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Holding On To Hope For Beagle 2
slasher999 writes "Scientists are still keeping their hopes up that they will be able to revive Beagle via the Mars Express mothership on 4 January. On that date the ship will be in the correct orbit and may then be able to revive the lander. Current theroies as to what may have gone wrong include the possibility that the landers on-board clock is incorrect and that the lander has been transmitting at incorrect times. Funny, I thought I heard that as of yesterday the batteries on the lander would have been depleted unless the lander had received an order to recharge its batteries."
"Current theroies as to what may have gone wrong include the possibility that the landers on-board clock is incorrect and that the lander has been transmitting at incorrect times."
:)
Or maybe they're using kilos as their base time unit.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Who builds a space probe that needs to be TOLD when it needs to recharge? I mean, isn't that something that you'd really, really want to automate? Considering we're, you know, a few billion kilometres away...
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
why doesn't it just recharge them when they run down? even if it's not in the best position to charge, for example, something's better than nothing.
stay frosty and alert
The longer it takes to contact beagle 2 the lower the odds are they will be able to contact it. Just imagine how big the odds are landing it on a rock, in a pit, ...
Too bad things are going wrong and Mars isn't exactly the place to send a technician to...
That's what they get for not using ntpd. ;-)
picked a better band tha Blur to write a song for them? I mean....
As a cost-cutting measure (and considering that Blur was one of the sponsors), they must have built the lander around an iPod.
Okay, of all the space projects I guess I could expect a silly human error hiccup...but just one, and it's really silly.
So, now we see the next project, they ask for more millions of dollars for experts and high tech equipment, and oops - this time we forgot to set that pesky clock!
Wait a minute, I think I see a pattern here....
I agree with one of the previous posts. With unsuccessful missions like these before, wouldn't they program the lander to do something like...
if (batteries == 0) { recharge(); }
Maybe I'm missing something?
- deal with the inevitable.
- grieve for your loss.
- move on.
Never let your emotions get tangled up with something as silly as a space probe. It isn't healthy. So Beagle 2 fails. Big whoop. Deal with it and move on.Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
When astronauts collect the wreckage off the cold orange soil.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
You guys must realize that neither the Odyssey nor Earth-based radio telescopes were tested with the Beagle 2. Only the Mars Express orbiter was specifically designed and tested to communicate with the lander.
A blog like any other.
1. Tell Starbuck's that the Martian Coffee market is untapped.
2. Tell them the best location for coffee sales is the landing site of the Beagle 2
3. Wait the 2 weeks for them to build the store
4. Order a tall latte and 1 hour of wi-fi
5. Connect to the beagle 2 using your local wi-fi
6. Drink your latte
This would cost the EU goverments about $7 (for the latte and 1 hour wi-fi) and they get a latte out of the deal!
Funny, I thought I heard that as of yesterday the batteries on the lander would have been depleted unless the lander had received an order to recharge its batteries. :)
God, I hope not. That would possibly be one of the stupidest design flaws I have heard of in a long time. Why can't it just charge its batteries whenever the sun is shining? That said, maybe the onboard clock is in American time and not Metric time
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Is that damn thing running on metric time? Didn't we agree on standard time?
Your at-home battery charger doesn't run a program like that, it's all in the hardware: the current supplied to the batteries is controlled by the lack of full voltage from those batteries. Maybe this probe was built only with software engineers?
Maybe they could buy a battery replacement from apple. I wonder only how much to pay for ship it...
The BBC article seems to imply that Beagle will use solar power to transmit a signal. Perhaps as a fallback if the batteries have failed?
The lander would need to open and expose it's solar panels within a few days to recharge the batteries. It should do this automatically.
if ( yuo != tehFagot ) { peaceOnEarth(forever); }
The most recent BBC Article seems to have the illustrious Professor Colin assuming the best: The Beagle's got a 42-cell Lithium Ion power source, so assuming that was previously charged (why wouldn't it be?!) then it should last for some decent amount of time. That being said, transmitting continuously for 12+ hours a day doesn't bode well if the probe never got the message to unfold its solar panels (shouldn't that have been the next step after the airbags deflated?!)!
If you post, they will mod it.
You mac zealots really can't take a joke can ya?
Now's the part when you should point out the increased viability of Moon orbiters over Mars probes, as measured by the volume of USENET posts to sci.astronomy.
