Posted by
michael
on from the risky-business dept.
EngrBohn writes "NASA has named the Mars Spirit landing site the 'Columbia Memorial Station'. They've obviously been planning this, as there's even a plaque at the CMS."
Columbia Memorial
by
QuantumFTL
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's very interesting... Many many people at JPL knew all about this, however the information was not known to be secret until yesterday, when it was announced that there'd be a bit of "unvieling" of the disk.
I"m surprised news didn't get out to the public before.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activty Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Re:Martian weather
by
babbage
·
· Score: 4, Informative
They proably made it out of aluminum because it's light and plastic would probably degrade faster.
Well, that, and the plaque is stamped on the back of the probe's high-gain antenna. Space & weight are at a steep premium on these probes, and there really isn't room to add an extra slab of metal for any non-scientific purpose, even if most people would find the gesture fitting.
By way of comparison, read about the Marsdialproject, which does basically the same thing: mount a "frivilous" device onto one of the key components of the rover, done in a way that there's substantially no additional hardware (extra mass to require fuel, additional parts to possibly break down, etc).
Sentimentality is nice, but pragmatism is critical here.
Slashdot Mirror
It's very interesting... Many many people at JPL knew all about this, however the information was not known to be secret until yesterday, when it was announced that there'd be a bit of "unvieling" of the disk.
I"m surprised news didn't get out to the public before.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activty Planner Support Staff
Mars Exploration Rovers
Well, that, and the plaque is stamped on the back of the probe's high-gain antenna. Space & weight are at a steep premium on these probes, and there really isn't room to add an extra slab of metal for any non-scientific purpose, even if most people would find the gesture fitting.
By way of comparison, read about the Marsdial project, which does basically the same thing: mount a "frivilous" device onto one of the key components of the rover, done in a way that there's substantially no additional hardware (extra mass to require fuel, additional parts to possibly break down, etc).
Sentimentality is nice, but pragmatism is critical here.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL