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NASA Releases Mars Data for Maestro
The Maestro Team writes "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released the first Mars data update for Maestro, containing images just received from the Spirit Mars rover. Maestro is the public version of the actual tool used by the mission scientists to operate the rover. You can download Maestro and the latest Mars images from the official Maestro site, and join the developers and other users in #maestro on irc.freenode.net."
http://torrent.andrewhitchcock.org/files/Maestro-U pdate01-Windows.exe.torrent
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What is the sound of this sentence?
Get your your bittorrent files here:
Maestro for Windows & Mars Dataset #1
Maestro for Linux & Mars Dataset #1
(tar -xzvf dataset immediately above your "JPL" directory)
Maestro for Solaris & Mars Dataset #1
(tar -xzvf dataset immediately above your "JPL" directory)
Maestro for Mac & Mars Dataset #1
(Requires Java3D)
Maestro User's Guide (pdf)
BitTorrent stats
Provide feedback to these folks: maestro [at] telascience [dot] org
Maestro is the public version of the actual tool used by the mission scientists to operate the rover.
So I'm guessing this public version of the tool used to operate the rover lacks some capabilities, like the ability to operate the rover?
Downloaded it and its pretty cool lookin... it's neat to see the pre-processed raw images. They even have a 3d model of the rover and its surroundings (however the rendering process makes everything EXTREMELY dissying). What puzzled me though is that Maestro is written in Java and a java application can be run on any virtual machine that has the necessary files therefore preventing seperate OS editions, but for some reason this has separate douwnloads for Linux/Solaris, Windows, and OSX. Hmm... anyway looking forward to the next data pack!
These are the kinds of things that will interest people in space exploration again. Although the site is "conserving bandwidth", and didn't have as much info as I would like available right this second, the idea that I can be reviewing the data returned by the Mars rovers at the same time as NASA's scientists is really, really appealing.
This is the kind of thing that makes people seriously consider careers in science. Imagine a father and son (or mother and daughter) pouring over this info together, comparing their take with NASA's. That's super exciting.
Maybe one of the kids downloading Maestro today will take the first steps on Mars tomorrow...
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We (the Maestro team) hope you all really enjoy Maestro. Don't forget to join us in our chat channel (#maestro in mars.telascience.org) and send us your comments at maestro (at) telascience (dot) org.
Heh. I assure you that steps were taken to ensure that Maestro will pose no risk whatsoever to the mission. We were careful about that. :)
Maybe if we all pull "left" at the same time...
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Second I think it is real cool that some of the key people in the project / science team at NASA are women. Maybe this will help in that department as well, we sure need their brain power in the tech sector.
Help fight continental drift.
Sure, it may not be solving some of the current problems, as you have brought up, but a better understanding of the universe is sure to have paybacks, even though they may not be immediate or blindingly obvious.
If the Mars rovers do find evidence of past life, however unlinkely it is, it will change everything.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Saeed,
The Mars Rover program is the most recent expression of an old human need, to explore and to understand. Your arguments could be used to disparage all pure science, pure mathematics, and other human pursuits without immediate practical application, but they are much of what makes us human. Along the way, technology gets advanced in ways that produce the famous "spinoff" that eventually improve the lives of many people.
Think of the advances in autonomous robotics that are on display with the rovers! These little beings are out there, 10 light minutes away, and able to handle many situations for themselves safely. Robots with capabilities like these will help with oil recovery in the deep ocean, work in nuclear power plants, assist surgeons, and many other activities.
In my opinion, and of many others, the ISS is a white elephant, that has no purpose to speak of at present. It is diverting huge amounts of funds from much more important scientific pursuits, like robotic solar system exploration. On to Mars, the asteroids, and beyond!
My $.02
Well, I really hope that people won't be scared away from Maestro because of all the rubbish posted here. It certainly killed any useful discussion before it could start. It's a pity - we worked very hard on Maestro, and I think that there are a lot of people out there who would enjoy it.
:) ). Does this happen often? How is it usually dealt with? It seems like in situations like this the editors might consider just pulling the article and posting it again later.
:(
I'm very new to Slashdot (ok, ok, I joined just so I could announce Maestro
Of course, I don't see how anyone could even FIND this post considering the company it will be keeping.. oh well!
Jeff Norris
Maestro Team Lead
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
JPL-Jeff, don't be discouraged by the nonsense posted on slashdot from time to time -- your message is easily caught from amongst the "crapflood." Regardless, trust in the slashdot moderators, hopefully they'll keep things in check.
Moreover, trust that your link will be getting all the attention it needs. I noticed your download links far up in the discussion (inside the crapflood taht is), and I'm sure others have as well.
Hopefully the moderators will be on the ball tonight -- at least they can easily see where the spam is.
No worries though, you've got an awesome piece of software, and I'm as eager as anybody to see it in action.
Thanks!
Actually, we *are* making steps towards open-sourcing Maestro.
I asked JPL-jeff on IRC about it and his answer was:
gozu - I don't have the numbers in front of me. It's like about 15 Mbits of products per day on the HGA, more like 180 Mbits per day on the UHF if we do all the orbiter passes.So it averages out to 2.3 Kbps! Of course, this is in bursts so the real speeds are higher than this. But still...It's shocking.
Okay, I'll bite. I'm seeing a stream of "What use is this?" and "big deal, more red rocks" comments on the Rover topics, and I can't even imagine where these are coming from:
- If a big meteorite/virus/climate change/radiation storm/solar instability/nuclear catastrophe/nanotech grey goo/ was to wipe out the entire human population on Earth, the human race isn't going to come back. Forever, for all of eternity (or at least the heat death of the universe, which is what current theory predicts as the human race's equivalent of dying of old age). Surely we should pay *something* to take out an insurance policy against this scenario? A policy which aims for human settlements on Mars?
- Getting to these settlements in incredibly hard, and there's no way we can suddenly decide to do it one day and make them happen the next year. It'll take large number of intermediate steps, including unmanned missions, $400m rovers which produce photographs of red rocks, and, when we can, manned missions.
- I know you aren't saying this, but to those who call these photographs "boring red rocks", they are incredibly exciting to anyone with any sense of what they represent. For one, we've had to have 2.5 billion years of evolution before any life form on Earth is able to see them. Their size, shape, distribution, constitution, layout ask a thousand questions, some of which the Rover will answer. These answers will help in resolving important scientific questions of meaning to planetology here on Earth.
- Even if none of these reasons carry weight, we should do it, to paraphrase a mountaneer, because Mars is there. The purpose of life cannot be to just be to spend everything we have in finding the cure to AIDS and cancer and making it longer. What do we do with this longer life? I cannot imagine a more inspiring way to spend it than to find adventure in the rest of the universe. NASA keeps doing these things which make me proud to be human, and by spending your tax dollars to support it, you are creating and participating in this adventure.
Finally, I'm in India, not the US, so you could argue that it's not my tax money which is paying for this. That is true, but NASA has added to my life in many ways, from the days when as a small kid, I stayed awake nights listening for news updates on the Apollo 11 mission (India didn't have TV back then), to ogling these marvellous Mars photographs and imagining I'm a space traveller using Maestro to investigate a new planet. If someone knows a way a non-American can pay NASA back by sending over pittances when I can, I'll be happy to find a way to do it.