Sorry, but what`s this story about ? I`ve heard somebody called Colin Pillinger has lost his beagle. Look, I`m a animal lover but it`s just a bloody dog. It`s probably just hopped over the wall is is humping the neighbour`s poodle. Do we really have to have constant new reports about this ?
My advice to Colin is stop making such a fuss and go and stick some "Lost Dog" posters up on nearby lamp-posts like everybody else.
I hope I'm wrong, personally... but it wouldn't suprise me.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You kind of forgot
Attempt to figure out what went wrong, and learn from the mistake(s)
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
I believe the Beagle team is firmly in stage 1 but after this quote, "At the moment, I am frustrated rather than concerned." some are already drifting into stage 2.
it wasn't that long ago that we wouldn't have even been able to REACH mars with a vessel.
so it crashed...they ALMOST got it there..an the equipment they developed has a lot of other uses.
back to the drawing board.
I say they should go with the fast, cheap and outta control method. a ton of little RC cars wandering around gathering up bits of info, transmitting it to a central beacon, then shutting down.
beam out the gathered info....nice redundant network.
Martians should be confused with so much robots incoming.
Their thoughts must be:
Regards and happy 2004!!!.
Why don't people keep uncoroborated opinions out of story blurbs? Now we've got pages and pages of
Perhaps they didn't know how to program the clock, and left it flashing 12:00, like my dad's VCR.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This is ridiculous, and I for one cannot believe that Prof. Pillinger keeps saying it.
Unlike the NASA orbiter, which might conceivably not be able to understand the Beagle's transmission, Jodrell Bank is looking for its radio carrier (i.e., just for the existence of a transmission at all). It should be able to see it. That's what radio telescopes do, after all - and Jodrell Bank has been looking at space probes since the 1960's.
Moreover, all of Mars is well within a Jodrell Bank beamwidth at 500 MHz, so it doesn't matter where the thing is on Mars - Jodrell Bank should see it. And it's too much to believe that operators at Jodrell Bank, Westerbork and Stanford all screwed up such a simple measurement.
This spacecraft is almost certainly lost; I would rate it's chance of recovery at much less than one per cent.
While there is even a remote chance that it may be functional, it would be foolish to give up.
First of all, it's ESA, not NASA. Second, yes, it is automatic.
"Funny, I thought I heard that as of yesterday the batteries on the lander would have been depleted unless the lander had received an order to recharge its batteries."
I can't find any reference to this except here. Is someone trying to start an urban myth?
Li-Ion Battery replacement : $99.00
Milage charge ( > 50 miles from nearest repair depot):
$.45/mi * 250,000,000mi: $112,500,000
total: $112,500,099 + VAT.
Note: Although this would make the repair charge more expensive than the entire incremental charges for the beagle-2 mission, it would still be the cheapest way to fund for a manned mars mission.
Unfortunately, I'm betting that they didn't contract for an extended warranty for this thing. This was done on the cheap, you know.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
maybe they should just have paid the damn $400 for OnStar..
Ummm, err, say what, now?
250 Million miles and only one try to get it right.... Although I envy the opportunity to make the attempt, I don't envy the need for near perfection.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
It looks like the Beagle is gone. Who knows what happened? Perhaps we will find out in 133 years when we land on Mars :)
This means that two probes to Mars failed (this one, and the recent Japanese one). I think NASA is sending two which should arrive soon. I wonder if they'll make it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Further opportunities to scan for a signal from Beagle 2 will be undertaken over the coming days.
These will include efforts by the Westerbork radio telescope array in the Netherlands and by the super-sensitive 45-metre dish at Stanford University in California, US.
"The Dish", as Stanford's radio telescope is commonly known, is said, theoretically, to be capable of detecting radio emissions from Beagle 2's central processor microchip.
I guess that's one central processor microchip that can't be used on this planet!
Nah, where they went wrong was hiring Damien Hirst. The extra weight of that pickled calf was guaranteed to send them spinning out of control!
Oxford Dictionaries Online
Or maybe they put the clock in upside down...
While there's still hope for Beagle2 until mothership Mars-Express starts listening from jan 4 on, let's not forget that Mars-Express itself is the main instrument here. As was stated before , Beagle2 was decided as an add-on late in the process of developing Mars-Express. Maybe (and if so sadly) Beagle2 is lost but Mars-Express seems to be very much alive and has the potential to send us loads of surface and sub-surface pictures of Mars. Scientists put 6 years in the development of Beagle2, but how many manyears were spend to Mars-Express? I bet much more than 6 years ...
less is more
from the article...
