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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.
Yahoo! We beat the Martian Defense Grid. Up yours Mars!
I have been waiting all week to say that!
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
When will the ESA officially ask us to go find their rover?
BBC News Mars Rover Report.
Press conference here at 9:30pm PST, so in about 25 min.
Nice to hear 'Mars' and 'Successful' in the same post for a change...
CNN had it live, it was pretty cool. If it landed all in one piece and rolls on out in 9 days or so give all those engineers a raise.
Hopefully we'll have as good luck in a few weeks.
Beagle 2 still has a chance when it starts ping flooding on the 5th.
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.
This is a great day for space exploration. We have succesfully completed the most complex engineering sequence ever created by man.
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
cool they finally did it they landed on the red planet
Windows has detected a new device, "Planet Mars". Please insert the disk marked "Windows CD-ROM" and press OK to continue.
Check out the live mission updates on Spaceflight Now:
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.html
I watched it on NASA TV, too. It was quite an exciting ride through entry and landing. We have the second rover landing to look forward to on January 24.
this is my sig
here
Check out #maestro on irc.freenode.net!
I want BOTH to work, dammit!
I've been trying to watch Nasa TV but it won't connect. There's a text-only site that has been updating every few minutes with new info here:
m l
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.ht
I wish Ricardo Montalban could have seen this.
A modicum of snuff can be quite efficacious.
When you think about it we are at the very begining stages of space travel. It is much like the parent says.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Watching on NASATV was a bit trying on the nerves. It went from "Holy shit, we have signal!" to "Oh shit, we don't have signal... try to remain calm" for ten mins, followed by "Woooooo! We found it again!"
Looks like michael achieved the very difficult simultaneous posted/rejected duo.
Here's the rejected post which amounts to a mixed report on the success of the mission, courtesy of Reuters, Space.com and the BBC:
Reuters and the BBC report that the first U.S. Mars Rover - the Spirit - has landed and radioed a confirmation signal, but has since gone silent. NASA/JPL are waiting to learn if it survived. Space.com reports that the Spirit has indeed landed safely.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
While the landing is surely good news, there are still a few perilous moments ahead. To be successful they first have to deflate the airbags, and open module up. Then they must deploy the solar panels in order to get power before sunset or the mission is over. Seems like i remember reading somewhere that they must get the batteries partially charged to survive the intense nights there on the martian surface.
Looks like a picture perfect landing for them so far.. I sure wish them luck.
You know, thanks for posting that! Those tricksy NASA hobbits had me for a moment! I was especially impressed at how they were able to seamlessly fake the live CNN feed from JPL.
Shhh... you're going to make the Martians hate us too.
I'm thrilled they got it there safe....this was the first landing that I watched live on the NASA channel. It had the feel of a local public access program. No one knew how to talk to or look at the camera. I also liked how the "reporter" was pulling people aside for short interviews....like they don't have anything better to do while the Spirit plumits through Mars' atmosphere. It was pretty cool to see all the different reactions in real time though. Good job guys!
-Steve
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
I think you would have trouble sending a signal 10 lightminutes to Earth too if the Earth had set below the horizon. They had to wait for MGS to orbit over it and send back data...
With your probing requests at spirit@nasa.gov. Please, no spam.
Now it would be really cool if it could find Beagle 2.
:-(
Even if it only finds an impact crater
http://www.kubuntu.org/
This is great news, especially considering the not-so-great things that have happened in space recently.
I tried to connect to NASA TV's RealPlayer stream; it was down. Is there a better way to connect, or was that just out from load?
Is the Spirit in range of the Beagle, so it could search for the lost craft?
With the European (ie France and Germany) smugness having their "lesson" in how to successfully complete interplanetary travel fail, it is nice to see that another American "lawn dart", I believe was the term, landed and will provide us with all kinds of new information necessary for manned flight.
All that said, I would have liked for the Brits et al to succeed (I am not lumping the British in the axis of arrogance) because science should take precedence over petty squabbles.
--Joey
The Martian Information Minister reports that there was no successful landing and that Martian air defenses have engaged and shot down their second UFO in just 10 days.
He went on to say that their Defense Minister "Marvin" is working on a uber weapon known as the Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator that will vanquish the infadels in a single Earth shattering KABOOM!
-PizaZ
I believe they've actually landed on the Moon! Some would say the Earth is their moon, but that would belittle the name of their moon... which is the moon.
I may be playing the optimist here, but what if Opportunity also lands safely? Are they going to duplicate the tasking data, divide them, or will Opportunity get some additional assignments? I've been looking around on the NASA pages and couldn't find any answers. Thoughts? Conjecture?
Rover alive on Mars is excellent news, indeed.
This would've been first post if it wasn't for the eight minute delay between Mars and Earth.
Check my site soon for hot, live and free cam shows and exclusive pics.
Love,
Spirit
How true. And what wonderful poop we have flung!
Maybe we should call beagle in for reinforcements?
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.
"All the Earth infidel's space probes were destroyed! There are no Earth probes on mars! Earth probes will never penetrate our atmosphere! Earth probes should surrender now or face certain failure!" /etc, etc
I've been waiting all day to hear this in real-time. I wish the guys on CNN would have shut the f**k up. They didn't know what the hell they were talking about. It would have been much better just to hear the NASA people.
What an idiot. "15 watts worth of information" What the hell does that mean?
He actually then said "they could only transmit tones, because it was only 15 watts."
15 watts is enough to transmit from outside our solar system and has nothing to do with the data rate.
Anyway, it worked! Hurray for NASA and the Taxpayers!
From the Spaceflight now website :
n ly .html
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustexto
0505 GMT (12:05 a.m. EST)
NASA officials will be holding a post-landing press conference at 12:30 a.m. EST.
Does anyone know if this will be on any cable networks?
More like Interplanetary rather than Interstellar.
At least you didn't use Intergalactic. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
Not MPL!! from the 6th floor party
I'm dying to see them. All I see at nasaTV is a bunch of blurry people hugging one another.
Of it's an out of focus microscope pic of amoeba's merging and bouncing off each other.
Congrats to NASA for a successful landing. I've been in the Maestro IRC channel since 11pm, CNN covered it at 11:30, etc. I'm surprised the NASA TV Realserver didn't catch fire.
Lots of countries have been having a field day at us the last few years. Europe is up in arms about our desire to enforce the UN resolutions against Iraq. Asia is going apeshit about North Korea. The Arabs are claming that we're on some kind of holy war to eliminate Islam. And, of course, the recent actions by Heir Bush and Ashcroft's SS organization just provides fodder for the fire of discontent. But, when it's all said and done, when you need to get something done and done right, you're better off relying on the USA to do it. Whether it is freeing Afghanistan from the Taliban, protecting the world from Al Queda, liberating Iraq, or getting a spacecraft to Mars, it's the USA leading the way for the rest of humanity. For all of you anti-American zealouts out there, can we at least get a high-five from you over this? You can go back to bashing us tomorrow but how about one day where we get some recognition for advancing humanity?
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No Text. Nothing more to say.
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/2003/details.htm
I put my name and those of my family on a DVD which was attached by metallic LEGO blocks to one side of the lander module.
It's nice to know that a tiny part of me just achieved a small measure of immortality on another planet in our solar system.
I wonder if in my lifetime I'll get to take a trip there and visit it in person?
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
When we figure satellite link budgets at my work, power is a primary factor, and can affect the targeted data capacity. More power gives you lower error rates at higher link capacities.
--- Ban humanity.
I've voiced my displeasure with NASA before here but I'd like to give mad props to the men and women who made this a success.
Now let's follow up with some humans.
Blaze a trail to the New World
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...
Is the advertisement on SpaceDaily.com for Starburst Memorials where for a paltry $12,500 US they'll launch your full (their emphasis, not mine) ashes into space and let them fall back to earth onto everyone's lunch tray. I'm thinking that's really the best way to go. Yeah.
