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Spirit's First Mars Images
An anonymous reader writes "First panoramic and overhead polar views of Mars, a quarter billion miles away are available. Some spectacular examples and accompanying commentaries are at NASA's Astrobiology Magazine, and JPL."
Hey, that's just Tatooine. Man, what a rip-off.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
The first image suffers from low-light "auterco-feedback" and the rest from "vacuum malaise". There are several distracting artifacts, and it looks as if they all underwent airbrushing before final release.
Is there any known way to take clear, reality-matching photos of Mars and get them back to Earth OK?
I read at the JPL site that the next Rover will carry a 5MP CCD camera encased in bubbleshield glass, which might just do the trick...
No matter how many space missions are made, this stuff still puts me in awe. I know that quite a few NASA guys lurk on /., and all I can say is: good work!
I think I see Beagle2! - or what's left of it.....
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Details on the panoramic camera are available from Cornell. Check out the popup test image links which show the test shots they shot in the lab and at Cape Canaveral. They're pretty spectacular.
You're slashdotting a hundred million dollar mars rover!
$400 million actually and yes that is just spirit.
Which desktop (windows, kde, gnome, mac) is shown in this image?
The leftmost titlebar button resembles MacOS9, but the rightmost buttons don't.
(The image appears washed-out because it's a photo of a canvas.)
What's really striking about the pictures from the rover is how red they're not. Apparently, the color calibration disk/marsdial is doing it's intended job!
here
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Could someone please tell NASA to upload some pictures at 1280X1024, I really need some new wallpaper.
XP's rolling hills are starting to get old... although I could isolate the red channel and tell people it was pictures from Mars, but I digress.
These are the real pictures: First Pictures. It should be noted that these are black and white and not color or false color, as the submitter may lead some to believe, to that magazine's tweaking of the original.
A blog like any other.
We hurl the craft towards the planet millions of miles away on a gigantic explosive rocket, just so the robot can land and take pictures of itself. Sounds like my last vacation.
You can get the full quality version of these images and more here.
Great stuff so far! The landscape seems a lot flatter than where Pathfinder landed.
That is exactly what the driver of the last mission to Mars said when he hung up the rover on a rock and got it stuck.
I would hate to be the person who got the rover stuck on a rock with all those rocket scientists looking at me really steamed...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
you think, congratulations you have shown an observation! next your be telling us /.'s default theme is green and the sky is blue. ;)
moo
I thought Mars was red?
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
you can see the curvature of the planet so easily? it's as if mars is only a couple dozen miles in width.
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
Great idea! Let's start with a program of sterilization then euthanasia.
http://www.digicrime.com/mars/
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
The USA already as a food aid program. It is called foodstamps. All you have to do is fill out some paper work and apply.
We spend billions per year on it.
BBC's article on the story
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
When the stereo camera starts up you will see some spectacular pictures. Should we start looking for our red/blue glasses yet?
here
MoFscker
>Why not divert the billions of dollars spent on WMD to aid the starving populations instead?<
The Mars mission was to search for Iraq's WMDs that cannot be found on Earth.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Those are black and white images. The bluish color results from taking a picture of the big screen at JPL as these images were shown (or doing screen grabs of NASA TV). The first color images should be sometime Sunday night.
I was watching these (on NASA TV) as they came in and it was just amazing. Everyone at JPL was really quiet as they knew the data was about to come in. As earth had already set, this data (~12 minutes) was being relayed by Mars Odyssey. The first couple images were really dark and small. You got the impression most people had no idea what they were, but none the less everyone was cheering that they were getting data and pictures back. They got at least one picture that was taken during landing that they weren't expecting. Then the big detailed pictures of the landing site started coming in and everyone was just in awe. Pretty quickly they combined images into mosaics and panoramic shots. I can't wait until they get their good cameras up and running. The commentator was saying the resolution will be hight enough that the pictures will still look good when blown up to the size of a movie screen.
Here.
I was following the Nasa TV broadcast from Germany, meaning I had to get up at 5am. My girlfriend called me nuts. But I don't regret a single second. The six minutes landing phase was more stunning than any movie could ever be. I smoked chains when the signal disappeared. But now that I see the images I must say "Good work, Nasa!"
;-))))
I am eagerly looking forward to the landing of Opportunity and the rover mission. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for ESAs Beagle2. Chances are we can pick up a signal these days using Mars Express Orbiter!
The landing sequence for the MERs seemed quite complex and I was wondering if they were overdoing it! But I am deeply impressed now. Ever since I was a little boy I was dreaming about a real Rover on Mars and now I get two (hopefully). This is better than xmas! Thank you, Nasa! You rock!
Lispy
Stupid troll, this has been covered very well by CNN and other major media outlets.
What?
All that money and all that time and still got the picture of the backs of heads. Funny how these martians look like NASA geeks. Maybe if we flew in some babes and a couple cases of beer there really would be life on Mars.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The pictures that have been released were taken by Spirit's Nav Cam, and at only 1/4th of the Nav Cam's maximum resolution. Remember, we weren't even expecting images at all yet. We were only able to take these because we only had a relatively small amount of time to transmit data (at 24 megabits per second). Larger images and color images from the Pan Cam will be coming by evening when Spirit's high gain antenna is directly in line with Earth. Then we'll have the bandwidth for the higer resolution (3 times the maximum resoultion of the Nav Cam, 12 times higher resolution than what we've seen so far) color images that the Pan Cam is capable of taking. It will probably take a few days to get an accurate full color panorama of the landing site.
Parent poster is completly right tho. Pathfinder got a lot more attention. Probably because it did something totally new. It used a new bouncy landing trick and it had a little rover. This mission seems to be a larger version of Pathfinder. The only major difference is that the whole lander is mobile.
:)
Also the pathfinder mission seemed to be a lot more open. A lot of the realtime data was avaliable online. For example, during it's cruse to Mars you could watch the output from the various sensors. It was really quite cool in a geeky sorta way
Anyways, it's only just landed. We'll see how it goes!
during it's cruse
*hides from the APC*
a food aid program....not. This is to encourage spending and help prop up farming. Foodstamps may look and act like aid, but they are not welfare, actually.
In case anyone of the NASA guys is reading /. (I know some are), I'd like to express my congratulations on an excellent job. I really enjoy following each step of the mission.
Sigged!
Click on the little red boxes where they magnify the image to full resolution. I think the most impressive shot is the cable hook which is on the far back wall inside the lab. The nominal shot shows some sort of shadow, the blowup shows the hook and the cable strands.
In case anybody wants to know what resolution the cameras will be taking the photos at you can get the whole technical specs for the pan cameras at
http://athena.cornell.edu/pdf/tb_pancam.pdf
It's quite interesting actually. Real News for Nerds!
Ooooh! Mars Omnimax?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If FS isn't a food aid program what is it?
It is aid that provide food. It may have others effects, but it is a food aid program.
if that was in any way "incorrect" then no page would ever exist with "www" in its name- required or not. Dumbass.
Seriously, think about it.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Tiny Mars..OR X-Box huge rover..place bets NOW!
r .j pg
http://astrobio.net/articles/images/spirit_pola
Will code a sig generator for food
People keep commenting on the black and white quality of these pictures. AFAIK, these are lower resolution black and white photos taken for initial analysis to keep the file sizes low. The nice color pictures we all want to see should be here later today (around 12:00 P.M. PST 3:00 P.M. EST). Overall, i'm impressed that we have once again gotten something on Mars without unit conversion issues or just plain bad luck. Now it could only be topped if our President (or the next one) would announce a manned mission to mars challenge, similar to the one issued by Kennedy to go to the moon in the 60s.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Later on, they'll calibrate the camera using the color wheel on the sundial (yep another old technology that works ) and you'll get full color images that are very crisp. The color images will be composite images that are built from 3 separate shots of the same scene looking through different colored lenses.
Had they chosen instead to send a ccd that was wired like a digital camera, the images would have had 1/3rd the resolution they'll get this way.
It's a waste of time to divert any money to "aid the starving populations". It's like buying heroin for a junkie. Yes, you need food if you're starving, but you also need help changing your culture, your economy and your government so you can feed yourself.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
looks like you have a very short memory:
best bang for the buck
take that, US...
Read his journal. He hides nothing.
Uh-oh, your right!
Shame we can't send these people to Mars. Or better yet, Venus!
Toasty!
Try reading the parent post. It said "Perhaps we should reserve those billions on aid to our own starving populations." I pointed out we do spend billions to aid our population.
Not one did I use the word welfare.
Shuttle program vs. No shuttle program. Pretty easy to not have any casualities when you don't put anyone in space.
And not once did I specifically credit you with using the word either.
I hope you now have a better understand of how/why food stamps work.
I used to go out with a girl who looked just like the one in that OSDN personals ad that keeps appearing on slashdot... I wish it would change....
On a more OnTopic note I have to admit that all the fuss about the current set of pictures from Spirit are a little dissappointing although one or two of them do seem to have some unusual white looking patches (like frost) but we'll have to wait for some better quality ones to filter through before anyone can make any real analysis
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Ask your six-year-old kid if the planets move, and even he will know the answer.
According to this Mars Fact Sheet, the maximum distance between Earth and Mars is nearly exactly 1/4 billion miles. And while we're probably not at the maximum, we're nowhere near the minimum anymore either.
In six months, we move from one side of the sun to the exact opposite side.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Speaking of Cornell, my professor at Cornell was the Rover's principal scientist Steve Squyres (great guy and perhaps the best professor I ever had there, by the way...). He said that at one point they had considered using radiactive power cells. That woulda made the rovers last like 6 years, not up to 6 months. The Viking Landers lived from like 1976 until like 1982. Imagine how far the rover coulda crawled in 6 years! I mean, someone do the math... it woulda been amazing. Oh well, glas-half-full-and-all, 6 months is infinately better than shattering in the atmosphere/rocks...
Never knew the war in Iraq had anything to do with space exploration.