...will include efforts by ... the super-sensitive 45-metre dish at Stanford University in California, US.
"The Dish", as Stanford's radio telescope is commonly known, is said, theoretically, to be capable of detecting radio emissions from Beagle 2's central processor microchip.
Could there be any truth to this or is the journalist confused (and myself paranoid)? If so, is it only possible cause they'd be looking out into space where there's less interference, at a known location with (presumably) only one device present? Or could it actually be done here on Earth's surface, with all the interference we have? Does it have anything to do with Beagle's CPU being space-hardened and thus older and slower?
Terrifying thought that they could be monitoring EVERYTHING passively...
It's display is probably flashing 12:00.
Maybe, as once happened (but not in ESA), they made a confusion over metric system, using feets where should be meters, or maybe vice-versa... That would be enough for Beagle2 land in a quite different place. Or planet.
First, the facts from the Planetary Society:o ns.html
o rm.html
http://www.planetary.org/learn/missions/marsmissi
I saw this one in a comment the other day to a related article... Not sure I believe it myself but some of the pictures and points raised are interesting nonetheless...
http://yorkshireufoinfo.homestead.com/PhobosPlatf
So why don't we send a staffed mission to Mars? Something with a human being on board might stand a fighting chance of actually getting there -- if some unusual situation is encountered, it can be dealt with right there and then. It's not as though human beings are in short supply or require any special tools to manufacture. Even if the trip is strictly one-way, it wouldn't be the first time anyone didn't make it home {how many casualties in Iraq?} Beside which, the honour of "first Earthling buried on Mars" would be a great one, even despite its inherent posthumousness.
I say, get thinking the unthinkable. Stop the cowardice and send a staffed mission now. A few human lives would be a small price to pay for the dividend it would bring.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Contrast this with the NASA Mars Rovers' 3 experiments and the fact that all the science on Beagle2 had to be squeezed into less than ~100 Lb. while the Rovers weigh 10X that and there's no denying the unbelievable effort that the scientists and engineers must have put into its assembly.
I've pretty much resigned to the fact that Beagle 2 is lost, so I'm wondering what the scientists who worked on it might do in the future. Even if a full-scale rerun, a Beagle 3 if you like, proves impossible, I'd love to see some of the experiments on some future lander, be it American or European.
As you said, there was some incredibly impressive engineering and science which went into the design of the instrumentation, so it would be a shame to see all that effort wasted...
They picked Blur to write the callsign.
The computer died of shame.
siggy played guitar
we'll see it making contact with earth in Star Track xxx as bee-ger.
Do we not have a device powerful enough to take a photo of the lander when it enters our line of site to see if the panels are open, or if anything else went wrong?
In 1997, Mars Pathfinder successfully landed on Mars and deployed a rover. That demonstrated that the design worked, and that all the various hardware and software pieces could come together for a successful mission.
Did Mars Express / Beagle 2 reuse any of that, or did they start from scratch? It seems to me that if you wanted an effective long term Mars exploration strategy you would develop a flexible and reliable platform for delivering payloads to the surface, then reuse as much as possible on subsequent missions.
That would be analogous to developing a standard booster to put satellites in orbit. If every booster were a one-of-a-kind, the success rate on satellite launches would be much lower than it is.
That's a very long shot. The scientists are hoping that this is the cause of the problem, as it could be corrected from the mothership. But this is just the most utterly pathetic wishful thinking.
Most likely, the dumping baloons (whatever they are called) have failed, as a previously tested version of these ballons has failed. Apparently, these dumpers haven't been even tested before launch.
Sigged!
unless it was your sorry ass that did it, then the steps are as follows...
2.5 Shred all the evidence that points to you, ala Enron
2.6 Plant false evidence
2.7 Blame the real culprit
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Basically, if Beagle 2 doesn't wake up and start singing, we will probably never know why.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
They don't come, when you call
They don't chase squirrels at all,
Dead Beagles aren't much fun.
My Beagle died, late last fall
He's still rotting in the hall
Dead Beagles aren't much fun...
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
I mean...british electrical systems are world renowned :D
Blar.
And go drink some eggnogg and be merry.
Oh wow the soil has 36% carbon instead of 35%.
or
Neeto, there was water here 50 million years ago.
Big woop.
We iradicated BSE and quickly realised that feeding offal back to our cattle was a bad idea. Did you guys not get the memo? We must have sent it nearly ten years ago.
oh dear, some facts...
firstly, beagle2 charges its batteries automatically.
secondly, the airbag did fail its first tests, but it did pass its final test (there was not enough time to test further).
sources? the bbc - they made a great 2 part documentary which followed beagle2 from genesis to launch.