I'm surprised I haven't seen spam about this one yet. Seems like something everyone's gonna be interested in!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
but that 6 month trip - yaaa.
mars is getting to seem like neighborhood by now.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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
nothing further needed...
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
Cool. The rover is powered by a PowerPC chip:
"The computer in each Mars Exploration Rover runs with a 32-bit Rad 6000 microprocessor, a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC chip used in some models of Macintosh computers, operating at a speed of 20 million instructions per second. Onboard memory includes 128 megabytes of random access memory, augmented by 256 megabytes of flash memory and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory, which allows the system to retain data even without power."
We (US - NASA) have been there twice before sucessfully.
June 1976 Viking I landed at Chryse Planitia
Sep 1976 Viking II landed at Utopia Planitia
Just think, we have 28 YEARS of new technology on what they did back then. It's a greater feat to have done it back in 76'
Perhaps it's a sign we'll get back some of the 2/3 cut in spending Clinton did. Since that cut we've lost several lives & probes. You can't do rocket science on entry lvl I.T. salaries.
It's also a good sign that putting more spending in the program by Bush actually helped.
Premature but hopefully a good sign. Any president of either party that cuts spending on something so important gets my thumbs down. They use their cell phones developed by NASA to make the phone call to cut their spending.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
It's NASA's craft that works when others have failed. Perhaps this is a good sign for things to come...
It is certainly good news to hear of a successful landing, and to anticipate all the information we will receive from this project. And as for the Beagle 2, it was a lot cheaper than Spirit, and if nothing else, we can hopefully use its failure as a useful data point. In other words, the experts may be able to learn the boundaries of exactly what is necessary for a succesful Mars mission, so even a "damn! it failed!" gives us some useful information.
A dingo ate my sig...
Okay, that was probably too obscure. For those that own this awesome movie on DVD, fire it up and switch the audio track from English to Martian and this post will make (some) sense.
The Canberra tracking station in Australia is locked on to the spacecraft's signal, which is 10 bits per second.
wow, 10 whole bits per second. Maybe this one got there because we stopped transmitting the evil bit?
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Like many non-US citizens I get sick of Americans thinking that their country is the best and that other countries are less important. But look at what has happened yet again: Where another country failed, the US has succeeded.
When I hear that the US has successfully landed a craft on Mars, I don't feel particularly surprised. I'd have been more surprised if the mission had failed. But when the Beagle mission (apparently) failed, my reaction was neutral, almost as if I had *expected* it to fail, and a large part of that was due to it being a non-US mission.
I guess my point is this: If you're one of the people, like me, who is sick of Americans thinking that their country is "all that", then this success should be another reminder that as far as the advancement of science and discovery is concerned, their pride may be less patriotic arrogance and more a statement of fact.
Oh and I'm not ass-kissing Americans, I'm just feeling a little angry that another country has thrown away another opportunity of doing something important, only for the US to step in and show us how it's done.
If you want to be the best then actually being the best might be a good place to start. This fundamentally competitive attitude is something that Americans seem to inherently understand and embrace, whereas in other countries it is often frowned upon as distasteful.
The hard part is the landing. If MER-B also survies, it would be nice if L-Mart can start a production line of this vehicle to be loaded with different instruments for different countries. While the price was 400 Million for each of these rovers, in a production line, I would expect the price to drop to 100 Million or less for the base model. Let UK, EU, India, Brasil, and Japan send up working systems with their instruments and their launchers (or with l-marts).
Personally, I am interested in seeing a bunch of these crawl all over mars with all sorts of different science packages.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We even have to bail Europe out of *Mars*.
Where are the t-shirts?
Now now, although I enjoy a good Clinton bashing as much as the next guy, Republicans were in charge of Congress, and thus the purse strings, for the bulk of his tenure. So don't just blame him.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
America once again shows those snobby Europeans how its DONE. Yeah baby!! (But I can't help but wonder why we didn't put a cool beacon composed by an American musician in it.. )
--
om Shanti
Comcast in massachusetts gives you like 300 channels with their $150/mo package, yet I still don't get the NASA channel... I have to hope that headline news or someone else will cover the NASA 12:30AM press conference... which doesn't seem to be happening...
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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.
Well, having been in building 264 at JPL (the MER mission operations building) I must say it was an exciting experience... Everyone was waiting really tense, jumping once or twice at some of the annoucements that sounded bad at first... six minutes from landing to signal confirmation, the longest 6 in my life!
When we got the signal, it was truely spectacular, everyone so excited, clapping, standing and hugging each other with vigorous congradulations. I was fortunate enough to be able to congradulate some of the higher ups (PI Steve Squyres, whom I work for, and Science Manager John Callas).
On behalf of all of us on MER, I'd like to thank everyone that's supported this mission, especially those slashdotters that have vigorously defended the purpose and existance of mars. What we are doing is hard, but not impossible, and we will continue to try until we prevail.
Today we had what I hope was the first of many victories on mars. We should be getting the first image back in a few minutes from the next odyssey pass.
BTW, I'm not sure what the press releases said, but we were very fortunate that the lander landed base petal down, which should speed up deployment significantly as there is no need for the actuators to push against the weight of the rover.
As I said earlier tonight, tonight went so well that it was as if we won the lottery, and by that I mean not just us at JPL but everyone on earth that will benefit from the knowlege we acquire. Congradulations all!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Apparently Beagle 2 underwent a transformation
You deserve it.
Hey, if "Opportunity" makes it as well, NASA will have performed quite the hat trick when you include Stardust.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
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'll be honest, I'm remarkably elated by this whole thing. Mostly because of this huge response on slashdot.
I watched the final seconds countdown on space.com. After they dissapeared, I just imagined what was happening, right then, right now, so far away (bouncy bouncy bouncy).
Then I went to google news. Waited, waited (f5, f5). The first news post I got was by rueters; a little 2 paragraph blurb.
Then I packed up and headed home (I live 20 minutes from work). When I got home I checked news.google.com and was happy to see abc.com and a slew of others getting updates up to thier web servers.
then I checked slashdot and was so happy that so many people had already posted (130 at present), in those short 20 minutes.
I know geeks are suckers for space stuff as is, but I must say that it is encouraging that there is such excitement about. That's all it takes, excitement....well, and a couple billion dollars, and hundreds of great thinkers, and a dash or two of luck. But those all come with enough excitement.
Now for fusion, space planes, space elevators and such (or space teathers).
I'm surprised those martians haven't complained about the amount of spam they've been recieveing lately. They need to prop up that firewall and update those virus definitions or something... Before they know it they'll get some probe claiming to be the South African heir to a fortune, asking them for a small deposite to leverage their millions...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
My name is in a million pieces on Mars - it was on the Mars Polar Lander (2001).
:)
I believe there was also another microchip on another of the mars probes, where your name got on it if you were a member of the Planetary Society but I can't seem to find the link at the moment. I just vaguely remember printing out a certificate a few years ago.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Parent's linked file is 62 MB!
This will not help dispel the "Macs are more expensive" myth...
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html is the starting point. At 12:50 AM Eastern they're streaming live in RealVideo.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
"Hello, we have a collect call from 'Beagle 2', will you accept the charges?"
Now that we finally have a working rover on Mars again, will we once again see Cartoon Netowrk bully NASA around in the naming of rocks?
Man, I wish I had the foresight to record those commercials...
This is like people who claim a really warm day proves global warming, or a real cold one disproves it.
It's just one probe. It doesn't prove American superiority any more than their last 2 (or is it more?) failed Mars probes proved American inferiority.
We could also get into how Beagle was done on something like 1/10 of the budget of Spirit. But it's not important.
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!
They're certainly getting a load test on their Real Media server now.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Here is the breakdown of failures and sucesses.
1964 U.S. launches Mariner 3, which fails after liftoff.
1964 U.S. launches Mariner 4. First successful Mars fly-by in July 1965. The craft returns the first pictures of the Martian surface.
1964 Soviets launch Zond 2. Mars fly-by. Contact lost in May 1965.
1969 U.S. launches Mariner 6 and 7. The two spacecraft fly by Mars in July and August 1969 and send back images and data.
1971 Soviets launch Mars 2. Orbiter and lander reach Mars in November 1971. Lander crashes but orbiter sends back images and data.
1971 U.S. launches Mariner 8, which fails during liftoff.
1971 U.S. launches Mariner 9. Orbiter reaches Mars in November 1971, provides global mapping of Martian surface and studies atmosphere.
1973 Soviets launch Mars 5. Orbiter reaches Mars in February 1974 and collects data.
1975 U.S. launches Viking 1 and Viking 2. The two orbiter/lander sets reach Mars in 1976. Orbiters image Martian surface. Landers send back images and take surface samples.
1992 U.S. launches Mars Observer. Contact lost with orbiter in August 1993, three days before scheduled insertion into Martian orbit.
1996 U.S. launches Mars Global Surveyor. Orbiter reaches Mars in September 1997 and maps the planet. Still in operation.
1996 Soviets launch Mars 96, which fails after launch and falls back into Earth's atmosphere.
1996 U.S. launches Mars Pathfinder. Lander and rover arrive on Mars in July 1997, in the most-watched space event ever. Lander sends back thousands of images, and Sojourner rover roams the surface, sending back 550 images.
1998 Japan launches Nozomi. Orbiter suffers glitch in December 1998, forcing circuitous course correction. Mission fails in 2003.
1998 U.S. launches Mars Climate Orbiter. Spacecraft destroyed while entering Martian orbit in September 1999.
1999 U.S. launches Mars Polar Lander. Contact lost with lander during descent in December 1999. Two microprobes "hitchhiking" on lander also fail.
2001 U.S. launches Mars Odyssey. Orbiter reaches Mars in October 2001 to detect water and shallow buried ice and study the environment. It can also act as a communications relay for future Mars landers.
2003 European Space Agency launches Mars Express. Orbiter and lander to arrive at Mars in December 2003.
2003 U.S. launches Mars Expedition Rovers. Spirit and Opportunity rovers due to land on Mars in January 2004.
Note: I ripped this info from MSNBC.
Life is not for the lazy.
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...
Congrats, I was watching the whole thing on NasaTV the last few hours.
I was curious about the base petal down stop - was there any kind of design (like weighting) to "encourage" it to stop that way, or was it basically like rolling a die and seeing where it landed?
I can't say when I've been so excited about space news as tonight, it was amazing watching the reactions from everyone when they finally got real confirmation is was on the ground OK!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Never mind the cell phones. What about all the Tylenol and Ibuprofen sold as Motrin? Sometimes some really lo-tech stuff comes out of it all, too.
C|N>K
There is an interesting and informative entry on the NASA site regarding how much data can be transmitted back and forth between Earth and the rover:
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/comm_data.html
If we assume best case scenario for the transmission potential stated there and assume the direct-to-Earth rate averages the midpoint between the stated 12000bps and 3500bps, the total daily data for a single Martian day, direct-to-Earth and orbiter relay potential combined, is on the order of 17MB. The total data for the entire mission is on the order of 1,550MB.
Of course, this has to include protocol overhead, error, and operating instructions, but it provides one quantitative, if not qualitative, answer to how much data can be retrieved by the mission. In this case, a bit more than 2 CDs worth.
Didn't hear from the Martian Defense Minister or anything. Actually heard about it while listening to SportsCenter. How about that.
S
/usr/bin/grep -i -E meaning life.txt
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. To me, this wasn't a victory for the United States, this is a victory for all of mankind! We would be foolish not to aknowlege that much of the technology used on this mission came from other countries (and the ideas for them). We may not always see eye to eye, and we may fight ourselves constantly but we are all in this together folks. I will tell you that no one I"ve met here was anything but sympathetic towards the Beagle guys, and we really hope they re-establish contact (though it seems unlikely). Thanks to everyone around that world that contributed to this tremendous success!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
'NASA calling the ESA' "Hello, we have a collect call from 'Beagle 2', will you accept the charges?" -stolen from irc
Few more rovers up there and we can start having some fights.
Make it like the X-Prize. Teams need to launch their bot, land it, and attack the competition.
I was also watching, and while I agree about the sound (how frustrating seeing everyone sitting around chatting without being able to hear!!) but I thought they did an OK job during the entry period with interviews and video. The animation (linked to in other posts) was at least very cool and really well done.
I think they have a pretty low budget, so I'm not sure how exciting they can make it... but I agree that NasaTV could be a tremendous tool for getting people interested in space again. I'll bet CNN helps take up the slack though!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!"
Alright. I'm seeing... scores of bouncing tetrahedrons in slow motion on the Martian horizon with Flight of the Valkyries playing in the background.
I would post non-anonymous but moderators are going berzerk today with negatives based on opinions of their own. Even tho this IS a news site. "news for nerds" ring a bell? Yellow journalism anyone?
You have to remember there are 3 major religious factions in Iraq and the flag wavers were of the 2 non oppressed by Saddam. They have more freedom now but the 1/3 radical faction has the same mindset that the 9/11 hijackers had and they'll literally die trying to stop others from keeping them from their 13 virgins in heaven.
I totally agree with you. Just making some facts straight. We will be in a neverending series of 9/11 attacks just like other countries in the middle east if we don't stop them. It's awesome they have freedoms now they never had before. Unfortunately our world of seperate church & state can't comprehend the world they live in. Church is everything there.
Personally I view it as this: Imagine a month before 9/11 the president says we're invading Afghanistan because they could do substantial damage to us. Imagine now the laughter & hatred as we bomb them before it happened. It's a PROVEN FACT Iraq was pursuing these weapons. Their own scientists said they were but admitted they were not able to complete them.
So...democratic viewpoint, let them finish the bombs & kill thousands of innocent Americans before we react?
THAT is why I switched from democrat to republican. That is also why Bush will win in 2004. Democrats think about it. I was converted by the democratic mudslinging and others are too.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
This craft can move right...maybe it could find Beagle and turn it over.
yes...no???
"linux is only free if your time has no value" - Jamie Zawinski
Ive been wondering about it ever since I heard how they plan to land Spirit. Why not use a parachute? Airbags seem like an awefully tough way to let equipment survive smacking straight into a planet.
Havent you all seen the videos of jeeps and tanks tossed out from the C-130s in Iraq with parachutes? Most of those seem to land just fine.. and it should be easier on Mars..
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Worse than no sound, in the initial moment of excitement, the asian co-anchor guy -and I am sorry, I didn't catch his name- tried to say something (probably really important) but by then, his jumping up and down had unplugged his mic and nobody could hear anything.
He then spent the next 10 minutes wandering around the control room shaking hands and whatnot, so I have no idea what the heck he was trying to say. Nobody will ever know. Data lost.
Get a grip, NASA TV people. 1) Don't have two anchors trying to talk at the same time. I feel sorry for the female anchor who basically just gave up since she could hear the guy, but he couldn't hear her, so he kept interuppting when she was talking. She had to shut herself up to keep it from being a total mess. Poor girl. 2) Geez, please don't have your anchors jumping up and down. It looks goofy. Space is not goofy.
I'm not against celebrations. I'm happy for NASA. I just wish they'd tone it down. On the other hand, if Beagle2 had worked, I can't help but think the Brits would have confined the celebrating to one chap saying "Right, then. Sorted."
Heat inside the warm electronics box comes from a combination of electrical heaters, eight radioisotope heater units and heat given off by electronics components. Each radioisotope heater unit produces about one watt of heat and contains about 2.7 grams (0.1 ounce) of plutonium dioxide as a pellet about the size and shape of the eraser on the end of a standard pencil. Each pellet is encapsulated in a metal cladding of platinum-rhodium alloy and surrounded by multiple layers of carbon-graphite composite material, making the complete unit about the size and shape of a C-cell battery.