I had a complete understand of the way the FS program worked before I posted.
That doesn't change the fact the the FS program is a FOOD AID program. Using your logic, NASA missions aren't about space/science because they money is spent on earth.
We did get one message back from Beagle. "Probe yum yum... tastes like chicken. Send more probe"
qntm.org
The intro says, "a quarter billion miles away". Maybe to you "away" means "distance travelled" and not "distance as the crow flies", but it doesn't to me.
First of all. $800M (for two rovers) is really inexpensive.
Secondly, the science we gain is very important... and people like you, who can't see it, should go join those poor sobs who can't seem to feed themselves, let alone contribute to the rest of society.
I would much rather pay for science (that helps everybody) than to waste my money trying to feed some poor slob who has no concept of how to even feed themselves - much less contribute.
Lastly, each one of us here on this planet were born with exactly the same thing... NOTHING. We make our own world. If there is a problem with the one we currently have, then it is up to ourselves to change it. And before you say anything else, I know... I was born to a very poor household with a drug taking single parent. Once I realized how bad it was, I got out, started working two jobs and paid my own way through a local state college. I've worked my ass off to get to where I am at right now and I am very proud of that fact. I instill every bit of that in my daughter so that she also understands what it takes. You can't just sit by and have pitty on your own situation... you must do something about it.
Science allows us to expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe around us. Which makes our world a better place to live in. Social programs that "HELP" those in need only serve to support the status quo, they don't help it grow or make it any better. I'm not saying we don't need social programs... but rather we should only have social programs for those who can not care for themselves... like children, accident victims, sick and elderly.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
I'll say it again. Food Stamps are to provide incentive to spend money on food...this props up the farming and food industry.
They were never meant to be welfare. This is another example of how the average American misunderstands welfare, etc.
Well, so food stamps are welfare--welfare for individual and corporate farmers. And, no, farmers need not be indigent to receive this kind of welfare. They also don't need to be indigent to receive their subsidies.
(What about computer stamps and computer subsidies to strengthen that sector of the economy?)
Is it just me or does the media have an obsession with pretending there was a race between the US and Europe to land on Mars? The BBC certainly has!
....
"US beats Europe to Mars" was the text they had onscreen at one point. Very annoying. I expected more from them. I really gotta stop doing that
Ok, try googling these great success stories then:
Mars Polar Lander
Mars Climate Orbiter
Mars Observer
Mariner 8
Mariner 3
so, still swaggering ?
Still it's a moot point since I'm sure there are thousands of miles of extremely rugged terrain between the two landing sites. :-(
I wonder if NASA plans on sending a really rugged rover to Mars sometime in the near future? Something that could navigate some of those canyon bottoms etc.?
It would probably have to be radiothermically powered instead of using solar cells, but it would be damn cool!!!!
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Give them a break they do rocket science, not DNS voodoo!
Peace, Freedom and Linux for all
According to JPL's official calculation, Spirit (and presumably Mars) are currently 168,377,000 km away, or about 104,000,000 miles.
The landscape seems a lot flatter than where Pathfinder landed.
This one was shot in a different studio.
Now it could only be topped if our President (or the next one) would announce a manned mission to mars challenge, similar to the one issued by Kennedy to go to the moon in the 60s.
Won't that cost money? I think this one already spent his budget sending WMDs to Earth.Subsidies and direct aid are one and the same, to many, yes. You think the farming community in America wants the rest of the world to know they're being propped up? No way.
:)
This is where the mistake in understanding is rooted. This is where so many Americans don't do their homework, and why we have the govt. we deserve.
Aid is welfare, however, and is defined as charity. I give you a dollar and I never see anything from that effort.
A subsidy assumes you will invest your windfall, and in turn support me by buying from me when it comes time to spend what I've just given you. That's capitalism, not charity.
The Japanese car buyer subsidizes the American car market by paying double for a new Z in Tokyo. That's not charity, it's robbery
High-Res Panoramic
As mentioned before, there are a lot more images if you look here
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Floopjizzle enlargement patch!
Martian meds without prescription!
Martian sex tape!
Make credits fast at home!
Martian real estate cheap, move to Mars, instant weight loss.
Martian calcium sand better than coral!
University of Mars Diplomas FAST!
Extended warantees on your rover!!!
A letter to you from the Bank of Mars.
Martian export minister needs your help.
...that's South Dakota.
It was meant to be funny.
So what was that date that the EU put a man on the moon? Maybe a man in orbit would be an easier one?
You're splitting hairs here man. Don't take things so seriously.
If Opportunity lands and Beagle is still alive, they can play Battlebots!