... to have it automatically recharge it's batteries when their low if it hasn't received orders?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
one of the theories considered to explain silence from beagle is that problem is on Mars Odyssey craft used to recent communications attempts, which has been seriously damaged by recent solar flares (some scientific instruments aboard has been damaged and possibily, even transmitters may be broken). While earth based receivers may hear beagle only with lots of luck, great hope remains until 4th January, when Mars Express will try communicate with her baby. But even if the Mars Express mothership will fail to talk with her baby, it doesnt meen European Mars Express mission is unsuccesful (somebody has posted that 2 of 4 missions to Mars are already lost). Beagle is only small add-on to Mars Express mission which will make tons of wonderful scientific data even without the lander. And the orbiter is in perfect shape and condition.
SHE does throw dice.
Heads we send a single expensive space probe to mars with a fifty percent chance of catastrophic failure, heads we DON'T.
I hope they gave it at least this much chance to save the money in the first place.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
IANARS (rocket scientist) but speaking from pure computer scientist's perspective (or any kind of scientist's perspective, as a matter of fact), it is essential to have as much feedback as possible exactly at critical times like that when things break. It may not prevent the failure of the system the first time, but will give us the necessary info to tell what went wrong and design around it the next time.
So, wouldn't it be wise to design a descent phase with no communication blackout?
The only reason I can fathom why this is not done yet, is that it is really hard and/or expensive. Transmitting info to Earth may be difficult, because it must drain too much power and (in my understanding) the initial phase of the descent actually happens on the back side of Mars (as viewed from Earth).
However, now that we have an orbitting satellite around Mars, would it be so hard to time the probe's landing so that its transmissions of its status are picked up by the Mars Odissey which can then safely retransmit them back to Earth at its leisure? Does any one know if this is feasible at all?
I support space exploration 100%...
However we must place it in its proper perspective given the other priorities of public funds. And as far as I can see, EVERYTHING is more important now than space exploration.
Mars hasn't changed in a billion years. It isn't going to change in the next two or three hundred years. But we should wait that long before throwing money at it because we have far more important things to deal with here on the home world.
For instance,
- the population of the world will double in the next thirty to fifty years. These people will need jobs, food, shelter, and political freedom to create the economic climate necessary to create jobs, food, and shelter.
-Weapons of mass destruction continue to be developed. Genocidial political ideologies continue to be spread on official government media in the areas of the world where population growth is the least controlled. In the same vein, omnicidal technology (things that can kill every human being on earth if inplemented) is beginning to be developed without any global control or even agreement on its restriction.
-Warnings of global environmental breakdowns and massive climate and weather pattern change in the next century are coming from scientists who know what they are talking about.
There are a lot of fools out there who will argue that the massive challenges facing us here on earth is the best reason to put more resources into getting a few humans off the Earth. But the level of technology in this millenium will not be able to support life off Earth without support from the Earth. A home planet devistated by political forces in the second half of the 21st century that should have been addresses at the beginning of the 21st century will doom any space colonies established too soon.
Space geeks need to be encouraged to take a really long view (500 years to 1500 years) to achieve their vision of colonies of humans on the Moon and other planets.
Science fiction television writers should realize that the technologies like that seen in Star Trek:Voyager and Enterprise aren't going to be around in two or three hundred years. Two or three thousand years is more like it.
I recommend Arthur C Clarke's book "3001" for a vision of the world in a thousand years from the perspective of a man revived from 2001.
Thank you,
"Help! I fell down a boulder crack and I can't get up!"
Table-ized A.I.
with respect to space missions, I'm going to go postal.
It's about as funny at this point as "In Soviet Russia", "all your base..." and "hot grits".
I don't know if this isn't posted yet, but Why every time there's a possibility of failure, the fault is always of the computer guys? It's because the comments of the project's chief about the computer's clock has been reseted by art of magic. Isn't more probably that the Beagle2 crashes in the surface? He said that the robot lands well in Mars, How can know that thing if there's no communication and the other ships are unable to search Beagle2?
Their stress test for landing, IIRC, was dropping the spacecraft from about 10 meters on to concrete, straight down, once.
The problem is, Mars sometimes has nasty winds that would impart a bit of shear to the spacecraft. I doubt it would ever hit straight down like that, given the typical landing conditions.
...but Beagle 2 is a privately funded UK project.
