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Spirit Rover Lands Successfully
So, as I write this, the latest word is: the Spirit rover has landed and NASA has received a signal indicating it landed right-side up (so it shouldn't have any problems in the unfolding process) and will shortly be retracting the protective airbags which kept it from splattering all over the countryside. Y'all can fill in later news in the comments below. There's a nice site with up-to-the-minute text updates.
I want BOTH to work, dammit!
Take it easy on Beagle 2.
The primary purpose of Beagle 2 was to find evidence of life on Mars. Spirit Rover's was to find evidence of water. Beagle 2's mission was far more exciting, and I'm disappointed that it seems to have failed.
That being said, the anti-US "u r teh fat and stupids" rhetoric does get annoying sometimes, but those posters are in the minority.
The USA did great - nobody can hold a candle to it in this kind of thing. America should be justifiably proud of the job done by the first-rate people at JPL/NASA.
All the same there's only one thing worse than a sore loser and that's an ungracious winner. There's really no need to go strutting and preening and engaging in dominance poses about it. It shows quite a bit more class to just win and then be decent about it.
As an european, i want to congratulate america for its achievements. The beagle was not comparable by far to the polar rover (in all areas). Beagle's only merit was to be cheaper. Well, seems we've had bad luck and you had good luck, and we could even say you deserved the good luck and we deserved the bad luck.
So there is no need to party you are number 1 now... we believe you. and luckily nasa officials also don't do that : nasa assisted the projects of its little brothers (esa could even use nasa equipment when we were in trouble, and nasa helped us out a bit in creating the mars express as you can see on nasa's site)
Cue America and European bashings...
First off, for the record, I'm American, supported the war (and voted for Gore in 2000), support Israel and I'm often pissed off at how much Anti-Americanism (oftern, but not always, different than anti-bushism) that I have seen lately.
That being said, I find these stupid NASA/ESA bashings to be so awful. Since 1999, everytime there has been a NASA story on slashdot there have been annoying and STUPID "hey, duh, maybe NASA couldn't tell the difference between metric and English units!" comments. Similarly, after Beagle 2's loss there were equally immature "Ha! Take that Europe!" comments from immature Americans.
The point is, political stuff aside, these missions benefit EVERYONE, not just the country involved. I mean, don't you WISH the russian lander made it to mars in 1996, or that the nasa polar lander landed successfully, or that Beagle 2 didn't die?
I mean, thanks to those failures, we are now maybe 150 years (arbitrary number) away from our first pictures of the surface of the ice caps, or the landscapes that Mars 96 or Beagle would have landed in. Now I doubt we'll know what the chemical basis of the polar ice is for another half-century (who knows... maybe they coulda found it to be a pretty high concentration of a substance that would help human missions for fuel, water, etc). I mean, Mars Climate Orbiter's failure lost us daily weather patterns for a foreign celestial body, but at least it gave trolls good ammunition for Anti-American comments.
So in the end, root for (your side) to win the olympics, be the one whose economy does better or for your countryperson to win the nobel peace prize. That will benefit your country and those are things that you should take pride in. But every scientist in the world has basically equally benefitted from Viking, Venera and Voyager (and especially Spirit/Opportunity - a lot of their data comes straight to the world wide web). Those missions might bring temporary clout and prestige to that country's scientists, but a year later and it's EVERYONE who benefits. That's all I gotta say...
I think we need to consider things like this to be seperate from politics and anti americanism. I am certainly against the american government. I hope we can elect someone else this year. But I am happy this mission succeeded. Not really for the US but for the world. These days projects like this are world efforts. Many of the scientists that have work on this and other missions come from all over the world and are of all different nationalities. So as someone against the american government, I ask that we leave this seperate from politics and just be happy not for america, but for the world.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Crispin
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Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
CTO, Immunix Inc.
Considering the huge Anti-US sentiment on this site, I thought this would be a good occasion to tweak that crowd a little.