That's surprisingly funny considering some things I've seen from "that crowd" before. For example, an advertisement on NewsMax.com, a banner ad, said "SADDAM'S WEST NILE VIRUS," and I just thought to myself, "This can't be for real. They're not REALLY claiming that the mosquitos are in it with Saddam Hussein, are they?" But they were, and it was sad. So, I suppose if they claimed that Iraq had moved all its WMDs to Mars, the average American would flip out and start cursing about "them damn little green bastards" being terrorists and the like. I don't like it one bit, no sir.
transmit data (at 24 megabits per second)
according to spaceflightnow.com
"0717 GMT (2:17 a.m. EST)
About 24 megabits of data is being played back from Odyssey. It will take about 12 minutes to get all the information, officials report. This will contain engineering data on the rover's systems and possibly some pictures."
assume this was a typo and they meant 24 megabytes. that would only put the transfer rate at about 17kbps
if they really meant 24 megabits of data, than i'm afraid the transfer rate is considerably less than that.
There is a medium resolution version (1116x328 pixels) viewable here which is not too bad
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
perhaps you should think twice before sputtering silly trolls then.
:-)
anyhow, we got up there first, in 1902
man in the moon
Most of the money spent on Nasa gets back into the economy somehow, most of it goes to pay for human engineering time, staff costs. Think about it for a minute...
I guess it is nice for you that (for whatever reason) you saw your way clear to work hard and go to college. Your ideas about poverty are a little simplistic. Only the "children, accident victims, and elderly" are unable to care for themselves? You'd probably tell someone with clinical depression to just "cheer up," too, because there is no evident reason for their unhappiness.
The US beat Europe to Mars in the 1960s. I can't see why it would make headlines in 2004!
This is what I was thinking! If it had been a race, it was over long ago.
Next time do what the diehard fs users do. Spend them at the PX, trade that food for cigarettes then trade those for booze and drink until you don't feel hungry :)
Why not? The thing is a few million miles away...
It may not be able to reliably transmit data particularly fast, especially if they used a low frequency signal.
First panoramic images from Mars. I'm somehow let down by that. I guess I'd hoped for something more along the lines of:
...instead of just some pictures of some stupid rocks.
"We have failed to uphold Brannigan's Law. However I did make it with a hot alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?"
Ah well. Maybe next time.
That green slime had it coming.
Does anyone feel that JPL's official Mars rover site is a bit dumbed-down? Certainly it's more polished and professional than the 1997 Pathfinder site, but the Pathfinder site had a certain raw immediacy in their presentation, along with gigs of images and data seemingly straight from the downlink.
Is NASA planning to make that kind of detailed information available over the web? Even the Astrobiology magazine site seems a bit on the terse side.
Give a man a fish, you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and you can sell him fishing equipment.
http://www.aaplblog.com/ - News about Apple Inc.
Now it could only be topped if our President (or the next one) would announce a manned mission to mars challenge, similar to the one issued by Kennedy to go to the moon in the 60s.
That could only be done if we (USA) were driven by competition. We won't be sending anyone to Mars until China has almost caught up to us technologically and has committed their full resources to sending a communist to mars.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
But I cannot saw much more on the underlying OS...
Perhaps you should develop a sense of humor.
A.) You say, "My ideas about poverty are a little simplistic" without clarifying. I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I know when I have nothing. No Food, No House, No Medical Support and worst of all, no caring parent, I'd say that I know poverty pretty well. Not sure what else is required.
B.) About the person with clinical depression, please, read my list again. It says "Children, Accident Victems, SICK and elderly." By me saying Sick, that includes those with mental or physical illnesses.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
do you not use any of these social programs? and is this what you teach your daughter?
Actually, those are exactly the kinds of programs that I support. The programs that help the world (or country) as a whole. The kinds that actually contribute to the success of a society.
Again, supporting the space program is one of those "types" of programs that incourage growth in knowlege and understanding that make this world a better place. You've named several great examples of other programs that are just as valuable.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
oh wait....
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I love people like you. Your comment was just like a kid saying "Because." Without any kind of retort.
You say, I don't know what "Nothing" is. So, what's your definition?
I know that when I have no food, no home, no money or parents, that I don't have anything - which is my definition of nothing. I also knew that if I wanted somethign, that I'd have to work for it. We all (except the exeptions listed previously) have the ability to work. Some simply choose not too.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
But I think it landed in Vegas.
"Whatever happens here - stays here."
Genius.
hmm... none of those social programs i named are exculsively for "children, accident victims, sick and elderly" nor is NASA for that matter. also, how can you say we are born with NOTHING? we are not. we are born with parents who will care for us (unless unlucky). we are born in a society with public infrastructure (if we're lucky).
Color images are expected at the earliest late Sunday afternoon. There will be color. B&W was chosen for the initial images to conserve bandwidth for the initial pictures in order to make some quick early assessments of the vehicles health and condition.
From the first article:h appy_face.jpg
http://www.astrobio.net/articles/images/hartmann_
"I expected more from them [the news media]."
For the life of me, I cannot fathom why you would expect that.
All of the individual raw photos (which are clearer and in black & white) are available at:
. html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit
Enjoy.
"should'nt the dust storms have worn them down to sand by now?"
Or exposed them.
