Slashdot Mirror
Mars Rovers On Final Approach
leapis writes "In the wake of the possible loss of the Beagle 2 Mars probe, let us not forget that the Mars Rovers are
scheduled for arrival in orbit this weekend. As noted in this article at Space.com, the fourth and final course correction has been made, and Spirit, the first of two spacecraft, will touch down around 22:34 on 3 Jan 2004. More information and a countdown to the landing can be found here."
The article says the rover's trajectory has been updated. Is it because they were afraid it would land in a crater like beagle2?
I do hope at least one probe lands right. It is one of the advantages of having NASA, ESA and other space agencies competing, when did it happen before this that we had so many probes heading on the same planet?
Does anyone know the different purposes they have?
My Stack Overflow user
Funny you should mention that (points to top of page).
... that, instead of quarreling about the legitimacy of robotic space exploration, we dedicate this thread to the inevitable development of a Mars probe drinking game!
Gallons, not liters, please...
Do you like German cars?
Saw it. Just checking to see if anyone else was noticing. :-)
Just wondering... Suppose there *is* life on Mars, what gives us the right to drop all sorts of space junk on their planet? Let's face it, if alien probes were to crash on Earth, everyone would be up in arms...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
.. am deeply disappointed by the lack of dog puns.. 'Beagle 2 fails to bark'... 'Down, Rover'.. 'Beagle 2 Space Probe has Ruff Landing'.. so much potential unfulfilled.
Space Junk is reaching alarming levels. The UN has established a special committee to investiagte the problem and to issue littering fines where appropiate.
Good Lord, they can't even get the US flag right. The top stripe is red.
irb(main):001:0>
.. every time a probe/rover takes a shot of a supposedly manufactured phenomenon on Mars - the face, the canals, etc, revealing them to tbe natural, and those who claimed the structure was alien-made miraculously manage to find another artifical feature before tea-time.
The top stripe is red. The flag is just cropped very badly.
Yet we continue dumping cute little robots on their ground.
How long do you think it will take for this one to be found and death-rayed, just like the rest?
Earthlings go home!
I was about to doublecheck this (just for confirmation) until I realized that I didn't care.
True story.
Little green men on a far-away planet eat their first interplanetary delicacy - "Beagles & Rovers".
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Yep, but we have better weapons of mass destruction *sniffles*. Hmm.. I can feel a cold coming on.
will touch down around 22:34 on 3 Jan 2004
Is that local time?
Learn something new.
I would love to watch with my son as these craft approach and land on Mars in real time! Currently, we enjoy doing fly-bys between Mars' and moons, the ISS and Hubble, and the stars, but this would be more memorable than watching videobites after the fact on CNN. TIA.
that reproduce like weeds and leave shit where ever we go.
Truth is, our need to expand will trump any chance of primitive life on mars developing.
Do we have the right? I suppose if you take the really long view, then no; otherwise its survival of the fittest!
Blogging because I can...
I am sad to see the possible demise of the Beagle II. However, I have to temper that with my watching an animation of what they were attempting to accomplish and saying to myself: It will never work. It is too complex. I hope I am proven wrong in the long run.
Also, considering the millions of miles involved, The USA could not beat them by a lousy ten days? (A little humor, folks!)
My main point is that if you want durable aerospace vehicles that can survive the (Groan) impact. The Russians need to be the designers.
Those later model Mig's are a shining example.
Anyone else read that as 'Selling Steven Hawking on E-Bay'? 'Genius for sale, good cond, comes with Phd, batteries not included.'
Now see, I can tell simply by the names of these probes that they will fail. By giving them these "uplifting" or "inspirational" (eg: spirit) names they are jinxing themselves. Therefore I suggest that the next probes are named things like: "dismal faliure" or "flaming wreck"...
Does this make my brain look big?
Maybe it could sidle up to Beagle 2 and give it a push out of whatever ditch it has managed to land in!
Does Rover carry any jump leads?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
The Martians are going to run out of missiles sooner or later!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Knowing the (lack of) success of all the previous ESA/NASA/RSA missions to Mars - we will still be looking at Viking 1 photos in press and media releases.
Yeah yeah ok - maybe not Viking 1, maybe even from the MGS - but only if we pester NASA enough...
(Note - this isn't a troll. I'm just to fscking tired at 4:00 to come up with something more coherent ok?)
The two mars rovers probably have a better chance of success than the (possibly) failed Beagle 2. Let's consider why:
Beagle 2 was built on a shoestring budget. Many aspects weren't tested to the extent the NASA rovers were. Example: the Beagle 2 parachute was designed in 8 weeks (as I recall; I may be a bit off here) after the original was revealed to be seriously flawed in the late planning stages. because of time constraints, the parachute was not extensively tested. It was similar with the protective balloons. On the other hand, the NASA rovers (which are virtually identical) were tested for years, every aspect tested again and again, as you can see by listening to the wonderful project scientist interviews at http://www.planetary.org/radio/ (a great group of space related radio shows.... gooooooood good stuff). The extensive testing in the NASA Mars Rover missions wasn't cheap, but there is no major flaw that engineers are 'hoping won't screw us up', unlike (possibly) Beagle 2. With enough luck (we need it, because let's face it, Mars is far away), thse 2 missions will do great. And hey, even if one fails, that's why we've got two!
That'll learn 'em to be all, fourth planet from the sun, and stuff.
It was great mistake of ESA to let Beagle communicate with American Oddyssey. Americans have found SOMETHING (aliens???) on Mars and wont let anybody to see it. It is classified. So Oddyssey reprogrammed Beagle to remain silent. Its tru, believe me. It is the reason American landers has no known instruments toi detect or analyze life.
the first of two spacecraft, will touch down around 22:34 on 3 Jan 2004.
:)
Touch down?
And not -splash-all-over-the-area-?
Let's hope so
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
What I don't understand yet is WHY don't the NASA, the ESA and the Japanese (and why not the Chinese) joint their efforts and do something BIG for ONCE.
Space Conquest(let's be sincere we want to colonize the whole universe) must be a global mission now, led by the USA (being European this hurts, but I don't want this thing in the hands of the Burocrats at Stratsburg, not led but the incompetency of the ONU). Petty rivalities will only lead to more failures and eventually powers that be will lose interest in anything non comercial or military.
I was reading this article, then clicked a few links to other articles, then spent a good hour or so looking at actual photos and artist renditions of the landing vehicles, successful, unsuccessful, and those en route.
You know what ALL of them are missing?
BLING-BLING
If our governments are spending billions on these phat rides, shouldn't they at least throw a set of 20" Enkeis w/ low profile Pirelli P-Zeros on 'em? Then drop those bitches 'til they scrapin' the Martian surface, makin' dem green hoes flock. Shit man, ain't nothing even chromed up on 'em.
But for the billions spent, what we got on the detailin' side? Nothin'. Not even a wax job and a pair of fuzzy fuckin' dice.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
They found a big crater right in the middle where Beagle 2 was supposed to land...
Maybe the parachute just didn't open?
8==(''')===D ~o ~O>
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
they simply lack instruments for answer to the most interesting question about Mars: Is (Was) there life on the Red Planet?
SHE does throw dice.
that 1 meter != 1 foot then all should be go for Mars Rover.
Once again inaccurate info. The rovers do not go into orbit around Mars, they land directly. Also only Spirit is arriving this weekend, not both rovers as suggested by the article.
Then the scientists would have to go to work without breakfast and wear old, ill-fiting clothing because all the budget was spent on rims and designer space suits.
Blar.
it is not funny, may be it is true. just because you are paranoid...
SHE does throw dice.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Well, the flag should also have 13 stripes, not 12. I second the "cropped very badly" conclusion.
she/it is not a paid up member of robbIE's gnu dating service, & maybe not real at all? rumours. sheesh.
The only crater Beagle2 landed in was the one it created when it's airbags failed. The ESA is still in denial over this.
Imagine the elation that one lucky Martian child experienced when s/he found the nice, new, solar powered RC car land under the tree on Christmas morning.
I for one think that we should shower more gifts upon these needy Martian children.
...would fail to undock when told to!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Um, like we didn't see this coming.
European statism has ruined any ability for them to engage in high technology. Although the US has its share of problems( 30% marginal tax rate on average ), it is much more economically free to develop the minds of its citizens, and allow them to excel beyond the Eurofags' ability to do nothing more than whine about worker exploitation and how their pension plans won't buy them a yacht.
Well, yeah. What else are we supposed to do? We gotta do something when we previously crashed a lander on Mars because of a metric/english conversion mishap.
if this happens again, just send orbiting probes above mars, and if those disappear, obviously, we're not wanted there, or we're not meant to be there.
at least get the ISS finished up first and work on that moonbase or the earth-to-space elevator thing.
nasa and other agencies are so disorganised.. it's like they're now just throwing darts on a 3rd grade level space map.
