One Year on Mars

RetroGeek writes "It has been almost a full year for the Mars rovers. NASA has created a flashback of rover images and information. You can use either HTML or Flash (it is the best use of the technology I have seen). There is even a movie taken from the hazard avoidance camera showing the full year of travel."

Comments

Quoth TFA

[stratjakt]

stay tuned as the rovers welcome a brand new year on Mars.

What does an earth year have to do with a martian year? Nothing thats what!

Re:Quoth TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

We could all switch to the Darian calendar

Re:Quoth TFA

[NanoGator]

"What does an earth year have to do with a martian year? Nothing thats what!"

They're welcoming 05 while they are on Mars. Wasn't that hard to figure out.

Re:Quoth TFA

[Waffle Iron]

What does an earth year have to do with a martian year? Nothing thats what!

These rovers are traditionalists who choose to keep the customs of their homeland, so they still celebrate the earth holidays.

Re:Quoth TFA

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

They put two rovers on Mars. You didn't. They can welcome the rovers to whatever the fuck they want!

Re:Quoth TFA

[SharpFang]

Why do the muslim in the US do, bowing -east- while praying, when Mecca is straight down under?

Re:Quoth TFA

[Kent Recal]

Tradition.

Re:Quoth TFA

[SharpFang]

Yes. that's the right answer, you moron -1 offtopic moderator.

Re:Quoth TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, they are american.

Re:Quoth TFA

[mab]

Since the US and Mecca are both in the northern hemisphere Mecca cannot be straight down.

Re:Quoth TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn those Americans and their New Year's Eve!

Re:Quoth TFA

[gstoddart]

What does an earth year have to do with a martian year? Nothing thats what!

Well, that's true and all, but the mission was planned with a time-frame measured in substantially less than even a single Earth-year.

Yeah, it'd be cool if we could meet the symbolic milestone of a Martian year ... but griping that a mission which has, by now, something like tripled it's initial planned duration just seems like you're whinging about all of the wrong things.

That's kind of like complaining that the Wright Brother's didn't fly that high or all that far so why be excited.

When your rover makes the Martian-year get back to us. ;-P

Re:Quoth TFA

[uberdave]

05? 05? It's thinking like this that lead to the whole y2k crisis. It is 2005, not 05.

One of our years, actually.

[tinrobot]

A martian 'year' is much longer...

Re:One of our years, actually.

[rainman_bc]

Technically, a year is how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun.

A martian year is measured in terms of earth years.

So technically, a year is a constant as the earth's rotation around the Sun.

Re:One of our years, actually.

[Tablizer]

A martian 'year' is much longer...

Oh, stop complaining about download times.

NASA slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or so it seems. The video is loading very slowly.

Re:NASA slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you alowing for the time-lag to Mars and back?

Re:NASA slashdotted!

[superpeach]

you obviously didn't get enough popcorn.

Get your ass to mars...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your ass to mars...

Seasons

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the things that impressed me most about this mission is when they had to take into account the changing seasons on Mars, and their effect on the rovers.

We are not only on other planets, but planning for spring!

Happy new year! (And let's hope the evaporating methane does not mess up the sensors come summer :)

Re:Seasons

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the Martian Groundhog sees its shadow?

Re:Seasons

[flewp]

Then we better start welcoming our new Martian Groundhog ove-ohh fuck it.

Re:Seasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm somewhat astounded by your comment.

Getting something off Earth, in a trajectory calculated to intercept Mars, in such a way that it can be captured and end up in decent orbit, enter and land without becoming a crater, rolling off and examining the landscape: now THAT is an accomplishment.

Making a Mars calendar is a grade 10 math exercise. It's a straight mx+b linear equation.

Well

[eclectro]

maybe they could use the same sets for the manned mission.

Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Charvak]

But I dont like the idea of manned mission. In my opinion we should first construct a self sustained permanent base on the moon. And with the lesson learnt from the mission then plan for the manned mar mission.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Anonymous Coward]

why the moon?
There is fuck all there of any use, and we can simulate conditions nearer mars on earth.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Anonymous Coward]

There is fuck all there of any use

There are abundant supplies of Helium-3 on the Moon, and the lunar surface would be an ideal location for a permanant astronomical observatory that would be able to produce images far clearer than those produced by the Hubble Telescope.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[uberdave]

Helium-3 is of little use until we figure out how to build a reactor that can make use of it. Also, Hubble pretty much proves that the best place for an observatory is in orbit.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Teancum]

Helium-3 is considered the prime resource for the Moon, not Mars. Martian soil is unlikely to have much Helium due to the fact that it has a (compared to the Moon) thick atmosphere of other gasses. On the moon, much of the solar wind is able to directly impact the soil, which allows the Helium-3 to embed into the rocks on the lunar surface.

Similar conditions also exist on Phobos and Deimos, but in that case any Helium-3 extracted there will probabaly be used by Mars, and not the Earth, if any Martian colonies ever get established.

As far as a good location for a telescope, the Sea of Moscow (on the far side of the moon) or perhaps even closer to the lunar equator would be a fantastic location for a radio telescope.... you would be able to block out almost all human radio traffic, and all that is left would be from space missions in interplantary space. I hope that I can see it built in my lifetime.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[uberdave]

Regardless of whether it is the Moon, or Mars, the basic fact of the matter is that there is no such reactor. Although the reaction is theoretically possible, science has yet to reach the break even point in the lab, let alone produce a working prototype.