On the other hand, what if the probe failed to elude the "Mars Defense System" and crashed like other recent missions? The entire country would have been all pumped up for NASA's version of Al Capone's Vault. I suspect the powers that be aren't confident enough of success to pump these things up anymore.
"In further defense of NASA TV, their operating budget for the whole year probably doesn't equal the budget of 1 episode of Survivor"
Perhaps they should open themselves up to more underwriting, ala PBS. Or perhaps hand it over to PBS (or even C-SPAN) outright.
I hear ya but look it up. He used his line item veto power on this right after he got it. 2/3 spending cuts on defense & in the fine print it included nasa.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
I'm not sure if they have different scientific packages, but on NasaTV tonight in an interview someone was saying that they really have pretty different scientific missions - Spirit (which landed tonight) is there to look at the bottom of a lake bed, while Opportunity (landing later this month) is there to look at a different kind of geologic evidence and thus will be doing different tests and looking for different kinds of things.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The people who 'won' aren't preening about and engaging in dominance poses. They're proud of their accomplishment and busy working at the task of the mission.
The people 'copping the attitude' are just a group of spectators who have nothing to do with the accomplishment. At most they paid some tax dollars toward the cost of the mission.
A Good Intro to NetBS
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, in the NASA press conference they just said the scientific packages are identical (in fact the only difference is a fuse). So regardless of differing intent, they'll be using the same instruments to gather data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anyone know if this is possible? (It's not listed in their channel guide but I was wondering if anyone might know of another name/channel it might be listed under... or any other channel like it.)
I used to leave the NASA channel on all of the time when I was living in my dorm in school... mainly just for the cool video-feeds they'd have from the space shuttles catching the Earth and stars beyond it.
Karma: NaN
A few mins ago.
To look at rocks, and work out if Mars could of once supported life (not "is it currently supporting life).
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
They had the same animation on NasaTV, I was really happy to see a good quality version of this as the ones on the official mars lander site are rather small (and disjointed having interviews in the middle).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
They were fully inflated when it stopped - the gyro sounds like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure they could spare the weight/space when it can just handle righting itself anyway.
Hopefully someone will have the answer!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My local cable doesn't have NASA TV any more. They replaced it with something useful like UPN. So I have to get the internet feed. Well it worked just fine up until they first thought it had landed and then then it died and I couldn't reconnect for about 15 minutes. Probably too much load on the servers? Sometimes the quality seemed as if it was being broadcast from mars.
There did seem to be a fair number of technical glitches between the anchors. You would think if they could land this thing on mars...
I did like the style overall except for the lack of audio.
Lander lander lander lander lander lander lander lander, airbag airbag! Lander lander lander lander lander lander lander lander lander... Ahh, it's a rock! Rock! Ooooh, it's a rock! It's a... Lander lander lander lander lander lander...
(I managed to get that damn badger thing stuck in my head now, just from writing that. I suppose it serves me right.)
about the coverage: You can get Nasa TV anywhere in the US on satellite. That means that in the US, they ARE in most places.
.-.--
C-SPAN is probably the closest to NASA TV and if you look at their coverage, they probably don't have a lot of ppl working for them...they have 1, maybe 2 rooms where they run cameras, and those are stationary...a narrator and pretty basic graphics...sounds like they run the same operations to me...
I stuck with one of the two alternate feeds (that is, not the "primary" one linked on http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/vide o ) and it never went below 45 kbps, which is OK. It had to rebuffer many times, but I never lost more than 15 seconds.
If it's going to be a big night, try to stay a step ahead of everyone else and go straight to the alternates.
One simple rule for its versus it's
It's nice to know that a tiny part of me just achieved a small measure of immortality on another planet in our solar system.
Tangential question - how long can a DVD be expected to last, even in "ideal" conditions? Or is this a special DVD made of materials that will degrade more slowly than ordinary discs?
My name is now on Mars plus my families & my 2 cats name as well. I suppose the usual /. remarks about the 2 cats will follow :P
My fav units are dead Mavs
Actually, that was suppose to happen. One of the missions that W. has postponed indefinatly was the placement of a series of small satellites. These were to work similar to GPS for earth, have different science projects on each, handle communication from mars, to earth, and allow for offloading of cpu processing. Basically, a small cluster of them.
Hopefully, W. will allow the project to get back on track.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
not if you don't have a satellite, which most ppl don't have...most ppl still have good old land-based cable...
I admit that I enjoyed the campy, amateur-hour flavor.
last motel I stayed at had NASA TV, and one morning they had this girl just sitting there smiling at the camera, waiting for showtime. It was so funny, like watching 'behind the scenes tv'. This went of for 5 or ten minutes, and every so often she would make small talk to someone off camera, then resume smiling and waiting.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
...can someone get karma by reposting the *unique* link of the slashdot story.
Of course in the most recent Junk Yard Mega Wars it was the British who bailed the Americans and the french out when they couldn't get their acts together. The brits built a plane that flew quite well on the very first test flight, while the American's never got off the ground and the French nearly crashed sideways. They had to call in the British prop blade master to repair the French blade which had cracked. THen they had to call in the Female British engine master to diagnose and repair why the American's Engine wouldn't start. After all that help the Brit's plane still kicked the french and american offering's butts.
drop light ball
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Those are just the shots in the air, check out what's happening on the ground.
Ahh yes, the main NASA TV Real stream was pretty good... but I managed to grab the links for the two JPL NASA TV servers that mysteriously dissapeared from their website this morning. Thank goodness for RealOne's cache
Worse yet, I'm going to be a prick and not post the links, I have no NASA TV access in Canada except for this, and the JPL server is pretty near perfect. I don't want to lose my server when the coverage starts again at 11pm.
"try doing a little research on some of the conspiracy theories regarding 911, and you'll see some of them are more convincing than the bullshit you've been fed by CNN and its ilk."
No offense (or actually, scratch that) bud, but suggesting that we go looking at conspiracy theories (like all the antisemetic french theories floating about?) is not exactly a point in your favor. How do YOU know what you ARE hearing is true? How do YOU know your GOVERNMENT isn't TELLING YOU what you WANT to hear?
If you are not in Iraq, you have no business making the above statement
--Joey
"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."
Hmmm. American football players and fans come to mind.
--Richard
I put my name and those of my family on a DVD which was attached to....one side of the lander module.
That was brilliant. Now you will get spam from Martians, such as: "Increase all of your penises by 300%! And make them greener too!"
Table-ized A.I.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
It's not just a fundementally competitive attitude. It's knowing you are the best, which doesn't nessisarily walk hand in hand with thinking other countries are less important. It's something every citizen of every country needs-- Absolute pride in ones country and self. yes, that is patriotism in self and country, as bad of a word that seems to be at times. I actually see a problem with any countryman who doesn't see their coutry as the best, be it the USA or Uganda... That sense of self-worth is priceless and there are plenty of countries out there who give themselves a bad inferiority complex, or their people one.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"... Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser....
Didn't he lose the court case for slapping a soldier?
Table-ized A.I.
Why is throwing money at something considered good policy?
Perhaps it's a sign we'll get back some of the 2/3 cut in spending Clinton did. Since that cut we've lost several lives & probes. You can't do rocket science on entry lvl I.T. salaries.
It's also a good sign that putting more spending in the program by Bush actually helped.
I hate to break it to you, but the Mars Exploration Rover budget was set years ago, long before Bush took office. It's definitely part of the "better, faster, cheaper" program, with a budget of well under a billion dollars. There's virtually nothing Bush could have done - throwing more money at it couldn't have increased the chance of success, and there would have been no way to take money away without basically cancelling the whole mission. Maybe sending one rover instead of two, but that wouldn't have saved much except the fuel.
I knew it could right itself (also shown in the animation) but still it seems like a lucky break to have it land in the position where it takes the least time to unfold!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm watching the live conference. Odyssey reports the Rover is healthy, we are expecting Mars pictures tonight. Cool!
"...much of the technology used on this mission came from other countries (and the ideas for them). "
;-)
And most of the people at NASA (or their recent ancestors) also came from other countries. There were probably even some Canadians involved and that's very convenient because if something should happen to go wrong we can simply blame them
Available only as BitTorrent:
Download torrent here.
As immortal as a DVD in a martian sand storm?
Rover information coming down in this order. Engineering, thumbprint images, full frame images. At 1:25AM CST 24Mbits downloaded and 8 minutes before the engineering data is complete and thumbnail pictures starting. Anticipated 12 minutes to transfer 24Mbits total.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
So you have a 1/3 551 645 chance of get the littering ticket when it arrives?
Not intelligent life, that's for sure! [cerdip.motime.com]
---- ---- --- -- --- ------ Keep Cool But Do Not Freeze
There were a lot of space-related exhibits and vendor booths set up at the Pasadena Civic Center, with a promise of live telemetry from the Pathfinder craft and Sojourner rover. The images were slow in coming and not very clear. Not too many people I felt interested in talking to (although I missed a chance to chat up Robert Zubrin), so I headed out by myself in a GPS-equipped rented Taurus that always kept me on track out there. I drove past the San Gabriels which glowed eerily red from wildfires, and out to the Mojave, where hot dry winds blew hard all around me. I got out of my car and experienced the numbing silence and total darkness of the desert. I drove back a few hours later, and couldn't fathom returning to the Civic Center, so I simply alternated between visiting the desert and eating lots of Thai and Vietnamese food.
my bad... 1999. I mixed MPL '99 with Mars Apex 2001 which was cancelled right after MCO and MPL's failure. Wow... wonder why i made that mistake...
"Thank God my dear cousin has landed okay. My whole family was really worried. I lost my voice in a similar landing back on Beta Tritonia, having to beep or type to communicate now, so I know what Spirit was going through."
--R2D2--
Table-ized A.I.
That is by far the funniest post I have ever read.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
I heard rumors the Beagle was running WindowsSE (Windows Solar Explorer).
:-)
Just goes to show, if you want a system that works you use a PowerPC!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Since throwing 1/3 less $$ meant no redundancy or error checking budget and lives were lost.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Cutting spending by 2/3 hurt the program. You can't deny that. Giving them more $$ had to help. I don't see how you can deny that.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Watching Nasa TV is obvious that the JPL runs gnome with sawfish. Images are here!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Check out NASA TV streaming..they're excited..
= Grow a brain...
Does anyone have the pictures? They aren't really well visible on NASA TV, especially the streaming version.
"First" photos have arrived from Mars! Much faster that those I saw from Viking in '76
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
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.
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040104image1.h tml
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
...just relayed from the Rover through a Mars Odyssey uplink can be found here!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
This is ridiculously low-quality, but here's a screenshot of RealPlayer's stream of NASA TV from a few minutes ago. I'll post more pictures if I get anything good, but probably the real, high-quality images will be online within the hour. The first image here is of one of the mission control computer screens showing the images downloaded, including one image of the rover itself.
This can't be true. We American males do NOT ask females for directions! j/k of course for you psycho mods out today...sheesh.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
In black/white:
1 .h tml
t im age1.jpg
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040104image
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/images/firs
NASA now has the latest pictures of Mars. Tune into NASA TV to see them. They are not published on the web as of yet.
Is it me, or are these announcers just really annoying? I mean, why do we need anouncers asking inane questions and talking over all the really interesting information? This isn't a football game!
here
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
here
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
And then, the pictures come in, and they can't even get a direct image onto screen. You;d think with months to plan they'd come up with a direct hook-up for the first pics.
And I wish that gal would shut up so we can hear what is going on.
Heck, the comentators were yakking away when cheers went up from the first engineering data -- and they had no idea what had just happened in the control room.
Humph.
I for one welcome blah blah blah.
That would be awesome, but unfortunatly the other rover is landing on the opposite side of the planet, so it's not gonna happen. :(
I've been mirroring all of the official images from SpaceFlightNow.com and www.jpl.nasa.gov plus some screenshots from the NASA TV stream and the Planetary Society stream:
http://spaghetticode.org/spirit/
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.
-
considering the mission control room is filled with sun stations, i'd say solaris with cde or openwindows.
It's been a while, but I'd swear that's a Sun desktop running Motif as a WM. Not sure about that though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
'Open Source is good' - Steve Jobs
'Pass the ketchup' - IBM
A Good Intro to NetBS
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Incredible, after 7 years of waiting after Pathfinder on 1997, we got a new lander in Mars!
Congrats to MER team and to all Mars geek out there!
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Pu238 is used in radiothermal generators. Pu238 (an isotope which is completely useless for weapons...) generates large amounts of heat through decay which is converted to electricity. This heat through decay process is one reason why fission weapons can't be made with it, its too unstable.
Also, it readily binds into an oxide which can be turned into a ceramic material which is whats found in the titanium shelled RTG canisters. This is a very safe way to handle it. One reason is that in the event of explosion or re-entry disaster, titanium is very strong and unlikely to break open. Second, even if it does, the ceramic-oxide will tend to form dense clumps as opposed to dust particles, which is how plutonium is harmful.
Did you know you could eat a piece of plutonium and would suffer no ill effects? It would pass through you before doing any real damage. Breathing microscopic dust particles is another matter, however.
Virtually all long distance probes use it, as solar power generating ability drops off quickly from distance from the sun. ie, Solar cells on mars will only generate half the wattage they do on earth. Go out far beyond mars and you'll get virtually nothing.
-
When I say the US government I mean the current elected federal government. I mean the Bush administration but I hesitate to use that phrase because it isn't just the Bush admin, its most of the administrations the US has ever had.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm not sure where your "here" is, but in the State of Illinois I still find new episodes of Junkyard Wars (now called just Mega-Wars) being shown on TLC. If all you watch is Discovery (Monster Garage), no wonder you don't see it.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
here
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
You my friend are evil. Pure evil.
Though I'd do the same in your position.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. - Robert Anson Heinlein
Since I can't find it on TV anywhere, here's the video streams I've been watching.
NASA TV 1
NASA TV 2 - (looks better quality to me)
AC
Nixon pulled the plug on Apollo and Johnson was more than happy to spend a little pork. They both ran into a little budget problem in SE Asia. Today we need more positive politics for Space from both parties in the US, and to give credit where credit is due: to the Euros, the Russians, the Japanese, the Chinese, and all the rest. Goodwill to humans and Martians alike!
"...while history is usually explicable it is often irrational" --Roger Spiller
Noam Chomsky? Good God. He's the most anti-American guy out there. Learn. Learn some more.
- Image 1
- Image 2
- Image 3
- Image 4
And a slideshow with even more images here.
well clearly he is anti american policy. But he backs up what he says. Surely you aren't saying anyone that is critical of america is evil?
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
French antisemetic "theories"?! Oh, boy, where do I start? How about recently, when a French "comedian" Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala was reprimanded by the producers of "You Can't Please Everyone" on state-owned France 3 television, for appearing on their show dressed as an Orthodox Jew and shouting "Heil Israel" while making the Nazi salute--although the producers were too cowardly to label this as the outright Jew-hatred that it was. Now this antisemitic bastard is demanding an apology and threatening to sue France 3: Fury at French comic 'Heil Israel' jibe.