Apparently by the moderation, they can dish it, but can't take it.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
First off, congratulations to everyone at NASA and JPL! The landing went off like clockwork. You should be proud. I know I am.
But NASA TV... you blew it. Again.
Here you have this tremendous opportunity to involve Americans young and old with the space program, to get them excited and emotionally invested in space exploration, and what do you do? You show us video of the control room.... with the sound off. You let us in on what the Flight Director is saying, but you don't decode it for the average viewer so they know what it means. You make landing on another freaking planet more boring than most cable access shows. Take a bow.
You didn't even start your coverage until an hour before landing. If you had any vision, you could've made a whole day of it. You could've made it an event. Fuck Survivor, you've got the ultimate reality show! You should've had the whole nation tuned in. Instead they watched a repeat of MAD TV.
NASA TV, wake up! You should be kicking the Sci-Fi channel's ass. Really. I expect more from you in the future.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I really just hope we're seeing the start of a space race again. Even if it's a race to catch up to nasa for now.. Once that's achieved well.. maybe we can see man on mars soon.
I am elated that nasa has landed sucessfully. At the same time, i am still quite sad over the apparent failure of Beagle 2. While I am an American, I dont see this as a "I win, you lose" situation. I dont care who lands a probe on mars, be it us, ESA, China, Russia, etc. Anyone who lands a probe there and gets useful data scores a victory for ALL of us. I also hope the ESA doesnt give up on doing these kinds of missions in the future.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I doubt you'll ever see a NASA team member proclaiming their superiority over the ESA. In fact, more than anyone, they would understand the pain felt by the entire Beagle project team at having lost something that they worked so hard for.
You can be fairly certain that the only taunting you'll hear will come from an uninvolved lay person who's looking for yet another excuse to think that the accomplishments of other people somehow makes them more important.
In short: not all Americans are assholes, though at times we deservedly look so.
In defense of NASA TV, they aren't everywhere, they aren't even in MOST places. I can tell you I know you can't get it if you're in Durham, NC (maybe DirectTV or Digital Cable), but most places have Comedy Central and Sci-Fi on basic cable...the internet feeds don't count...
But, this still doesn't excuse them from making bad tv...
In further defense of NASA TV, their operating budget for the whole year probably doesn't equal the budget of 1 episode of Survivor...then you've gotta bring in ppl over the weekend...or would you want to work all day Saturday???
Of course, I'm not sure they would have wanted to play up this specific mission...I mean, the UK had a failed mission in the last month...the previously failed NASA missions, etc...I'm sure that they must have been crossing their fingers up till the last minute...as for no sound in the control room...they were probably afraid that someone would maybe say something vulgar, talk about mission specific frequencies, etc...then again, it just makes your job easier if you don't have to worry about what you're saying in a high pressure situation...
"If we get good enough at these, I'd love to have a rover to drive all over just to find all the missing missions. "
In 50 years, we'll have the grand "failed missions" tour with a roundabout hovercraft (so's not to disturb the soil) hussling tourists to each site to show the debris of our early attempts at invading this planet. If I were rich, I'd secure this niche and make a pretty penny, maybe even use the proceeds to work on that terraforming plant I've always dreamed of...
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
IIRC, Sojourner landed base petal down too. If it is all by chance, then we've had some very good luck so far with landers!
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Yes, NASA TV could have done better, but I admit that I enjoyed the campy, amateur-hour flavor.
I thought the commentators did a great job, but I found myself wanting more of a raw feed with a lot less explanation. When someone on the flight control loop reports that they've aquired a signal, I don't need someone to repeat that they've aquired a signal. I don't think that Joe Armchair needs it either.
I also found myself wishing they'd be quiet when something was happening. There was incredible drama in the room; some of the commentary got in the way of the story. When someone in the loop says something, the explainer should hush up so we can hear.
Still, great program. I sent the cats flying for cover with my hooting when I heard that they had a safe landing.
Well, I agree with the sentiment on the first paragraph; Lucky. We have lost a number of earlier crafts to mars, including several just recently. I would rather that we have a bit of humility rather than doing a self congratulations. But I am sure that anybody from the line who sees your comment will appreciate it.