I agree that the far side of the moon would be a fairly quiet place for a telescope. Of course, you need to deal with compensating for lunar motion, and you also need to have some way of transferring the signal from the far side, to Earth. It would be far cheaper to stick the thing in orbit.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Teancum]

Radio telescopes are not nearly so sensitive to motion problems, and there is eletronic steering that you can do to the detectors so that you can insure that the target astronomical object can be detected easily. The big advantage of the Moon here is that it is a physical barrier that stops RF interference, and the fact that it is turned away from the Earth 100% of the time. Not even Io or Ceres can offer that sort of guarentee.

As far as creating a reactor that uses Helium-3, it is a little more than a mere theoretical concept. There have been working research reactors using fusion that have been able to even produce more energy than was used to create the fusion environment. (Yes, they have passed the break even point). The problem is more trying to make a practical device that doesn't need another power generation facility just to get it to work. And hopefully be able to make it provide power for beyond the needs of the generation facility. This is all forms of fusion reactors, wheither it is a Tokamak, Fusor, or Cold-Fusion cell. The advantage of Helium-3 is such that it makes the practical fusion reactor much closer to reality. Current Helium-3 acquisition is from nuclear energy research and is quite expensive to manufacture.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[linoleo]

The big advantage of the Moon here is that it is a physical barrier that stops RF interference, and the fact that it is turned away from the Earth 100% of the time. Not even Io or Ceres can offer that sort of guarentee.

But the Earth-Moon L2 point (above the lunar farside) *does* offer that. Whyever would you want to stick any very sensitive, automated science instrument down a gravity well where it requires tons (literally) of structural support that wouldn't be needed in space? Not to mention having to deal with vibration & dust kicked up by those lunar He3-mining operations, interference from the miners' WiFi gear (noone would want to live farside without broadband :), and so on.

The only reason to *not* put a telescope in space is pre-existing logistical support (for repairs etc.) at the bottom of a given gravity well - but in case of the Moon you're putting that cart before the horse.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[uberdave]

L2 Lagrange points are not stable (you cannot orbit it without continual orbit correction). And you still have a communications problem, what with the moon being in the way.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[Teancum]

There are a couple points beyond the instability of the L2 point as covered by uberdave (L4 & L5 are much more stable and you need to read more about orbital mechanics to explain).

It also isn't 100% useful either for blocking out RF radiation from the Earth because most L2 orbits will be more a "halo" that "orbits" the L2 point rather than being at exactly L2. Again this is the same for all Lagrangian locations. True, such an orbit can be reduced, but there is also the apparent size of the moon relative to the L2 Point, and compared to the earth. The point here being that something on the surface of the Moon is inherantly easier to maintain, especially given the size requirements necessary for a radio telescope. Optical telescopes would not have this problem so much, and indeed an optical telescope at L5 would be a much better option anyway.

Dust and vibration kicked up by lunar mining operations would be no different than vibrations you experience in say Los Angeles from mining operations in Utah. Unless you are talking nuclear explosions that exceed the largest built nuclear warhead in human history, or a large metor impact, it is unlikely you would even be able to measure such activity at an astronomical observatory even with a sismonitor. The dust would fall to the ground due to gravity, and the only real effect that would have "global" impact on the moon is the increse in lunar atmosphere. Even that would still be negligable except for optical telescopes, which as I said would have better places to be at anyway. By way of measurement and note, human activity in the 20th Century doubled the lunar atmosphere, primaily from the Apollo landings. Even that is negligable when compared to the surface area of the moon as a whole.

As far as pre-existing logistical support, I would say that having an established lunar colony would be of tremendous benefit to such a project. Indeed, lunar smelting operations could provide the raw materials for such a project, and then the only logistical issues would be to be able to move the materials on site over ground terrain.

Look, all I'm suggesting is a practical reason to have a scientific base on the moon, that would yield a huge benefit to a major branch of science. I'm not suggesting that it would be the only possible solution either, and even with all of the supposed benefits such a base would offer, it would be obsolete in a few centuries as people move out in the solar system... so such an operation would have to be moved to yet deeper in the solar system.

Re:Unmanned mission to mars is OK

[linoleo]

there is also the apparent size of the moon relative to the L2 Point, and compared to the earth

What about it? I calculate that the apparent size of the Moon from L2 is almost twice that of the Earth. In other words, L2 lies well within the moon's radio shadow, except for emissions from GEO. GEO communications satellites have highly directional antennae pointing down at earth though, so this should not be much of a problem.

a "halo" that "orbits" the L2 point rather than being at exactly L2

I think you're confusing that with L4/L5, which are statically unstable but have dynamically stable halo orbits around it. There are no stable orbits known around L1/L2/L3. Yes, this means a telescope would have to actively maintain its position at L2, but since this does not require much energy, a solar sail should suffice to do the job.

an established lunar colony would be of tremendous benefit to such a project. Indeed, lunar smelting operations could provide the raw materials for such a project, and then the only logistical issues would be to be able to move the materials on site over ground terrain.

