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."
happy it didn't auger
by
bandy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Consider the mega-bummer had they pre-announced and it had ended up augering into Mars like the last probe did.
Bets on whether or not there's a plaque on Opportunity as well?
-- "You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string
banjo." -unknown minister
A fine memorial
by
ferralis
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
What better memorial? A plaque on the first permanently occupied extra-planetary base, I guess, but this is definitely a close second.
I just hope that we (humans) can get out there to put some flowers around it someday.
-- Any generalization is a stupid one.
On a related note, a question....
by
KarMann
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I first noticed these jack-o'-lantern faces on the propellant tanks of the cruise stage while taking a look at the craft with Celestia, and at first I was thinking it was just some humour on the part of the person creating the skin for Celestia. But then I saw the picture linked to above, and obviously it wasn't just the programmer having a lark. I haven't been able to find anything on the Web about who came up with the idea, and why, though. I've developed a pet theory of my own, which would be that they needed a certain amount of dark surface on the gold-foil-wrapped tanks to maintain the proper thermal balance, and decided to do something more catchy than just a big bulls-eye dot on them or something like that.
Anyway, anybody know just what the real story is, and whodunnit?
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
Consider the mega-bummer had they pre-announced and it had ended up augering into Mars like the last probe did.
Bets on whether or not there's a plaque on Opportunity as well?
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
What better memorial? A plaque on the first permanently occupied extra-planetary base, I guess, but this is definitely a close second. I just hope that we (humans) can get out there to put some flowers around it someday.
Any generalization is a stupid one.
I first noticed these jack-o'-lantern faces on the propellant tanks of the cruise stage while taking a look at the craft with Celestia, and at first I was thinking it was just some humour on the part of the person creating the skin for Celestia. But then I saw the picture linked to above, and obviously it wasn't just the programmer having a lark. I haven't been able to find anything on the Web about who came up with the idea, and why, though. I've developed a pet theory of my own, which would be that they needed a certain amount of dark surface on the gold-foil-wrapped tanks to maintain the proper thermal balance, and decided to do something more catchy than just a big bulls-eye dot on them or something like that.
Anyway, anybody know just what the real story is, and whodunnit?
ProofReading Markup Language - and yes, I find typos.
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