Whoopty F*ckin' Doo! Sorry to rain on NASA's parade, but I think this whole thing just goes to show how far the US space program has fallen. Being ahead of everyone else in a particular endeavor doesn't mean you're where your potential dictates you should be. I watched the whole press conference on CNN and I was totally unimpressed. NASA is still unable to recapture the wonderment and fascination that it did during the Apollo missions and the early years of the shuttle program. Inspiring the tax payer is what makes NASA tick but there's just not much going on there that the average citizen could give a damn about. Maybe if they'd come out of their shell and take a REAL risk on something inspiring then they wouldn't be in the budget straitjacket they are now. Instead they send RC cars to Mars and exploding gliders into low orbit. I'm more excited about the X prize contest than I am about another damn Mars rover. Sheesh, you'd think they could try and land something near some interesting topography. "Hey, look! There's a rock! And look...a hole with dust in it!"...Yeah, bet that inspires the school kids and makes people want to reach into their pocket for a wad of cash. Now, if I get any replies from this they will undoubtedly be of the "You don't understand" or "Your a troll" type but the truth remains the same. NASA is dead; they just don't know it yet. If you want to support the space program, give money to Burt Rutan or John Caramack.
Yeah, but that's only so exciting because it seems to be the only place the English allow themselves to show emotion.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. - Robert Anson Heinlein
A few additions:
NASA can only really do so much, why isn't the President or anyone else in government there too cheer them on? This is almost a BILLION dollars worth of science here. It seems to be that "Boring science" is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Don't laugh too hard now. The 1997 sojourner was a media success beyond measure and news stations could have had a Mars countdown with experts, commentary, and animations, etc.
Instead, there's light coverage, next to nothing on live coverage, and thus the importance of these Mars missions are lost on Joe Sixpack.
If these missions are "egghead science" and of no interest to the everyman, its because government and media have failed us.
This is not flamebait, but if Al Gore was president (or another person clued in on technology) something tells me this event would be presented to the world in whole different light.
It may very well be that the last 20th century and the early 21st century will be known to later generations as a time of space pioneering both in the public and private spheres. Its a shame its not very accessible to the layman living in these times.
Image 1 Screencap
Image 2 NASA Folks looking at image
Image 3 360' shot
Image 4 NASA Folks looking at 360'
Image 5 panorama
Image 5 Large larger panorama
Image 6 first image before contact
.html
and if you havent noticed already just change # on the URL for the latest:
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040104image #
Oh yeah, and I second the fact that NASA-TV should have made this a big event but:
a. What cable provider has NASA TV anymore, I think the general american public lost their space spirit (no pun intended) after the first few apollo missions.
b. Ok, so hypathetically, if it were a big event like, say, the first moon mission, and it failed horribly, that really wouldnt help the american general public moral, now would it.
I'm sure the CNN bit tomorrow will suffice for most people and as for those interested, check out this site for tons of images and some beautiful animations and video clips.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Oy. They're not Anti-US. They're Anti-Mainstream-US-Society.
Foreigners love me, but then I don't exactly act like the rest of you.
But NASA TV... you blew it. Again.
I got to watch it with about 600 other people at my local science museum (via satellite feed). They had 300 chairs in an auditorium, playing it on a huge screen. When that filled up, they quickly scampered to get it playing on the ceiling of the planetarium. When that filled up, they played the audio in the hallway for everyone left.
I admit it was pretty damn dry, but watching it with a few hundred other people helped fill in the dull moments. A hush over the entire room as we wait for word from the relay. Cheers when the word was recieved. Fun stuff.
And I only saw one guy in a cloak.
Hi-res images (that aren't just screencaps from NASATV stitched together) are starting to appear on the NASA press site. The first is here.
Our government-funded space exploration program is sort of caught in a loop-hole: The missions are boring to the public, so NASA gets less funding, and since NASA has less funding it can only afford to make "cheap" robotic missions. Exploration with humans being is just prohibitively expensive.
Space exploration will really pick-up only when private enterprises find a way to make money from space exploration, and space tourism is certainly NOT the only possibility. There are trillions and trillions of dollars worth of various rare materials and metals on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids.
Oh, and Spirit landed in the middle of such a "barren" dried lakebed on purpose: the sedimentary nature of the rocks make them ideal for checking what climate conditions they experienced in the past, and thus to see if life could have survived there. And a sandstorm recently scrubbed the surfaces of the rocks and soil clean, an even better situation.
And don't forget that a second, identical rover will land in a completely different part of the planet in a few weeks.
If it's not boring (in the way you mean--I was enthralled), then it's not science, it's just another empty (and disappointing) pop event. Perhaps you'd have had Bono and Britney Spears host the event, commenting on the impact Mars has had in their lives and the clothes the mission control people were wearing. Arnold could have arrived in person to give a surprise congratulatory speech to the crew on behalf of the state of California.
I'll take NASA TV as-is, thanks.
Given that the majority of /. readership is actually American, perhaps it was your fellow compatriot moderators, not wishing to be associated with your view ....
:-(
I say "way to go, Spirit", as a UK citizen, by the way; and I'm hoping that Beagle is still sending the 'where the **** are you' message to the orbiter, but realistically, there's not much hope now
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
wait.. what's this image?
that's a polar projector!
Wow! It's a polar projector!
-metric
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.
is the year of NASA so far..
on friday, stardust succeeded in the main objective of its mission..
Saturday, mars lander lands successfully.
2 days in a row of good luck, that's good signs for them, in more ways than one.. many politicians are probably impressed right now, and that usually means more cash for the space agency, and with the space race being re-kindled, we're going to se a lot of cash flowing into NASA soon enough.
oh, and I bet the spririt will find the beagle...
it'll more than likely be wandering around in martian traffic, or get run over by the spirit.
...the USA stopped spending big money on military and founding dictatorships in South America and elsewhere and started to devote herself to rightful goals, for example:
* space exploration
* providing health care to all her citizens
* getting something done about that 20% of American children who live under the poverty line
* paying the UNO debt...
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
I don't think it's because NASA missions are boring that they're not funded. It's because everything that isn't military has a hard time getting funding in America.
Well done NASA: space probes usually have only a 50% chance of success. Now just imagine what could be accomplished if the US government diverted even one-tenth of its $400bn annual defence budget onto space exploration.
"you should tell that to the women of afghanistan who can now go to school and make a future for themselves"
Yes it is indeed excellent that women in Afghanistan once again have access to education for themselves and their (female) children, I say "once again" because the Soviet Union also encouraged female education and careers during its occupation during the 1980's. This sadly came to an end (the education not the occupation) when the fundamentals seized control of the country after the Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops.
APOD as usual as something, though at this time just an artist rendering. APOD should have some good actual pictures posted in coming days.
... God Bless Nate Poole)
(Extral NFL Play-off SIG
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
So, please, mod this down too: I've got karma to burn.
I'd rather the US government devote itself to really rightful goals, like:
* Letting me keep more of the money I earn
* Reducing spending on unnecessary stuff like space exploration, health care, poverty
* Increasing funding to the military and courts to the proper levels
* Getting out of the UN, since it obviously is not in our best interests to be a member
[ home ]
The rover is the size of a desk, unlike the tiny sojourner rover. Remember all those 'boulders' you saw in 1997? they were often the size of a golfball or a bit larger, and looked huge due to the camera being very near the ground. Not this time. This rover includes a 'mast', which carries a pair of stereoscopic cameras at a hight of just over four feet (!), which is GREAT for geologists. Remember, these rovers are geologists, not biologists. Sometime in the future, followup missions will carry out biological experiments where the scientists get indications there's a good chance of finding life.
A future (don't hold your breath) rover will be nuclear powered, and thus will be able to last ALOT longer (maybe even years) performing experiments at dozens or even hundreds of sites.
This rover can move at a rate of about 100 meters a day. The last rover, Sojourner, traveled about 100 meters in its entire lifetime.
Live NASA feed:e r/live.rm - higher quality transmission
http://realserver1.jpl.nasa.gov:8080/ramgen/encod
http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram - busier mirror, so usually lower bandwidth
I've seen speeds up to 350kbit, though since the landing the best I can get is 220kbit off the first link and 85-128kbit off the second link.
I put mine on the Mars Polar Lander, after what happened there I figured I'd better not risk putting my name on anything else
I swear I heard that we got a ransom message from Mars -
..."