Oh, I agree. What I'm saying is that from our present status (zero resources on the Moon) it makes no sense to establish a lunar base *in order to* build a telescope (of whatever kind) there - it's much simpler to just put it into space. Of course there may be *other* good reasons to build a lunar base - and once you have that, it may make sense to site a telescope near that base.

Flash

[oskard]

I liked the flash presentation. Informative and interactive without being a full blown technology show-off.

PBS special next Tuesday

[frovingslosh]

Those of us in the U.S. may be interested in the Welcome to Mars tht will be broadcast next Tuesday, January 4th, on Nova.

Re:PBS special next Tuesday

[rossdee]

Wasn't that a story by James Blish?

Re:PBS special next Tuesday

[captaineo]

Those of us in the U.S. may be interested in the Welcome to Mars tht will be broadcast next Tuesday, January 4th, on Nova.

(shameless plug)
which includes about 5 minutes of new computer animation by your truly* :). The new shots of the rovers on Mars make use of actual terrain data; when you see the CG rovers they are shown in exactly the real environments down to the level of individual rocks. The lighting is also improved quite a bit over our previous work.

Tuesday at 8PM on your local PBS station. Some will follow it with a repeat of Mars, Dead or Alive, last year's pre-launch show.

* Props to assistant 3D modeler John Niehuss and software consultant Justin Wick (who happens to be a Slashdot reader too).

Water on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest stories to me seems to not be in the press. Has anyone seen this shot

http://www.unknowncountry.com/img/news/122004/ma rs water-1.jpg

Seems to put to bed the question of liquid water on Mars. It maybe frozen, hard to tell, but it was liguid recently or it'd be dust covered not shiny and clear. I'd think this would be worth a front page. At least a mention somewhere in the mainstream.

Re:Water on Mars

[eclectro]

Seems to put to bed the question of liquid water on Mars.

And how do we know that isn't the rover's transmission fluid that leaked out??

Re:Water on Mars

[Rakishi]

Let me first say: Mars is not Earth... what may be true on Earth may not be true on Mars. It has 1/3rd the gravity of Earth and 1/10th the atmosphere. As such unless multiple qualified people agree that a certain piece of data indeed means something, that piece of data is simply being misinterpreted by a bunch of morons. Please look at t all the crap about a "fake moon landing" for an example.

Images of Mars have been interpreted to have everything from water filled canals to giant faces, however both were simply due to light.

Re:Water on Mars

[MichaelSmith]

1/10th the atmosphere

One 1/100th the atmosphere by surface pressure at the very best. 1/200th is more normal

Re:Water on Mars

[AndroidCat]

Since Mars is the subject, your middle name wouldn't be Valentine, would it? :)

Re:Water on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because the rover doesn't use an autotragic transmission? Never had a stickshift tranny leak fluid, at this point I doubt I'll ever see one (though I guess one could if it wasn't properly maintained).

I don't think the Mars Rovers have a transmission at all. Just an electric motor at each wheel that directly drives the wheel. They're not exactly speed demons.

Re:Water on Mars

[Pompatus]

And how do we know that isn't the rover's transmission fluid that leaked out??

Because Ford motor company didn't make it.

Re:Water on Mars

[danimrich]

It's a Rover, not a Volkswagen or Ford ;-)

Re:Water on Mars

[Nerull]

Looks like dust thats collected between the cracks to me. I don't now where you got shiny and clear from, but it certainly isn't.

Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[bperkins]

it is the best use of the technology I have seen

You have _got_ to be kidding me.

It's only saving grace is that it's not flash by default. The intro looks like one of those late 80's slideshow, and the navigation of the main page is infuriatingly confusing and useless.

I'm about to fire it off to one of my friends who teaches web design as an example of what _not_ to do in a web page.

I actaully _like_ pretty flash, but when it just slows things down and makes navigation harder, well then it's stupid.

I guess it's better than the html, which seems broken with my firefox setup.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[tuomasr]

I guess it's better than the html, which seems broken with my firefox setup.

Yep, it's broken on firefox with me too, running default setup on WinXP.

Given the fact that they can't make a simple webpage work with more than one browser makes me wonder how the hell did they manage to put two rovers on an another planet for a year...

-1, Idiot

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[mcg1969]

Works fine with Firefox/WinXP for me. Are you sure you don't have any funny extensions installed? For example, I did indeed discover that the Tabbrowser Preferences extension doesn't play well with windows that have no menu bars.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, you are definitely a curmudgeon ;)

Ironically, most so-called "pretty" Flash does nothing but "slow things down and makes navigation harder"... which is indeed stupid.

And there's nothing worse than people sending examples of "what not to do in web design" to people that web design. Just don't do it.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

U should use linux. its way beter than windoze$$

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats just the problem.

These Mercury rovers are doing REALLY well despite being on the wrong planet ;)

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[USCG]

It works fine on my (Mandrake) Linux laptop with Mozilla 1.7.3 and the Linux Flash Player 7...

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[RetroGeek]

You have _got_ to be kidding me.

Most flash is used for ads. That is a waste IMHO. This is actually used for something useful.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Tablizer]

[it is the best use of [Flash] I have seen.] You have _got_ to be kidding me.