Elonka :)
stereotypical idiot american view of poverty. i'd like to see you live in the middle of a famine-struck 3rd world country where poverty isn't about being a "poor slob". it sounds like you expect people in poverty to just go get a job, so they can make money, so they can buy food... in the real world (read: not america, you spoiled brat) it doesn't work that way. There IS no food. ANYWHERE. Doesn't matter how smart you are, or how much you "contribute" to your community or society or whatever...there's nothing to eat, period. You believe that anybody can "make [his] own world", which is pathetically naiive. You write this pity-story about how you "know poverty" and how hard your life has been... shut the fuck up. There are a lot of people in this world who live in places where there aren't two jobs or a local state college. Where there isn't a "household", single drug-addicted parent or not, because there aren't even any houses. So the next time you think your life has been "hard", think of the kid in Ethiopia who was born with AIDS, whose parents both died of said disease when he was two, and who hasn't had a -thing- to eat in a week. Then tell me the kind of life this "poor slob" is supposed to make for himself.
"No color????? Cripes. How much did the damned thing cost and NO COLOR?"
Funny. You have MTV expectations.
He said that at one point they had considered using radiactive power cells. That woulda made the rovers last like 6 years, not up to 6 months. The Viking Landers lived from like 1976 until like 1982. Imagine how far the rover coulda crawled in 6 years! [radio-active launch crash risk makes Nasa reluctant to use those]
I wonder why solar-panelled probes cannot last longer. I have read hints that there are a few problems with them:
1. Dust covering the panels over time
2. Batteries lose ability to hold a charge over time, just like laptop batteries
3. Solar panels corrode a bit from the sun over time
4. Cold temperatures do funny things to batteries
Couldn't some sort of pressurized air be used to clean dust from the panels? Sort of like those air cans used by some IT shops to clean keyboards? Being that the pressure is lighter on Mars, it may need less volume.
Second, do they need batteries during the day if they have solar panels? I suppose that if the probe flipped over, there would be no battery power to right itself (if it even can right itself, I don't know if it has that ability). Also, perhaps it still needs batteries to store and send its data at night because there may not be a communications route available during some days. No bubble memory?
I realize that a year+ down the road it wont be as powerful as day one, but I don't see why solar panels would limit a mission to only 6 months if there was a way to clean the panels.
It would be interesting to see the technical analysis and tradeoffs on this issue.
Table-ized A.I.
I started from a much less bad situation than yours, but still pretty tough... single mother, working hard at a factory job to support two kids and rent a trailer house, dependent on family support for pre-school child care, no family members (even extended family members) who had any college education. My mother was no addict. She certainly made some bad decisions, but not chronically, and not anything beyond what most everyone does. She just made them in circumstances that made life very hard, and after they were made there was no way out.
.1%, but if I hadn't gotten a full scholarship to college I probably wouldn't have gone. Even as a teenager I had no real feeling that college was going to get me into a different economic strata than my parents had been - I just had no basis for comparison that I could connect to. I didn't know how easily loans were available, or what to do to get them. A day a month with a good social worker could have corrected that. It could still correct that for a lot of people out there who are smart enough to do well in college and in an academic career but not smart enough to get a full scholarship or not emotionally connected enough to an academic career to understand the difference it could make for them. Government supplemented child care for poor people during work hours could make the difference between someone taking welfare and living out of a PO box and someone contributing to society.
Maybe the difference in our attitude is that your parent was an addict. They made chronicly bad decisions that screwed up their life. However, let me tell you, from someone who's seen the other side - life in a poor household with parents that didn't do anything horribly wrong - that people _need_ help. We have built a culture in which we don't live together with our extended family in one big house. Everyone is expected to go off on their own and support themselves and their dependents. When you're a single mother with no job skills other than being smart and having a good work ethic, with children who are below school age, you simply must have help to survive. What good is it to work two jobs when that just means you have to pay for child care for two children during your second job's working hours? Without familial support, we would probably have been out on the street, and not everyone has familial support.
I had no examples of success through college around me. I'm pretty damned smart, well into the upper
Intelligent support for the poor could be a huge boon to the country's productivity and the happiness and welfare of everyone, not just the poor directly affected. It really bothers me to see people argue against it, especially people who claim to have an in that puts weight behind the argument.
Are the terms "backseat driver", "armchair general", "all talk, no action", etc. familiar in Western Europe? See if we take you along for any more rides, go build and pilot your own vehicle. Or perhaps you can buy a ride from the Russians.
I would think that something this large(?) would require quite a few square feet (aww damnit, i meant meters!) of panels, not something you could just mount to the top of a mobile, thrashing around vehicle. ;)
on the other hand i dont see why they couldn't have some setup where the panels unroll on the ground (think of an overhead garage door). when the batteries start getting low the thing could find a nice flat place to lay the panels, start rolling forward while unrolling the panels out of the back onto the ground. and like you say, when rolling the pannels back into the rover dust them off with the compressed air. THe biggest problem is bringing all that compressed air from earth seeing as how mars doesn't have any
billions of dollars on missions to Mars to find out exactly what we already knew... There's nearly nothing there.