"We got Spirit! Yes we do!
or wait, was that from the Titans' game yesterday?
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
I'm happy for NASA's and USA's part and their achievement in yet again landing a probe on Mars, but also annoyed by people who go "take that, Beagle 2", "USA 1 - ESA 0". Like it was a competition... These are no better than anti-US zealots to me.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
These missions always succeed in bringing more atmosphere to Mars, one air bag at a time.
Whether they burst or deflate normally, the missions have the side effect of bringing a little more gas to the little planet.
Nope, the rockets slowed the descent to zero vertical velocity and let the rover drop from about four stories.
Congratulations NASA!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
First off, thanks for that comment! As a engineering scientist (ok, I'll admit it, a European one ;), I'm thrilled to see that we've gotten a step further in exploring Mars. The flag on the probe doesn't matter the slightest. So yes, from a common interest viewpoint, we're all in this together.
However, are we also in this together in terms of the exchange of data? That is to say: can European research institutions (and, for that matter, research institutions around the globe) get access to the data obtained by the MER? One does need data if one wishes to perform research after all... Given that that are lander->orbiter->Earth relay agreements between Europe and the US, are there also such agreements for the data that is obtained? And, the other way around, in the unlikely case that Beagle 2 starts to whine at Januari 7th, is there any agreement such that US folks can use that data?
Can anyone reassure me here? ;)
On a side note: I do realize that a good deal of money has been spent on these missions, and that from an economical viewpoint, it seems only fair that the people in the country of which the tax-payers paid the mission could use the data. Personally, I strongly disagree with that, for two reasons.
First, science is a collaborative effort. IAAS (I Am A Scientist), and I know that sharing some data and ideas with other groups (even if those groups are competitors in your field), usually benifits both. In that way, I would be bad to allow only US researchers to get access to the data.
Second, exactly how much money was spent here? Let's take the two rovers together, and take a pessimistic view and assume that the total cost will be around 1 G$. Now compare this to, say, the production costs of the LOTR trilogy, which is about 400 M$. Then these missions cost only twice that, or about $4,- per citizen. (Or, since we are all in this together, about 15 cents per world citizen). Sure, the economical benefits of making a movie occur on a short timescale (a few months, or years at most), but the benefits of of Mars research will benefit us on the long run (hundreds of years)!
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
Spirit to NASA "Hello World" ...
SCO to NASA "Pay us for our trade secret C code"
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Well, that clearly makes NASA the mosts expensive ISP not only on planet earth, but also in the Solar system, and their bandwidth cap is something horrible. I'm sure the Martians will appreciate it when competition finally gets to Mars, that is until they discover the pleasures of junk mail and spam.
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.
Sorry, but from where I sit I see any loss of any scientific experiment as a loss to all the people of the planet. Who cares about nationality? It's the data that's important.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Considering that the atmosphere of mars is just 1% of Earths and that parachutes are not enough to slow the Landers down-retro rockets and airbags are needed as well-I think I just realised a potential source of aid right here on this board for both the Martian atmosphere and the airbags: One hell of a lot of hot air!
It would be rather pathetic if this mission failed, considering that the US has proven to be quite good in shooting things at other things with very high precision. Let's just call this a nice one for the world, humanity.
There's a crumpled Coca Cola can visible in one of the pictures? Could it be that this is actually the Mojave Desert?! ;-)
-psy
I meant to say the French theories were largely anti-semetic, not that there was a theory that the French are anti-semetic, that has already been well established. Plus the fact that 10% of their population is arab doesn't help in that regard.
--Joey
You're being a little picky. When the parent poster says he's "against the American government", I rather think he meant he doesn't like the policies of the current administration. When someone says, "I hate the government", they don't usually mean, "I hate every government agency, including the police, NASA, the military, and any governmental scientific research programs." So stop being so picky with your words :)
Secondly, an unmatched foreign aid program? Well... I suppose you could put it that way. Whilst the US did put away 12.9 billion for Official Development Assistance (foreign aid), as a percentage of GDP that's only 0.12% of the US's wealth. That's not much in comparison to how much the US makes.
In fact, the following countries donate more of their GDP to foreign aid: Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, France, Finland, Switzerland, the UK, Canada, Germany, Spain, Australia, Portugal, New Zealand, Japan, Austria, Greece and Italy.
benna is not wrong when they say that they are against the American government. There are many Americans who are against the American government. I'm an anarchist and have worked for the demise of the U.S. government for most of my life (I'm 30-something). I'm also against all governments, including this pesky Martian one that keeps shooting down these probes.
Cheers to NASA for getting this one right. A Bronx Cheer to all the peeps who wave their stupid American flags about this news. Let's support a truly international space program and not these backward notions of nationalism.
I don't look on this as an American success or a NASA success, or, indeed, a European failure. This is a success for human space exploration, and hella cool at that. It's all just baby steps into outer space, but we're getting there, we're getting there.
So, where next? Europa?
qntm.org
I'm an American who is tired of the jingoistic nonsense spouted on this website. "America" did not land a probe on Mars. This successful landing was the product of hard work by a large number of talented individuals and organizations. Give these folks credit, not some inane bumper sticker patriotism.
It's because they used a Ford engine. Had they used a Chevy, it would've run the first time and they could have focused on kicking England's ass. :)
Disclaimer: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I just like taking stabs at Ford from time to time.
Like what I said? You might like my music
The AC is correct in that the US does not send almost all of it's aid to Israel. More goes to Russia than Israel, and US foriegn aid is pretty well spread out. Of course, if you measure US aid as a percentage of its GDP, the US doesn't send very much at all, less than many other nations, including much of the EU. Denmark tops the scales with nearly 1% of it's GDP going to foreign aid. The US manages ten times less.
:)
Whilst it isn't a bad aid program, it's certainly not "unmatched". The EU member states together send out twice as much aid as the US. 27 billion dollars of aid compared to the US's 12.9 billion.
But it certainly doesn't go all to Israel
...and ttl=239 8 minutes (oops).
No.
I'm happy to report thatThe Floating Head of Ayn Rand made it too. Congratulations to everyone at NASA and A=A!
Carousel is a lie!
I have constructed a 3D stereoscopic image from a couple of the images I found. You'll have to wrangle with your eyes to get the effect but here it is in case you want to see. Interstingly enough the effect does sort-of increase the resolution, and gives you a better view of the rock in the background.
i f
...
http://www.blackapology.com/downloads/3d_rear.g
have fun
(if anyone else makes another 3d pic please post it under parent)
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
You know every Mars mission has to traverse millions of mile of space which have high levels of radiation. Plus mars is a huge planet so if something did go wrong and radioactive material did disintigrate in the atmosphere nobody would even be able to notice it, and it certainly wouldn't impact other missions. That said, it's always good to hear from the lunatic fringe ;-)
Do me a favor and double it!
You can check it here
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
If we get rid of all "national" governments and yet have an international space program (perhaps interesting goals), will we not need an "international government" to fund (and supervise) it?
Apparently the immortal Maya Buttreeks made it on the DVD.
It is not always wrong to kill. Death and killing is always the worst thing possible, but killing is not always wrong. For instance, The World and especially Europe should have intervened in Yugoslavia as soon as it was clear civilians were being executed en masse and starvations was occuring in camps. They did nothing until the US took the lead, and even the US was far too late. I don't think the approach of the current American administration is correct in many areas (especially the military tribunals for trying suspected terrorists) and I will probably vote against Bush. However, I do think that overall the US has been a force for good in the world. By the way, look up what the estimated cost in lives an American invasion of mainland Japan would have been, plus the unavoidable Soviet invasion? Don't even try to make the US out to be an evil force in WWII. Sorry for the rant, but as an American I'm tired of listening to this bullshit directed against Americans personally.
Yeah, and they really don't know shit about mainstream U.S. society, either. They think bad Hollywood movies are a clear representation of everday American life. Mainstream American society is a lot like life in most other contries, abeit with somewhat worse taste.