I heard on NPR that this project cost $70 million US dollars. Nothing at that cost with such little chance of success or return-on-investment would be a privately funded project.
There is undoubtably lots of government funds and focused government sponsored research put into this 'privately funded project'.
Sometimes we just have to refuse to believe ridiculous things that we read in the media. Things like 'a privately funded' $70 million project to put a toy on another planet. I have not doubt that a little digging would uncover large amounts of backgound public funding for this stupid stunt.
Thank you,
The ESA mission -- the Mars Express probe -- works. Beagle 2 was, as the other posts here say, a $30M privately-funded British project which was tacked on to Mars Express under much greater constraints than any other lander yet sent.
I would have modded that funny :-)
:-)
(And I AM on Linux
iPods use Lithium-Polymer batteries, not Lithium-Ion.
iPod Battery FAQ
http://ipodbatteryfaq.com/
Q: Is the iPod's battery replaceable?
A: Yes. Apple has an official battery replacement program for $99. You send your iPod in (any model iPod), and Apple will replace the battery for $99. AppleCare programs for iPod will also soon be available in Europe.
Q: Is the iPod's battery user-replaceable?
A1: Yes and no. The iPod's case is not designed to be opened, so, in that respect, it's not what would generally be referred to as "user-replaceable". But, the case can be opened, and there are several third parties that offer replacement batteries for the iPod, such as iPodBattery.com (instructions, with pictures: original, non-"dockable" iPod, new, slim "dockable" iPod) and PDASmart, for as low as $49. Some will even do the replacement for you if you send it in.
A2: TechTV's Call for Help has a story, with video , discussing and demonstrating replacing an iPod battery (the video was produced before the Apple service options were available).
Q: What is the iPod's warranty? Does it cover the battery? Is there any way to extend it?
A1: The iPod warranty is one year. It does cover the battery.
A2: You can extend the iPod's warranty, including battery coverage, to two years with AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod. Numerous retailers, such as Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc., also have very inexpensive extended warranty coverage available for iPod. Often these plans simply replace the product with a comparable new unit.
Q: What's the deal? Does Apple think the iPod is disposable?
A: No. Like all Apple products, the iPod is engineered to last. This is why Apple is consistently ranked number one in product quality and support by leading consumer groups, such as Consumer Reports.
Q: I heard that the iPod's battery only lasts 18 months, and then you have to buy a new iPod! Is that true?
A1: NO! The vast, vast majority of even the earliest iPods, now over two years old, continue to function just fine. Some iPods, however, have had issues with batteries. Lithium ion batteries are only good for 300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles (more). For this reason, certain customers' usage patterns may cause the batteries to degrade, or fail, sooner than others.
A2: If the battery does fail, and the iPod is no longer under its original one year warranty or $59 AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod, or any of numerous third party service plans, you don't have to buy a new iPod. You may replace the battery yourself for as little as $49, or have Apple perform the replacement for $99.
Q: Why didn't Apple use better batteries?
A: Apple uses the best lithium ion battery technology available from leading battery manufacturers. This is the best, most cost effective battery technology available given the requirements of the device.
Just curious, did you hear that from somewhere or Come up with that yourself or did you read one of my old posts about metric time?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
They're probably still pissed at us since one of the viking probes landed on top of their king.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
hehe, I was tired and forget that HTML was allowed in these posts, and it messed up the code :) but you make a good point.
Why would they design it to require a "recharge battery" command? Shouldnt it just do that? Time for some AI on board to use self survival skills. AI may be the answer to these failed missions. 3 months later the AI figures out how to re tool its DSP chips and creates a new radio out of its broken parts and then "comes back to life" and sends its signal...now that would be a cool senerio, maybe AI can go into the next mission.
Can they control the probes so they land within a km or so of a specific point?
If so, maybe they should send a very simple sturdy robot capable of swapping out boards and replacing struts and wiring: completely skip the scientific payload and use the space and weight to reinforce it and to make the power and comms fully redundant. Land it somewhere reasonably flat and then land the later probes nearby. If they're designed with compatible technology, the repair bot can: a) determine what happened to it and b) give it a chance of recovery.
If the base robot survived, you could even just drop boxes of parts nearby: it should be a lot easier to package a partially dissassembled system against impact than the same system fully assembled. If studies indicate different methods of analysis scientists may be able to kludge up experiments using available parts or the module required could be sent from earth as a part of a cargo package which the base robot could then just bolt onto existing probes.