I didn't see much that couldn't be done with just HTML. They may have to reduce or rid fade-ins and intra-image roll-overs though, but that is minor.

Also, the HTML version that they present seems broken. None of the links work for me.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Tablizer]

Given the fact that they can't make a simple webpage work with more than one browser makes me wonder how the hell did they manage to put two rovers on an another planet for a year...

Being a Fed agency, they can only do stuff they have a budget for. They probably have a very tiny budget for such a web presentation and thus let newbie interns do most of it who have little or no experience or recognition of cross-browser and cross-platform issues.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Klingensor]

Works just fine with SuSE 9.2 on an ATH-64. Works just fine with OS/2 (eCS 1.1) on a PIII. Wherever it doesn't work, y'all need to consider your own glass before throwing stones....

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't get it to work with WinXP + Firefox, but I could get it to work with WinXP + IE.

What did I see? A tiny 2"x2.5" movie. Wow! That's one hell of an accomplishment considering it's the fucking 21st Century!

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW- Broken in Safari and Firefox on OSX. Flash OK though.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not a curmudgeon at all. It's ghastly. The bummer is that it could be great and I am big supporter of NASA and the mission.

I really hate bashing this piece. I really love NASA and a lot of the multimedia they've done in the past. The problem is this piece is actually worse than nothing.

Just a few of the broken aspects of this piece:

- Navigation is inconsistent and creates an initial impression of depth but ultimately reveals how shallow the content really is. The trailblazers feature is one example of this. If you click on a red dot along the route, you get a pseudo popup to learn more about that location but what you get in this popup is REALLY shallow.

- Missed opportunities to educate. The route-based navigation is completely squandered as a teaching opportunity. The trailblazers feature obscures the location along the rover's path that the popup contents describe. No indication I can see tells me, having paged several steps in, which dot along the path I'm looking at. This is compounded when you dismiss the popup thinking to look at the next dot only to discover that you've already seen the content associated with it.

- Stupid omissions: URL display for the sites linked from 'more information' and totally insufficient uniquely identifying information for each link.

- The video is ghastly on a number of levels:
-- There's no controller. Especially for progressive download delivered video, this is just lame.

-- One clip I watched was still 'copy stand' footage over music. This was *NOT* appropriate content to deliver as video when the Flash engine could have done a MUCH better job at much lower data rates.

-- The data rate/quality tradeoff is not well chosen at all. Flash video is tough to do well but these clips are way too big to be that ugly.

I could go on. They are MUCH better space explorers than they are multimedia authors or online educators. For those tasks, they need help. I'd tell them where to go to get it but then I wouldn't still be an Anonymous Coward and this post would be written off as self interested. A little research will reveal several different groups who could help them do a better job and do it with editorial sensitivity and insight.

I love NASA and the JPL. I firmly believe they are the best hope we have for the long term future of the human race and I really do hope they seek help doing better interactive outreach.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[dryeo]

Hmm, the HTML version is broken here on OS/2 4.5 with Mozilla 1.8a5. The Flash version runs fine

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

That's possible, and I haven't looked. I'm writing from Linux now, using Konqueror. I'll go look in OS/2, but it doesn't matter. Anyone who uses HTML is either ignorant or just plain lazy.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[The Ur-Grue]

As shocking as this may sound, there are still a fairly substantial number of people without high-speed internet access. Like the bulk of the internet users in Asia (Japan and a few other countries excluded), Africa, South/Central America, and a fair chunk of eastern Europe.

And that's ignoring all of the people in West Europe and North America who don't care enough to pay for more than dial-up. Or have more pressing concerns and can't afford it. Yes Virginia, they do exist.

I hate to break it to you, but countries with huge populations and miserable infrastructure like India, Russia, China, and company do count.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Anonymous Coward]

Or cautious about security.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[kasparov]

I usually hate flash because on most sites it is used quite poorly. I've even argued against using it in some of our own sites (hey, I tend to think most sites should be viewable on lynx). But, I think they did an excellent job on the flash version of the site. It loads quick, looks slick, and the navigation seems pretty straight forward to me. The video descriptions of the images and zoomable 'hot spots' work especially well. I guess it just goes to show that taste is subjective. Thanks NASA.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Cally]

HTML broken (Konquerer and Firefox, Mandrake GNU/Linux 10.1). And guess what? It _almost_ works in links! Except for the only bit I want to see, the time lapse stuff.

The Flash 'works' (FAGV of 'works') but (a) I'm on dialup, (b) I want a local copy and you can't get to the time lapse bits except through a separate falsh frontend - so you can't even 'view source' and run Javascript thru' one's mental parser to work out an HREF to wget.

Way to go, JPL. :(

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[Genza]

I guess the NASA website engineering team uses English units, but Firefox of course uses metric.

Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon

[gronofer]

Really? The HTML version is completely non-functional on my system (generic Firefox 1.0 on generic Linux). Are you saying that the web site is correct, and SuSE 9.2 has a patched version of Firefox or something?

A new milestone.

[qualico]

Now lets try for a Mars Year,
322 days to go.

Interesting information on Mars Time:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/help/notes.h tml

What is time really?
It helps us sync here on Earth, but it certainly
gets crazy once we move into the great beyond.