:-)
While I disagree with that view, it does make one think about other exploration options on Mars. There's some really odd things on Mars. For example, dark blotches that seem to cast tree-like shadows, "ice tunnels", "scratch marks", etc. can be seen from orbit. I would swear that some of those "ice tunnels" look translucent in some images I have seen (although it could just be a trick of light and shadow). They are truly conspiracy-inspiring. How can something as wide as a football field be translucent? MarsMac
Instead, flat landing sites are selected to reduce landing risk. Someday we may get to see what those oddities really are.
Table-ized A.I.
I would think that something this large(?) would require quite a few square feet (aww damnit, i meant meters!) of panels, not something you could just mount to the top of a mobile, thrashing around vehicle.
But the rover does not move that fast. They could be tiny motors. Although Mars has less sun than Earth, lower gravity tends to balance that out.
I was thinking that rather than compressed air to clean the panels, why not have a little robotic arm that dusts them off with a brush? Such an arm could also be handy for digging and poking for exploration, ungetting stuck, fixing loose parts, etc.
Table-ized A.I.
one of the great advances of this rover is it is loaded with stereoscopic engineering cameras. Basically what this means is mission control gives the rover a location to go to, but the rover finds its own way there while avoiding things it would get hung up on.
It takes its time doing it, only moving a foot or two at a time and then stopping to consider its next move, but considering the 20 minute relay time between mission control saying "go here" and the rover's camera showing whats going on to mission control, having a rover that can decide how it should go on its own is a great asset.
-
Are we so sensitive that we cannot take a little good natured teasing from an old friend? Jeeze everyone is so touchy. Learn to laugh at yourself and not take everything so seriously. This is a great day for science, no matter what your nationality.
And if you don't respond to flamebait, his stupid post would die in -1 obscurity.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
I liked the stardust campaign a little better. Unlike being encoded onto a DVD like the mars lander, stardust microprinted the names onto metal plates affixed to the spacecraft. I suppose theres not much difference but in a million years you could put the plate under a microscope and read the names off, whereas the dvd format will be long gone...
Since the spacecraft portion will continue flying throughout the solar system after returning to earth and dropping its lander off in 2006, the plates should last forever...
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But at least there are no neighbors to bug, unless Mercury aliens have really good hearing
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
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
Dumping money and resources on 'starving populations' is worse than just a waste of money.
When cargo containers full of grain are dumped in a third world country, it destroys their economy. If anybody was growing wheat or corn, now they'll get NOTHING for their work, because it's now not worth harvesting.
'Foreign aid' programs create dependencies where they didn't exist before, and they destroy local economies. It's not surprising that big companies in the US, who might someday like to own all that land, don't mind it if the peasant farmers are driven off their land, to relief centers in the cities.
A Good Intro to NetBS
NewsMax has just the same kind of nutcases on it as sites like Democraticunderground and that rant center from the WELL hosted on Salon (is it still there?). They just paint their stripes the other way.
A Good Intro to NetBS
>> ...It's not surprising that big companies in the US, who might someday like to own all that land, don't mind it if the peasant farmers are driven off their land...> 'Foreign aid' programs create dependencies where they didn't exist before, and they destroy local economies.
Probably true, in some case, but not in others. The chain of dependency exists between corrupt and incompetent leaders and their "followers", who have been suckered into trading individual freedoms and prosperity for false pride in their leaders and their nation. (That's why it's called "nationalism".) What merit is there in taking pride in a country that is governed by criminals and fools who are making your life miserable?
Foreign aid sustains that chain of dependency because it helps sustain the local status quo.
It is right to give food to a starving man, but it is wrong to walk away and leave him in chains.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Heres one I did using GIMP its even higher resolution and the aspect ratio is correct (sun is round!)
...
here
Incase you missed my 3d picture that is as follows (cross your eyes!) but it has a better resolution.
here
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
It was indeed only megabits. So with 25Mb, the first batch of data they received was just over 3MB of data. The transmission rate was about 4kB/s. Not bad for a 300 million mile distance. Some of NASAs first probes sent back their pictures and data at 170 bits per second. Those were some patient scientists.
This was not using Spirit's high-gain antenna, however -- and was not communicated directly to earth. The first data was received by Mars Global Surveyor as it flew over the rover, and relayed to us, since the rover was on the "far side" of Mars at the time.
I think the high-gain antenna will be deployed and set up some time tonight. Then we get the "fire hose" of data they mentioned.
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
What do the Leather Goddesses of Phobos look like?
Enjoy.
I tried submitting this as a story, but it was rejected.
Hooray.
Bowie J. Poag
NOTHING???
Well genetics counts for sure and does make a difference and you appear to have inherited the gene for
'reckless ranting'.
Successes/Failures breakdown
U.S. (Success: 67%)
-Successes: 10 (Mariner 4 [64], Mariner 6 [69], Mariner 7 [69], Mariner 9 [71], Viking 1 [75], Viking 2 [75], Mars Global Surveyor [96], Mars Pathfinder [96], Mars Odyssey [01], Spirit [03])
-Failures: 5 (Mariner 3 [64], Mariner 8 [71], Mars Observer [92], Mars Climate Orbiter [98], Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 [99])
U.S.S.R. (Success: 27%)
-Successes: 4 (Mars 3 [71], Mars 5 [73], Mars 6 [73], Mars 7 [73])
-Failures: 11 (Unnamed [60], Unnamed [60], Unnamed [62], Mars 1 [62], Unnamed [62], Zond 2 [64], Kosmos 419 [71], Mars 2 [71], Mars 4 [73], Phobos 1 [88], Phobos 2 [88])
Russia (Success: 0%)
-Failures: 1 (Mars 96 [96])
Japan
-To Be Determined: 1 (Nozomi (Planet-B) [98])
E.U.
-To Be Determined: 1 (Mars Express/Beagle 2 [03])
Source: NASA
If not for the money we "wasted" going to the moon a few decades ago, you very well might not have had a computer with which to post that comment.
A subsidy assumes you will invest your windfall, and in turn support me by buying from me when it comes time to spend what I've just given you. That's capitalism, not charity.
Product subsidies are government interference in the market. They are contrary to both capitalism and free markets.
No, product subsidies are not "charity"; "political corruption" would be a better term for them, in particular when it comes to farm subsidies.
You think the farming community in America wants the rest of the world to know they're being propped up? No way.
The rest of the world already knows--they'd have to be blind and deaf not to know: American agricultural subsidies are driving farmers around the world out of business and preventing other nations from developing.
It's Americans that still cling to idyllic but inaccurate notions that US farming has anything to do anymore with either capitalism or tradition. And population poor but powerful agricultural states just love to create that impression--it pays out handsomely for the land owners there.
What are those creatures viewing the Rover from the top and scheming destruction plans in the polar view picture?. They're a step ahead of us!
"Wireless : LAN
Exactly right. You've simply highlighted my points that were left to the discerning reader to realize for themselves. We agree that politics and corruption are better labels...and why not, when something so dated seems to be happy on life-support, devoid of self esteem and redeeming market value.
Farming is touted as the last icon of the American bootstrap spirit, when it's been nothing but a classic postcard for decades. Note the original Food Stamp Program was enacted in 1964. That's forty years ago...forty years since it was created to shell game farming from oblivion.
American farmers are propped up, and everyone knows it, but as long as they pretend otherwise, they can continue to hold onto their land and their way of life. No one is fooled, and everyone is willing to let it slide, for now.
Utah?
Is it just me, or does the terrain seem a lot more boring than that seen from previous landers? Many fewer and smaller rocks, no terrain features like gullies, etc.
The problem is, unless that rover is going to rove a really long way, it looks like everywhere it goes it's going to see the same thing: flat sand with a few rocks. Where's the excitement going to be? Look, everybody, here are the latest pictures from Mars, and guess what, they look exactly the same as the ealier pictures.
It looks to me like in the desire to find a nice "safe" landing spot they may have done too good a job, and found someplace so bland that the rover's ability to move will be useless.
You act like we filled a suitcase with $800 million and sent that to Mars. No, all that money went into the pockets of engineers, clerks, managers, and mfg workers. It also went into hardware, software, facilities, and services. Yes, there's some inherent bureaucratic inefficiency (as with any govt program), but for the most part that $800 million was spent just like with any capitalistic endeavor, only the ROI isn't necessarily cash profit, but knowledge. So get back in your cage.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Don't go crying to me about their problems, if there is no food where they live, then they should do something about it. Like move to where the food is. (I hear there is a lot of food in the green parts of the world.)
Think about this. America was founded 200 years ago by a bunch of people who left their respective countries because of the situation they were in to make a better one.
They did it themselves, there was no social programs to help them out. Everything they had, they had to build/grow/cultivate, etc.
People have two legs/hands for a reason. We also have brains for a reason. It's a real shame that some people in this world can't figure that out.
By the way, your Ethiopia kid needs all the help he can get. You seem to think that I don't care about him, but he is the one that I am really trying to save. By the way, that kid also needs to understand that when (and if) he is able, then he needs to get out and work too.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The most tantilizing thing about mars, to me, is the whole terraforming question.
:D
Governor Schwarzenegger and memory implanting aside, mars does seems to be a very fertile place for experimentation on a global scale.
Now the question is; should we leave mars as sterile as we find it?
or should we do as we do to most fertile places and set up a homestead?
What kind of an ethical question is that I ask.
Now, i've been told I should "always end your stories a sentence earlier" - but I can't help but speculate about the role mars is going to play in our future.
What says we cant begin genetically designing flora and fauna for this new world. Or are we the species that likes to just plant the biological seed and see what happens?
It's a held notion that isolation encourages evolution. Could 10 generations of martian-humans start to show some kind of trait difference?
Would we even need to dabble in earths biology at all for life to be able to gain a foot hold on mars?
This is the time to be alive, at the beggining of the story.
I just wish I had a near-lightspeed craft to spend a month in so I could see what happens next century
Actually, a number of Mars experts have already commented on this. The main explanation is that, though Mars does have all those dust storms, the atmosphere is quite thin compared to ours. It doesn't have the power to pick much up, and the storms are made up of rather fine powder. The effect is more like a slow polishing rather than the sand blasting that you get in Earthly deserts. It really would take billions of years to wear those rocks down to sand by such feeble storms. Come back when Mars is twice as old as it is now, and the rocks will be smaller and smoother. Except, of course, for the ones more recently scattered by impacts that haven't yet happened.
I wonder if there's a NASA page with the numbers on this?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Similarly, our daughter just had a baby, and one could easily interpret this as her effort to prop up farming by adding one more mouth to the population. The government does encourage people forming families, and by blocking the disemmination of information about birth control, actively works to increase the population. I suppose this is also to encourage spending and help prop up farming, right?
Of course, one could also argue that by funding NASA, the intent is to pay money to the people who work there so they will go out and spend it on food, thus propping up farming. And when you look at all the fuel that a Mars probe uses, it's obvious that their real goal is to subsidize the companies that make rocket fuel.
Also, Social Security and Medicare are just to keep those old folks spending money on food and medicine, for the benefit of farmers and pharmaceutical companies.
One of the basic problems here is thinking that people are only motivated by money. It seems fairly obvious that NASA and JPL did not come into existence as money-making operations. If you think that profit is the only motive possible, you won't ever understand why people support such things. Or why someone might support helping old folks, for that matter.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Read the 1964 act and debate the intent with the people that wrote it...
I doubt they see it as surperflously as you do.
No one here believes a simple public discussion can reflect one's in-depth attitudes...be a bit less cynical and a bit more open minded when adding your own, thanks.
I thought this would have been something from the "and-yet-another-Kodak-moment department" instead of the "isn't-that-special department"
This message brought to you by Jack Schitt's Previously Shat Shit
There's no food anywhere huh? Well obviously there WAS at some point for all of those billions of people to have moved to where they are in the first place. And now that there isn't any more food there, sounds like it's time to move somewhere else where you CAN grow food. Or figure out some new method of growing/raising food in that area. We have deserts in America too, we just don't live in them, asshole.
There wouldn't be over a billion people starving if the previous generations couldn't have found some kind of food. They survived long enough to have more kids of their own, didn't they? The original parent post was explaining how A) he found himself in a bad situation as a young child and had the determination to take deliberate steps to improve his situation over many years. B) The poor starving slobs you talk about also found themselves in a bad situation, and in turn had children that they couldn't afford to feed or clothe.
I say we try to promote more of type "A" people. If we just blindly continue to feed type "B" people, with no restrictions, with no insistance that they learn to try to improve their own situation for themselves, then we will only see the continued doubling of the starving population every couple decades. We (entire world) will eventually end up in a 'bad situation' where the "starving helpless" number so many that we can't physically feed them at all.
And when the hundreds of millions are starving to death instead of tens of thousands, we'll have people like you to thank for your 'insight' in making it that way.
The rover camera software supports scans of 26K x 8K pixels. Thats what they mean by huge magnification capacity.
Just like when your Mom changes your bed sheets...
Dumb ass.
That camera costed about 1.5 million dollars to intigrate into that rover and look, it gives us a purple terrain, not a red one! http://astrobio.net/articles/images/first_light_ba nner.jpg
The Mars Explorer panoramas as QTVRs: www.nickcrossland.co.uk/portfolio/qtvr/mars/
Most of the scientists I know tend to stick with what works (or even what doesn't work) when it comes to computer software. It is not so noticable for the MS Windows guys, as they are more or less forced to update due to buuild-in obsolence in MS products. However, many of the Unix people have ancient desktops.
As a Unix quy myself, I have found nothing in Gnome or KDE that adds uitility over twm + Athena.
They survived long enough to have more kids of their own, didn't they? yes, idiot, a human being can survive on a cup or two of rice and water every day or so. I say we try to promote more of type "A" people. yeah, Ok Adolf. so, should we just...kill all the rest, then? Or perhaps sterilization would be more humane, because of course those pathetic losers have no right to pollute your superior gene pool, huh. And you're pretty damn stupid to think that these people can just "move" to wherever there's food, or that 'determination' makes a difference. You think they can hop in a Chevy and drive down the highway to Life Liberty and Happiness?...wow. As an american, you've been raised to believe that determination reaps rewards. you're just too naiive to realize that maybe life doesn't work that way elsewhere in the world. try living in third-world india for a while, "asshole". then, maybe, you can pretend to have an idea what you're talking about. Right now, you obviously don't. Example:And when the hundreds of millions are starving to death instead of tens of thousands, we'll have people like you to thank for your 'insight' in making it that way. There already are hundreds of millions, you fool. Tens of thousands?? Were you...kidding? Is that your 'insight'? and americans do live in deserts, moron. there's about a million of them in and around a little place called Pheonix. heh...you don't even know much about your own country, and you think you have a clue about the rest of the world? since you're too stupid to think that there's a difference between people in death valley USA and the middle-of-nowhere sahara, here's some hints: grocery stores...automobiles...irrigation...air conditioning...employment...the concept of money....need any more?