Now that Beagle has landed on Mars, the batteries need not be drained by shutting off the advertising for the "Offworld colonies" :-)
Calling Mr Proubst I think his name is...
When they get there, they may be able to fix the Beagle2.
No wait...
This is not like a missing persons case where each day increasing the subject of the search has died of exposure - either Beagle is reachable, or it is not (if it is in a million parts of just has a bent ariel is irrelevant - either it can talk to us or not).
Jan 4th is the real test, after that then we'll know for sure if we're ever going to hear from it again.
It's only fitting that being a computer based device, survival would also be a much clearer matter than with humans. Does it start transmitting continuously? Is Mars Express able to contact it? No and No, then it's dead. Until then there is no danger to the Beagle in waiting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..the batteries on the lander would have been depleted unless the lander had received an order to recharge its batteries.
Where did you get that idea? I don't think thats a very good design. If the lander does not recharge automatically, it could run out of juice and there would be no way to revive it remotely. That does not sound like failsafe operation, it just sounds wrong. It should recharge anytime it needs to.
TallGreen CMS hosting
Evidently a software problem: http://www.copperas.com/express/beagle.html
I mean - with a network (sort of) so transient it relies on the positions of objects in orbit around planets and outages of days (not to mention the latency !), you'd have thought they would have made the damm thing a bit more autonomous. I mean why on mars does it have to wait to be told to recharge?
Q. Why do the British drink their beer warm?
A. Because Lucas makes refrigerators.
Q. What are the settings on Lucas headlight switches?
A. Dim, Flicker and Off.
In 50 years the SETI guys will have a heart attack when they decrypt a radio message from mars.
"The Dish", as Stanford's radio telescope is commonly known, is said, theoretically, to be capable of detecting radio emissions from Beagle 2's central processor microchip.
Wow.
You want a place where to make cuts? What is euphemistically called "defense" (specially in the US, UK, China, Russia and perhaps France, where defense has a doublespeak feeling to it).
This mission costed less than 100 million US dollars, is a mainly scientific endeavour. Science is the human actvity that has contributed more to the improvement of our lifes. It is through science that we first learned what global warming can do to a planet (looking at Venus by what would have seem useles space probes according to people sortsighted like you).
You are advocating for cutting costs in the worng place, look at defense expending. Do the US and UK need all those submarines, planes, helicopters, destroyers, etc? Nope, they could have a similar military dominance with half of them and the money saved would be billions, bot a few paltry millions that for once are invested in science which may benefit us all in the future.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
my-machine # ping Beagle 2
no answer from Beagle
my-machine #
or do PeeCees running that OS recognize as valid host names with spaces (and unquoted!". I want a machine with THAT OS now!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah. Right.
And those who say these things, live in modern houses, they switch on the light in the morning and turn up the heat at night, they watch TV and listen to radio, they take food from the fridge and put it in the microwave oven, they drive their cars to their jobs where they sit at a computer or talk on the cellphone, they go to hospitals when sick to get treatment, medicine and surgery and recovery and when they are cured, they decide it's better to thank God rather than to thank the doctors and nurses and scientists that made the treatment possible in the first place. And then they go home again, to relax by watching TV sent to them by sattelites. Arrogant, ungrateful bastards. How I detest the stupid people.
Another thing is that these people, and the politicians, demand and expect an immidiate return of their money. I fear that too many failures will decrease their desire to give more funding to important research projects, sadly. And with decreased funding, the likelyhood of success is decreased. Of course, they don't understand this either.
So my point is that with all these attitudes combined, we wont see any advanced or ambitious space exploration projects anytime soon. At least not made by the government.
He said that while the Mars Express will be entering its orbit on the 4th, the optimal time for contact with Beagle 2 will be on the 7th of January, when Express enters a much closer polar orbit. They're really pinning their hopes on that opportunity, rather than the 4th.
It should also be noted that while Mars Odyssey and telescopes on Earth are listening out passively for signals from Beagle, Express will actively send out a signal requesting a response from Beagle 2 and telling it to activate - effectively a wake-up call. If Beagle is safe but inactive or transmitting at the wrong times for whatever technical reason, instructions from Mars Express are likely to get it to wake up, charge its batteries and align its transmissions correctly. So don't give up all hope if nothing is heard by the 4th of January - at least wait until the 7th!
- Stormcaller
http://www.stormcaller.net
Criticize a moderator, and you're a "troll" regardless of the content of your post. Slashdot is a fucking joke sometimes.