I do hope that Beagle2 is alive and well. It is good science that will be surely missed.
So far, we are 100% on this form of landing (Sojourner and Mer-A). As I have mentioned before, I am hopeful that we can start a production line of this vehicle for other countries as well as USA. The British ship was only 60 million, but if we do it right, we can get a production line explorer for less than 100 million. Just add Sci. equipment.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm not sure which is worse: getting your info from Michael Moore or getting it from Noam Chomsky. I find both of those prospects frightening.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
One quick follow-up to my own comment...
To say that the Beagle team has "thrown away" an opportunity was too dismissive and I wish I'd phrased it more tactfully. Those people have dedicated years of their lives to achieving something and, unfortunately, didn't succeed on this occasion. They will, of course, have learned a lot along the way.
I, on the other hand, have done precisely nothing to further science, so I shouldn't be so quick to judge.
I can't believe I am responding to an AC, but here goes...
:)
I am arrogant? How exactly? By paraphrasing what ESA officials gleefully were saying after NASA failures. I am still rooting for Beagle 2.
As Americans we are used to being called every name in the book, it is part of the burden of being the parents of the world. Like children, no one blames others for criticizing the parents (USA) only when the parent fouls up do we get outbursts from everyone.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know it was the communication technology that failed? How do you know it didn't smash into the surface?
We may know something soon on the Beagle 2 front and hopefully it is good news
--Joey
If I had mod points I wouldn't know whether to mod this flamebait (for the "pathetic narrowminded asshole" bit) or funny ("kills this one by friendly fire").
.
But in any case, you've got to admit - there IS no doubt some feeling of rivalry (if not by the scientists themselves, then at least by their paymasters and governmental types) and I would be very surprised to find that the European project funders would be rather... well if not actually "dismayed by the success of the American mission as opposed to the failure of Beagle", and would have, at least on some level, preferred it if this probe had bombed as well.
That said, I've always had a fond image of the "British Boffin" building some really cool high-tech device and it's really sad Beagle didn't make it...
NASA exists because the American governmant makes it so. They fund and organize it. You are clearly wrong when you say you are "against the american government." You may oppose some decisions of the american government, or some politicians, but you are not 'against the american government' as you say. That is a rather juvenile view. NASA is part of the american government. So is our unmatched foreign aid program. Grow.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Perhaps that says more about the Americanisation of my home country (Australia) than anything else, but there it is.
I think that is very common in places where English is the primary language. See, people are hungry for television and movie shows, both of which are extremely expensive to produce. The USA has a well established media industry infrastructure in California and New York. And, having that helps to reduce some of that cost - if you are making a TV show in Los Angeles and need to find a specialty company that lets you rent the use of bizzare things for your shoot, you are likely to find a few companies that will provide that service, no matter how weird the service is.
You can find companies that provide the use of trained monkeys and their handlers for a day, or companies that will arrange and perform an automobile stunt to tape for your show, or companies that will provide the use of a helicopter and stunt pilot on an hourly basis, or companies that specialize in providing you with any sort of strange uniforms you can think of, in any quantity. These sort of things make it a lot easier to produce TV and movie shows in and around Hollywood. (In much the same way that it's easier to buy twenty sacks of corn seeds in a rural farming communitity than in New York city.)
So, anywhere where English is the primary language, American TV and movies get imported a lot because it's cheaper to import an American TV show than to produce one from scratch. So, to fill up all the airtime, a lot of shows get imported. (This is changing as it becomes easier to distribute the media making business to multiple locations when everything is done digitally.)