It strikes me that sending a single machine millions of miles through space and then asking it to land on its own on a planet surface you can't see is asking a bit much. The chances for an "oops" are pretty high.
Why not seed the orbit of the planet you're exploring with a half dozen relay stations, then send thousands of miniature crawlers to the planet as landers, ensuring that clumps of them land in as many different locations as possible? Equip each crawler with a radio transmitter and sensors and have them relay information back to orbit and from there back to earth. Even if a few hundred dozen of the mini-bots die, the entire mission doesn't fall into jeopardy.
The current norm of sending a single lander and praying that something doesn't go wrong seems a bit like sending a single three year year old unassisted off to the mall to fetch a carton of milk. Send a whole bus load, and sure, some won't come back, but chances are at least one will.
...one to be found and death-rayed...
Soon, very soon they will learn that switching from Plasma Cannons to Death Ray was a mistake.
MOO2++
[metric/english conversion mishap]
I know it's easy to blame the engineers because it sounds so simple: One group used metric, the other did not. But it really wasn't that simple.
Everybody was making their parts with metric measurements. The problem was that some of them were using tools that were calibrated using non-metric params. This caused a problem of accuracy, not precision. So even though the people making the parts were doing the right thing, and even though their tools were capable of the tolerances required, the calibration was not close enough, due to the imprecise metric to english conversion.
It could have happened with Base-16 to Decimal floating point conversion, and you wouldn't feel so high-and-mighty about it, I think.
How about after it lands.
"Spirit Rover has a leg up on Beagle2"
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Old man: WHAT...is the velocity of an unladen Mars probe?
Arthur: What do you mean? American or European?
Old man: Huh? I don't know...AAAGGHGGHHH (falls into a Mars crater)
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
The free market has provided a better solution than what government proposes (as it always has). It is called insurance.
If you drive faster than you should, you may notice your insurance rates go way up (or entirely lose insurance). This is what protects the general public from crazed drivers overall -- fear of long term problems if they should crash too often and see their rates go up.
Fast driving isn't the problem, it is fast driving in circumstances that warrant caution. Law will never be the solution -- and in many cases the speed law is only there to provide incentives to the friends of government, not to protect the overall public. Speeding laws came out of mercantilism; capitalism provides for a much better solution.
...it's significantly different from anything known here. How do we know any microbes found won't be ones brought there by the probe (or a previous probe...and have "grown"). Without a completely sterile probe arriving on Mars, I'm not sure we can get any conclusive results on the micro-level. Our only hope of a conclusive find is if there is *big* martian life.
> Logging on to Beagle2 > Connection openend at 33Kbps > Login: beagle > Password: ...
>Wrong password!
> Password: ...
> Wrong password!
> Password: ...
> Wrong password, please remove jumper 121 to reset password, system halted
What if it turns out that Martians do have weapons of mass destruction unlike certain other desert regimes I could mention?;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Boy! Those british guys are really good at golf...
This sig is better than nothing!
"... which was supposed to touch down on the distant planet on Christmas Day to begin its search for Martian life".
It is all big conspiracy. It was no crater. "Martian life" found it first...
The US already owns Mars ... now come one, we are they only ones who have actually landed anything there so far.
I am sure we shot down that silly Beagle. (Mainly becuase the name is really ghey)
"It's not good enough to succeed. Everyone else must fail" Words of wisdom from Larry Ellison and the reason why, when Beagle 2 crashed and desintegrated in a miserable flaming disaster we celebrated Christmas.
And IIRC, the Russians called dibs on Venus.
Absolute zero.
Beagle2 was 1 of the 8 instruments of the mission. The other 7 are into mars express around mars.
We know thta Beagle 2 was named after the ship that took Charles Darwin out to those remote places where he got the inspiration for the evolution of species. Beagle 2 helps to prove the theory of evolution--it just was not the fittest and did not survive. :-)
"Care about people's opinions and you will be their prisoner." ~~Tao Te Ching~~
...that Segfault's number is 547. That speaks of a man with a lot of time on his hands... (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
These guys have got to learn to overwhelm the defence! Send a fleet of baloon decoys on similar orbits, fergudness'sake! Or, since they prefer that bashing about using a pointy "ball" as an excuse for football, at least set up a running block and scrimmage? Right? :)
So that song about "Green alligators" and such is perfectly on topic with the current "Green..." poll.
Do you suppose the Mars Rovers can carry a tune?
Does this mean there'll be Martian Whiskey?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.