, other galaxies, etc... I understand that they too have had failed missions as well, but I still hear about the successful missions as well. I just don't hear about many successful missions from any other organization.

      --
      Karma: NaN
    5. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you say "all you ever hear about is X" and in the next sentence "I have not interest in researching this information", then I think the only one you can blame is yourself. Slashdot is not an all-seeing oracle, and even if you get a response, as I'm sure you've discovered, it probably won't be the information you need. I could blame the media all you like but that won't make it true.

  9. It's probably not the booting by jesterzog · · Score: 2

    Without having looked at what's going on in any detail, it could be a combination of things.

    If a spacecraft gets stranded without enough power to re-orientate itself, recharging it can be a big problem. If it can't look for whichever guide stars it needs, it might not know which way it's facing and that just adds to the problems.

    With any luck, the solar panels might get enogh exposure naturally over several months (through its own momentum) to find out where it is, reset any necessary systems, and so on. This is probably the type of thing they're referring to. It won't be the boot time, it'll be getting the energy to be able to successfully boot.