(And often when people say "American", the Canadians get a bit annoyed because they don't like the US co-opting the name of the whole continent, but in this case it really is appropriate becuase so much of US television and Canadian television are intertwined. Many American "icon" actors are Canadian, and a lot of American TV shows are actually filmed in Vancouver and Toronto. So, in this case, "American" really is an appropriate term.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The problem with "knowing" you are best is that that attitude often results in "knowing" you are best whether you actually *are* or not. That's the attitude that usually brings empires down to their knees. It leads to decadence and decline. It's far better to BEGIN with an attitude of not knowing you are best, looking at the results, and when you *are*, celebrate it, and when you are NOT, have the humility to recognize it. If we don't have that, we'll never be able to improve because we can't tell what's working and what's not.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
About your tagline-
This isn't really a 'rock.'
We live in a biosphere.
And until we're able to transport a reasonably complete mirror of that 'biosphere' your Winnebago-inspired notion that you can hop into a tin can and leave the biosphere you're part of behind is a fallacy.
A Good Intro to NetBS
They were the first place I could see images from Mars - and even now, after the final conference of the evening ended they are just showing a computer screen where someone is kindly cycling between the various panoramas they have so far. At least it's not a static screen any longer!
Looks like they ended up against a nice juicy rock.
And, for the geeky out there I saw a very brief "Gimp" splashscreen.
I am very, very glad to have NasaTV tonight no matter how rough around the edges.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I tend to agree with you regarding NASA TV coverage of the Mars landing. I recall watching on some cable channel (CSPAN?) the Viking landings and Voyager encounters when I was a kid in the late '70s. If I'm not mistaking these were broadcast as well directly from JPL and hosted by Carl Sagan who was explaining the meaning of the images and made it sound really exciting? Does anyone else have memories of these broadcasts? They seem much better than we saw from NASA TV today, but perhaps my memory is foggy.
I'm disappointed that I had to tune in over the Internet. I wish NASA TV could have cut a deal with CSPAN to broadcast the landing live so I could have watched the coverage a television. CSPAN covered the Columbia disaster press conferences in pretty good detail. You think they could have covered the good news from NASA as well.
Beagle2 was a very underfunded craft. Built on the cheap, but the Brits managed to do a great job of it with the money they had.
Also, Britain has historically placed a very low priority (almost non-existant) on space missions of any sorts. I'm sure securing the funding they did get for Beagle was a fight and a half.
Though Beagle's landing operation may have failed, landing is the most difficult and expensive part of the craft construction. But the rest of the construction is important as well and surely they learned alot from it. From what I saw the Beagle2 was a clever, innovative and useful craft.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the USA there is a saying... it's not whether you win or lose, its how you play the game. We all - USA included - have alot more to learn about building reliable spacecraft that doesn't break the bank. There is alot of room for individual innovations in engineering there.
For a first try, Beagle2 was a great craft. I hope a setback as it was doesn't kill future opportunities for space operations there.
-
In the Beagle-Spirit comparison, I think it is important to point out several things:
- Spirit (~$400 mil) has over six times the budget of the Beagle (~$60 mil)
- Spirit is built on the success of Pathfinder.
- This is the European Space Agency's *first* time out to mars, and they attempted a *landing*
- Our first two times out failed (Mariner 3 & 4), and our third was just a flyby for 71 photos. Of course, that was 1969.
- Pathfinder is more recent, cost ~$200 mil... but of course Beagle is not a rover.
- ESA never had a strong national space program similar to the US or USSR for budget reasons, as well as many other factors (natural resources, age and background of the nations it comprises, WW I & II)
Bottom line, a simple comparison is impossible. Even so, here is an attempt: US space program performs better due to being the greatest world power (at the cost of being one of the worlds most hated nations). Money and power are very good for making Martian rovers (and microchips, and wireless networks, and stealth bombers), but they are also good at building inflated self images.
My point? If you succeed, don't gloat, help others.. If you fail, try again.
Nobody knows why Beagle failed. Plenty of Mars probes fail for completely unpredicatable random reasons that aren't clear until years later.The factors named above are all perfectly irrelevent. This thing could have been intercepted by random space trash for all we know, and that wouldn't have been the fault of the ESA. I suspect it's quite the opposite - inexperience combined with arrogance and politics sabotaged Beagle before it ever left Earths orbit.