Wonder what those Mars team members are doing for New Year?
They had to follow a different time.

Cicadian Time would certainly be muddled.
http://www.nsbri.org/Research/Projects/viewsummary .epl?pid=55

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

Circadian Time - give me a spell check /. :->

Re:A new milestone.

[EpsCylonB]

"Time is natures way of making sure that everything doesn't happen all at once"

Re:A new milestone.

[CodeWanker]

Kevin. Dude. Set the bong down slowly and back away from it. Please.

Re:A new milestone.

[Rob Carr]

Now lets try for a Mars Year, 322 days to go. Ya'll realize this is why we're celebrating the Earth year and not when the Rovers are on Mars for a Mars year, right? Then again, who knows? Maybe there will be a surprise and we'll get both celebrations. In which case, we get to party three or four times!

Re:A new milestone.

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll depend on if the rovers can find any more of those power-ups. (One with armament would be nice.) If they last long enough, perhaps they can rescue a princess of Mars.

Re:A new milestone.

[adeydas]

Happy Earth New Year...

Re:A new milestone.

[Dun Malg]

Yeah, I think "cicadian" time is defined as how long it takes before those buzzing insects drive you insane (nominally about 3 days)

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

Lol on the responses.

Whats wrong with the bong though? :->

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

Too funny.

You certainly get those in the hot spots of Canada.
Always know when its going to be a scorching day when they start making noise.

Re:A new milestone.

[TekPolitik]

You certainly get those in the hot spots of Canada. Always know when its going to be a scorching day when they start making noise.

Yeah, those scorching days in Canada. Damned annoying when the dry-ice melts.

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

Actually, something crazy is going with the weather here.
I was able to mow the lawn in December!
Still have the roof down on my Jeep also.

If this trend continues, we'll have palm trees by 2010.

Re:A new milestone.

[snake_dad]

Wonder what those Mars team members are doing for New Year?
They had to follow a different time.

FYI, AFAIK the team is no longer working on Mars-time-day shifts. The experience gained in the first months enabled them to plan activities for both rovers in normal "earth-time" shifts now, and they are often able plan for 3 sols at at time too. Also they are no longer all located at JPL, but back home, and using teleconferencing of some sort for planning.

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

That is interesting.

Are there not other projects where people are preparing for habitation of the planet in polar or desert regions?

If so, no doubt they are following Mars time to duplicate the environment as closely as possible.

Re:A new milestone.

[snake_dad]

I think there is a settlement on a Canadian(?) island where some research is being done, but I doubt they use Mars-time for reality's sake. The Russians are also said to be planning a long duration test to simulate the long flight to Mars, but that's also unlikely to use Mars-time. I don't think that it is a big priority, but I could be mistaken.

IIRC the experiences they had living on Mars-time in the first couple of months operating the rovers was that it worked fine, the human body had no noticable problems, but it became a big nuisance since you get more and more out of step with the rest of the planet. It became a big annoyance to families, things like that. So it was abandoned when no longer necessary.

Re:A new milestone.

[qualico]

If there is to be any hope of sending humans to Mars, I bet time shifting tolerability will become a priority in choosing candidates.

Similar to astronaut testing in the 60's.
You don't want to find out that 6 months into the mission a crew member falls ill from an inability to adapt to new circadian rhythms.

No doubt, if we can't even make a go of it here in the artic, don't bother sending any humans millions of Km.

They really need to start a moon base first.
Makes so much more sense.

Science over everything

[Pecisk]

I think NASA rovers was one of the rare things in 2004 which united whole world. They were there for purerly scientific reasons, they did what they had been sent to do, even more - they continue to rock on and provide more and more details, overloading NASA scientists with work for years.

I see it as victory of science over money, politics, everything which seperate us. Because I think nothing beat those news that we discovered that Mars once definetly has water. So... there should be living organisms on other planets. There could be something like us, humans.

I think nothing beats that feeling when science and common sence works for whole humanity.

Re:Science over everything

[lonesome phreak]

I agree. Even though I was sad to hear about the Beagle, I am proud to see our hardware far outlast it's design and just keep on going. Must be using Energizer batteries or something :)

Now if they can figure out what is cleaning the panels off. My personal theory is it's another tribe of Gnomes like off of Southpark. They come out singing out of a hole in the ground at night, clean off the panels, and disappear again.

Re:Science over everything

[EpsCylonB]

I think nothing beats that feeling when science and common sence[sic] works for whole humanity.

I think uniting the whole world might be a bit strong but it definitely shows the difference between the west and some places where intellect isn't valued at all.

Above all it is clear blind religous fundamentalism, whether prohibiting the teaching of evolution in american schools or inspiring people to attack others through suicide, is the biggest threat to our exploration of the universe we live in.

Re:Science over everything

[I don't want to spen]

There could be something like us, humans.

Doesn't that comma imply that you are something other than human and are talking to humans? In which case you should be saying 'Take me to your leader' - its traditional.

Re:Science over everything

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's an appositive. It's being described two ways: "something like us" and "humans".

Re:Science over everything

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that the rovers went someway to uniting the world, I couldn't help but wince at the price tag.

People are pretty hard up in my area and as much as I love science and exploration it hurts to see my hard earned money taken from me to pay for a spaceship. In my books, the sooner we lift the beauracratic red tape that holds private enterprise back from space exploration the better. There'll be more exploration (of a commercial kind) and it won't require billions of looted money.

Oh well, I suppose its better than Iraq :(

Re:Science over everything

[michaeldot]

A colon would have been clearer.

Re:Science over everything

[Mr. Byaninch]

should have used a dash or a colon... something like us--humans

something like us: humans

Re:Science over everything

[racas]

I so did NOT mean to mod this redundant. It was supposed to be "Insightful!"
This post is simply to remove the incorrect moderation.

Re:Science over everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Only with an enema!

Re:Science over everything

[LiquidCoooled]

Unfortunately, its taken an enormous earthquake, and phenominal tidal wave to unite the world.
People from around the world have been united in grief.

Re:Science over everything

[radtea]

There could be something like us, humans.

My bet is that we'll find life everywhere, intelligence no-where (especially in Washington.)

The argument goes like this: life is incredibly probable. Everywhere on Earth that where there is the least chance of life, we find it. But we know that intelligence has evolved at most once, and that even then it took a LONG time to do something more useful than make cave paintings and design ballistic missile defense.

So I'm still betting that we'll find life on Titan, but that we won't find intelligence, even on planets circling the farthest stars of our galaxy.

--Tom

Re:Science over everything

[Klingensor]

We know nothing, but surmise that intelligence has developed at *least* once, and, given the current state of affiars, that, too, is questionable. Some opine that we're nothing more than a bunch of clever, omnivorous primates. Given the current state of world conditions, that opinion might have some merit.

Re:Science over everything

[Scarblac]

Doesn't that comma imply that you are something other than human and are talking to humans?

And if so, what kind of powers do you have? Do you use them for good, or for awesome?

Re:Science over everything

[Anonymous Coward]

are you insane, or just American and don't understand the meaning of the word "world" (World Series Baseball, ABC World News)?

most of the world couldn't give a shit about the rovers.

Re:Science over everything

[deglr6328]

I hereby bestow upon EpsCylonB the Most Insightful Comment of the Month Award. As an unrealistic and sometimes escapist type of guy, I often find myself daydreaming of a world where blind faith and fundamentalism are scorned and shunned in favor of rationality and science. I wonder what incredible things such a society could achieve and how incomprehensibly far away from it our own society, still nearly hopelessly mired in religion, mysticism and superstision is. Then I wonder if at a current age of 24 years old, I will ever live to even see the first hints of such a beautiful, proliferant civilization and then reality, with it's often painfully cruel truths (which, as a person of science and reason I find impossible to shun) sets in. And I realize that no, I will likely never know such a time.

Re:Science over everything

[snap2grid]

I think uniting the whole world might be a bit strong but it definitely shows the difference between the west and some places where intellect isn't valued at all.

I have to wonder about intellect being valued in the west after a 'review of the year' I saw here in the UK. Our own Mars project was a failure - unluckily - but what astounded me about this part of the show was Brian Sewell - an art critic - who said he was "jubilant" at the failure apparently because the landing took place when people should be in church!!

Re:Science over everything

[cduffy]

I wonder if at a current age of 24 years old, I will ever live to even see the first hints of such a beautiful, proliferant civilization

Of course you will, if you look for them. Stop moaning, and instead join and associate with the subset of humanity that already has these beliefs -- like almost any subset, it's larger than it looks from the outside.

Re:Science over everything

[iggymanz]

I don't see much difference between science and religion: they both have many competing alternate views & explanations for the same thing, they both have fundamentalists who will reject out of hand anything that conflicts with their world view, they both have politics and politicians, treachery, liars who distort truth, prophets, they both have had governments adopt them as a foundation and then gone on to do great crimes against humanity.....in short, science can be a great thing, but is subject to the same problems as any other human endeavor

Grab some popcorn?

[SharpFang]

The movie section says "grab some popcorn and select one of the movies to the left to start the show". I'd rather say "select one of the movies to the left, then drive to the mall to buy some popcorn, and when you're back, it will start".

Dear Sirs. We managed to slashdot NASA. Congratulations.

Re:Grab some popcorn?

[spac3manspiff]

I dont know which mall you shop at that sells popcorn! I wish mine sold popcorn

Re:Grab some popcorn?

[Anonymous Coward]

*shrug* 1) small packages, maybe 100g, just plain plastic bag. 2) "XL bucket", some 10 liters (no idea about the weight.), 3) "fry yourself" popcorn in paper bags, best bang for the buck, put the flat, nearly empty paper bag with corn seed in the microwave oven for a minute or two and remove it bloated with fresh, hot popcorn.
If you can get some simple paper bags, it pays to buy a pound of raw "popcorn breed" corn seed at a seed/feeder store (farming supply) - it will cost pennies and suffice for years. So what if 1/3 of it doesn't pop. Just discard what didn't and fry some more. Just watch out not to fry too long, just a little of it burning will make all the bag contents stink with smoke, and this stuff can catch fire too. :)

Re:Grab some popcorn?

[lahi]

I would think that suggesting to eat seed corn is extremely bad advice?

Seed corn is typically treated with rather nasty fungicides and perhaps other chemicals, which are definitely not good to eat.

Or was this an attempt at a joke, which was merely incompatible with my sense of humour?

-Lasse

Re:Grab some popcorn?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Just forgetting that in the US whatever isn't treated with at least 70% of the Periodic Table, exposed to UV, radiation, microwaves, acids, Holy Water, temperature above 500K and vaccuum, and then examined by 20 different departments including the Spanish Inquisition isn't considered valid and suitable for planting. Here to keep prices lower they sell plain dried corn and it's up to the farmer to apply fungicides.

NEVERMIND ^^^

[mcg1969]

I misread. I thought you were referring to the Flash version. The HTML version is broken for me, too.

Wow, I didn't realize they were so BIG

[melted]

For some reason I thought the rovers were MUCH smaller than they really are. Heck, this thing is bigger than the lunar "automobile" (the copy of it I've seen in Boeing museum).

Re:Wow, I didn't realize they were so BIG

[wronkiew]

Apollo lunar rover dimensions: 3.0m x 2.3m
Mars Exploration Rover dimensions: 1.6m x 2.3m

Perhaps the copy you saw was a scale model?

Holy Childhood Flashbacks...

[JohnPerkins]

I seem to recall, from reading Lucky Starr in the 1970s, that the Martian year is 687 Earth days.

With the rovers there for so long, it sure would be interesting to get them back here. Nice chance to study the long-term effects of the Martian environment.

We've all been to Mars!

[Anonymous Coward]

L. Ron Hubbard said so in his book History of Man, chapter 8. When we die, our souls (thetans) go to Mars for reprocessing at a between-lives `implant station' where they are implanted with a variety of control phases while waiting to pick up another body, sometimes in competition with other disembodied thetans. Hubbard revealed that most implant stations were on Mars, although women occasionally had to report elsewhere in the solar system and there was a `Martian implant station somewhere in the Pyrenees'.

Re:We've all been to Mars!

[lime1304]

Nice. Perhaps the thetans have been cleaning off the solar panels on the rovers. I love cults. They use the most imagination when it comes to our origination. Wasn't L. Ron Hubbard a con artist before he became the leader of the Church of Scientology?

Re:We've all been to Mars!

[pianophile]

Wasn't L. Ron Hubbard a con artist before he became the leader of the Church of Scientology?

No, just a third-rate SF writer. He did decide to start his own religion when writing wasn't making him rich and famous enough, though, which is quite an ambitious con. One he pulled off quite well.

Re:We've all been to Mars!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean "before" ?

Are you joking?

[SharpFang]

Want me to dig up the "Beagle 2 lost" and "NASA Rovers working" stories? All that rambling about NASA superiority over ESA, "US - Europe 2:0" and such? Maybe if they were a common effort, they would unite the world, but it seems with Beagle 2 demise they only made the conflict deeper.
No, of course they are great devices, great succes, and scientifically priceless and all that. It's just that they didn't help a thing on the social level.

Re:Are you joking?

[lime1304]

I think the rovers success encouraged a little ego massage at NASA but after the Shuttle disaster, they needed it. The Cassini-Huygens mission, on the other hand is showing what can happen if there is true international cooperation in space. Up to this point, that mission has been nearly flawless, and even the missteps have been recoverable. Hopefully Europe's Huygens can make a successful descent, and give insight into Titan's composition.

Re:Are you joking?

[snake_dad]

I think you are taking the trolls here too seriously. I'm pretty sure that everyone with scientific interest was cheering for both Beagle2 and Rovers, and dissapointed at the formers loss. Also, Mars Express is doing fine, and getting admiration from both "camps". Plus what lime1304 said about Cassini/Huygens. Anyway, just mention Mars Polar Lander to the trolls and they'll shut up... IF they even know what that was :)

What cheezy music!

[Anonymous Coward]

Egad, who composed the music for that intro! Scary recollections of film strips controlled by expensive cassette tape players in grade school.

I hate Slashdot so much......

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I keep reading? Please kill me.

It's a 'Michael' article.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect? All Sims is capable of is near-illiteracy (read anything he's ever written), craven fondling (Raven Alder, etc), and the most venal of scams (Roland, Engadget, et al).

I hoped Santa would bring me news that Malda had sacked Michael. Nope. Dang.

Then I wished with all my heart and soul that the New Year would be Sims-less. 'Twas not to be. Alas.

The old grey Slashdot, she ain't what she used to be...

You know...

[Ramsey-07]

I could have sworn that title morphed into "Year on mars" from "Year to mars".

Dammit.

Web Hits

[Anonymous Coward]

9.1 Billion web hits!

Premature?

[Tablizer]

Spirit landed in early January and Opportunity in late January. If something goes wrong between now and then, the "Year on Mars" campaign will have egg all over it.

That may very well be

[melted]

Still, they're larger than Lunokhod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1), which roamed the Moon in 1973 (!).

Re:That may very well be

[snake_dad]

1973, but no autonomous capacity at all, it was steered remotely. Still a great achievement in those days, though, just saying it doesn't compare very well with the current rovers.