The troll or the pathetic simpleton who bites?
Oh wai
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Noam Chomsky? Good God. He's the most anti-American guy out there.
More important, he's known to distort or selectively cite facts to advance his own political views. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "lying", but he's not a dependable source of information if you really want to learn about a topic in depth. He's an unrepentant apologist for totalitarianism and genocide (Cambodia being the worst example), as long as he can make America look bad in the process.
I'm a lifelong moderate/liberal, and I'm ashamed of what Reagan, Nixon, Kissinger, or any of their ilk did to the Third World, but Chomsky is the worst kind of charlatan, and totally blind to the disastrous effects of Communism in the last century. The right side won the Cold War, and he still can't come to terms with that.
stop bashing the poor beagle 2 it has given us an excelent reason to send a man to mars, is necesary to send someone up there and press CTRL + ALT + SUPR on its console to get beagle again online
And I have prayed unto You, O Lord U**X in the time of the Will of Linux.
Unless you're interested in geology, this is just dull. This mission is mainly to study rocks. The pictures sent back could be a barren scene from earth - nothing we haven't seen before. I honestly don't get it. There's no big news here. I think JPL overhypes these missions as "big scientific breakthroughs" to justify their funding. Like that mission that landed on Mars on July 4th a few years back - obviously timed to to inspire nationalism, etc. More JPL hype.
well, maybe once they're done with testing rock samples they can send it off to locate Beagle2.
Software Freedom Day!.
Go into everything with the attitude that you are the best and you'll never notice the difference between when you are right about that and when you are not - and your arrogance will piss off everyone else.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Whether or not you have a satellite dish and receiver, the coverage is still available.
.-.--
Ah, saw it as well. The americans *did* get it of the ground in the end. They also built a plane modeled after the Wright brothers' design, not the easiest plane to model after, but they did it as a tribute to the Wright brothers. Yes, I live in the UK and I thought the UK team did a marvelous job, even if I suspected the UK pilot having a death wish pushing his plane so far! ;-)
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
America consists of many other countries as well, so TV or movies produced by the US and Canada can't be accurately being called American in any sense.
Mexico and Brazil produce soap operas that are imported to Russia and the far east, thes countries, Cuba, and Argentina have a movie industry with a long tradition that has been badly damaged by cheap imports from the US.
So no, the US is not America, and the clearest indication comes from the name of the country itself...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
- That considers creationsim worthy of teaching in science classes?
- That regularly has major publications analyzing the power of praying to combat ailments?
- That bans basic research (stemm cells) due to religious zealotry?
- That regularly has people complaining to magazines for giving Evolution to much credence?
Honestly, relative success in one very narrow area does not mean great successes in others.
You should also consider that the USSR was beating the US on space exploration until the landing on the Moon after that both countries remained pretty much on the same level, each branching on niches (the USSR created a fantastic body of knowledge regarding long stay in space, the US perfected low orbit flying to the point of making it commercially viable).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Good, I'm happy for you. Europe is okay; I've lived there. Lots of old building and high taxes. And it's finally trying to eliminate its stupidity about borders, after producing most of the ills of the century and bearing the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of millions. And then you can count other European creations like Prussian militarism, fascism, naziism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism, and, generally, all the inane notions about statism that sucker people into trading their individual liberty for the glorification of the state, all in the name of nationalism and racism. And, of course, there's that matter of recurring genocide.(Don't forget the Armenians, although a lot of Europeans still can't convince themselves that Turkey is part of Europe...wrong genes and all that.)
So, enjoy the "superior quality" of your life in Europe, the land of czars and Bismarks; of mustard gas and trench war; of Napoleon and the guillotine; of Franco and Mussolini and Hitler; of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Srebrenica and all the rest.
And, no, I don't care if you are photographed and thumbprinted when you enter the U.S. Entering the U.S. is a privilege, not a right. So long as people from outside the country want to come here nad kill Americans, whatever we can do to find them and arrest them is just fine with me. It's the terrorists who are restricting my freedoms, not my government.
It's only guilt-ridden Euro-whining lefties who wallow in guilt about crimes commmited by terrorists. They'd blame the victim for getting in the way of a murderer's bullet.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
"Curses, foiled again! I'll get you, Red Planet!"
Constitutionally Correct
There, no karma bonus so I won't waste too much mod points...
Hi, I was just reading your last posted comment wich was about movies, but that discussion is closed and I can't reply there (I had missed it, saw it was there when I meta moderated a comment from it).
Well, I mostly agree with you, except that you liked T3, and I can't fanthom why.
Of course, I'm asking you to reply off-topic too, wich is icky, but if you have a better idea, I'm all ears (maybe a journal entry or something, where we won't be OT?)
Aaaanyways:
I was severely disappointed by the Matrix sequels more than anything else. Those who respond that I "just don't get it" are missing the fact that while the IDEAS were sound, the EXECUTION left everything to be desired. A movie needs STORY, PLOT and AUDIENCE EMPATHY to be successful, not just eye candy, which while great doesn't keep you coming back over and over again.
But...T3 was all eye candy!
I felt actually insulted by that movie, I wanted to ask a refund, it was the worst movie I had seen in years, but you liked it, and then you didn't like M3 for very legitimate reasons that should make you not like T3 too...
So I'm confused and genuinly interrested in your thoughts on T3 (I also want to give you a few examples of mind-boggin awfullness from T3) : )
Sorry about the OT reply folks...
You can't take the sky from me...
email me at quizo69@NO_SPAMhotmail.com if you want really in depth discussion, but basically, T3 for me, whilst undeniably eye candy, still managed to make you care for the characters and best of all, had a great ending that didn't sugar coat anything. The way in which they realised they weren't going to be able to stop the nuclear war was very poignantly done IMHO.
Anyway, to keep this short, email me if you want more discussion!
Visceral Psyche Films
Hmm... cat_byte, I just skipped over a metamoding a mod on your post as interesting because I can't find any proof of what you speak. So I am curious. Could you please point me to hard numbers and facts that prove your point... it will not help the metamod, but it will help me in knowing if what you say is true.
Even though I feel a hint of sarcasm here I'll cut & paste so you don't have to look up the very first google hit I found.
/ 4/ 123904.shtml
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/2
NASA budgets since fiscal year 1992:
1993 $14.309 billion, existing NASA budget when Clinton took office;
1994 $14.568 billion, $259 million increase, first Clinton budget;
1995 $13.853 billion, $715 million decrease;
1996 $13.885 billion, $32 million increase;
1997 $13.709 billion, $176 million decrease;
1998 $13.648 billion, $61 million decrease;
1999 $13.654 billion, $6 million increase;
2000 $13.601 billion, $53 million decrease;
2001 $14.253 billion, $652 million increase;
2002 $14.892 billion, $639 million increase, first Bush budget;
2003 $15.000 billion, $108 million increase (estimated);
2004 $15.469 billion, $469 million increase (proposed);
So, during the Clinton years it was cut by 784 million dollars. During these 10 years the expenses naturally increase as their income substantially decreased.
George W. Bush has increased NASA's funding in each of his three submitted budgets since taking office. Those increases have totaled $1.216 billion.
Notice now our landers are actually making it there and for the first time I heard them actually talking about redundant systems. For the last 10 years all I heard about was how they had to build a spacecraft on a budget as small as a car dealership spends on a prototype car. Also remember how much of their budget has been redirected to launches for the ISS and keeping vehicles twice the age of my car running.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Thanks!
So anybody with the audacity to criticize or lampoon anybody who happens to be Jewish or Israeli is an anti-semite?
Kind of like here in America, where everyone who opposes affirmative action is a KKK loving hatemongering racist.
Just so's I understand.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Republicans don't seem to be for small government; Bush increased spending. I agree with much of what republicans say they are for, but very little of what they truly are for.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park