Re:That may very well be

[melted]

Steering remotely wouldn't work for Mars. It barely worked for the Moon. The round trip was 5 seconds, so you had to steer very carefully. As far as whether it compares, I'd say it does. Just read the wikipedia article I've provided. That was an unbelievably advanced thing for the early 70's. Back then there weren't any computers. :0)

Re:That may very well be

[snake_dad]

I guess we're saying the same thing.. Both great achievements, and of a similar difficulty IF seen in the context of the technology level at the time. I just get a little tired of the people (not you) saying: look, the Russians did in 1973 what NASA is doing now". And I don't think that that is a fair statement.

Re:That may very well be

[melted]

This must be painful to European space agency. Russians did a rover in 1970, americans did their first in 1997, and Europeans smashed their Beagle into Mars in 2004. I bet it would work, if they used NASA's landing technology.

Mars Time on your computer

[IO ERROR]

You didn't even mention that they have for download a nice little program (runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and probably anything else) which will tell you the time on Mars. Or just view it in your browser window (Java required).

Mars24 is a Java program and browser applet which displays a Mars "sunclock", a graphical representation of the planet Mars showing its current sun- and nightsides, along with a numerical readout of the time in 24-hour format. Other displays include a plot showing the relative orbital positions of Mars and Earth and a diagram showing the solar angle for a given location on Mars.

Mars24 runs on many different types of computers, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and more, but it requires Java 1.3.1 or better be installed on the computer. The associated MER Spirit/Opportunity Clock Applet requires only Java 1.1.8 and is compatible with many older web browsers, but it does not include the sunclock or other graphic displays of Mars24.

Re:Mars Time on your computer

[qualico]

That is a great clock. Thanks for the links.

Confusing about the picture of Mars though.

You would think the polar caps would be smaller on the upper part of the image when the Sun is clearly extended past it's equinoctial point.

Surely the elements follow the same rules as here on Earth.

Re:Mars Time on your computer

[IO ERROR]

They have a choice of several different ways to map Mars on screen. I use the orthographic map myself, since it most closely approximates how you would actually see Mars if you were looking at it.

This is so cool.

[multiplexo]

I wonder how much it would cost to build a couple of rovers or static landers and orbiters that would have a guaranteed life of ten years or so and how much it would cost to monitor them. It would be cool to have monitoring capabilities on each planet of the solar system, sort of a cosmic early warning system.

Re:This is so cool.

[LWATCDR]

Probably a lot of money. More than it would be worth. Think how much we improve computers every few years. Think about a 10 year old pc compared to what we can do now.
Nope it would be better to send many smaller probes over and over. Not to mention that if we are sending enough of them we can afford to send some to more dangerous locations.
I for one want to see a landing at the poles.

Re:This is so cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Early warning of what, bad weather?

From everything I've seen so far....

[tdhillman]

First prize: a year on Mars.

Second Prize: two years on Mars.

martian haiku

[swyterw]

the martian surface
only a few clicks away
dot com travelling


-w

Perhaps you need to take a second look

[SuperKendall]

Even the Beagle 2 team themselves was very happy at the rovers success - everyone knows that Mars is a tough business and scientists are happy when anything works there.

A few silly comments from trolls on Slashdot should not be mistaken as world opinion. I agree, the landings were a real unifying event as people the world over got a glimpse of what can be accomplished with some proper global teamwork.

I just read that as Mars, Dead or Alive Volleyball

[nounderscores]

Which raises some interesting CGI... possibilities.

The Little Rover

[tverbeek]

Because of the fisheye distortion on their cameras, the high-speed movies of their travels make them seem a bit like The Little Prince, walking about his tiny planet. I thought Mars was bigger than that.

Don't you mean...

[uberdave]

322 days? Should't you be measuring in sols?

Re:Don't you mean...

[qualico]

Hey, lets not confuse the already confusing. :-)

Great

[betterpc]

Great! Now we are talking. I love links like that.

Ignore this post

[Mr2cents]

Just a test..

Who is surprised by this?

[Photo_Nut]

"Yep, it's broken on firefox with me too, running default setup on WinXP."

So right click, and do "View This Page in IE".

"Given the fact that they can't make a simple webpage work with more than one browser makes me wonder how the hell did they manage to put two rovers on an another planet for a year..."

Maybe they actually spend their budget on things which matter (rovers, etc) more than they do on things which don't matter (compatability with Firefox).

People here tout standards and Open Source like they are holy grails. In the real world, market share matters more. Until Firefox is bug-compatible with IE, I expect that a good number of sites will remain broken. It takes a lot of time (time = salary = money) to test web sites with multiple browsers and work around the differences in implementation. I'd rather that NASA spend their money on space travel than on HTML Bug Compatability with browsers that less than 10% of their users use.

Compliance with the standards is not the reason that these sites are broken with Firefox. The reason these sites are broken is that they were not developed and tested with Firefox. How bug-compatible is Forefox with respect to Netscape? I would assume that since Netscape "open sourced" the product, it's pretty close, if not identical.

This message was posted using Firefox. I'm not going to claim that one browser is better than the other, but I will play with Firefox, and I happily click the "View This Page in IE" button when Firefox doesn't work. I'm also noticing that sometimes I click the "View This Page in Firefox" when IE doesn't work...

L. Ron

[linoleo]

Wasn't L. Ron Hubbard a con artist before he became the leader of the Church of Scientology?

What do you mean, "before"?