Mars Express Successfully Deploys First Boom

Psiolent writes "As reported yesterday, the Mars Express team is beginning the antenna deployment process. The BBC reports that the satellite has successfully deployed the first boom of the primary antenna. The article also states that 'the mood amongst instrument team members is now said to be positive, following the problem-free deployment of the first boom.' The second boom of the primary antenna is scheduled to be deployed Sunday."

Comments

Wasn't really much of a boom, really

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a kind of a muffled thump

Re:Wasn't really much of a boom, really

[Cougem]

In space, no one can hear you boom.

Re:Wasn't really much of a boom, really

[sploxx]

In space, no one can hear you boom.
You need a medium to transmit your sounds through :-)

But on the spacecraft, you HAVE a medium: The spacecraft itself.

I bet that there are some kind of acceleration/attitude sensors which picked the 'sound' of the boom deployment up.

Re:Wasn't really much of a boom, really

[SilentChris]

Does it really make sense to use the word "boom" when referring to the Mars missions nowadays? Wouldn't it be better PR to say "Hey, it worked! Onto stage 2!" instead of "we've completed the boom"?

Re:Wasn't really much of a boom, really

[m50d]

Especially if Mr Blair is there

but....

[eobanb]

there was supposed to be an Earth-shattering ka-BOOM!

Re:but....

[theid0]

Well, it was Mars-shattering... All the Martians applauded and drank martinis in celebration. There's just no satisfying some people.

Re:but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hate it when there isn't a ka-boom!

Boom

[OneArmedMan]

Shake Shake Shake the room!

Reported Yesterday?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, today is Wednesday!? Man then I totally missed work yesterday! Well on the bright side this gives me some extra time to buy a mothers day gift...

I swear these stories are chosen autonomously.
~

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic my ass.

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[NanoGator]

"Offtopic my ass."

Sorry, there wasn't a "Who gives a flying fuck?" option.

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, true. I don't know why I would expect the editors to get dates correct, 'tis only Slashdot.

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[NanoGator]

" I don't know why I would expect the editors to get dates correct, 'tis only Slashdot."

I don't know why Slashdot Editors are held to a standard they have never EVER reached. 'Tis a strange world you live in.

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't know why I would expect the editors to get dates

Yep. Getting dates can be a bitch sometimes.

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[Anonymous Coward]

my x wife is a bitch too. she is good with dates though...

Re:Reported Yesterday?

[essreenim]

I don't know why Slashdot Editors are held to a standard they have never EVER reached.

Yeah, but you are forgetting they are Duke Nukem Forever and GNU Herd developers in their spare time!!

Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

So a very tiny part of a relatively small-scale space mission went well. That's terrific.

Remember the day when an entire manned space flight going without a hitch was barely considered newsworthy?

Prior to the Challenger explosion, it seemed almost inevitable that mankind would simply get better and better at putting men and objects out into space.

Since then, we've had blurry telescopes, lost probes, crash landings, re-entry burn-ups, space station fires, metric conversion errors, and a plethora of other humiliating failures.

What was the biggest triumph of space exploration in the last ten years?

Well, you could say it's some of our distant unmanned probes on the outer reaches of the solar system sending us cool pictures, but those were launched back in the Good Old Days when it seems like we knew WTF we were doing.

No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars.

Pathetic.

Do we need the commies back to scare us in to innovating once again? Seems a rather high price to pay.

Re:Falling standards

[TapeCutter]

Ahhhh, the "good old days". You know the older I get the better I was.

Re:Falling standards

[Jafafa Hots]

A car for a few days? Try two, both for well over a year and still going... and which made some of the most important discoveries the space program has EVER made.

I agree that overall the space program is in a sad state, but the Mars Rovers rank up there with Apollo and Voyager as one of the most important missions ever in terms of discoveries and accomplishments.

Re:Falling standards

[DigiShaman]

And to think this was all done using slide rules and mainframes with less processing power to that of your average microwave oven, refridge, or vacuum cleaner (in part to the Z80 chip).

Re:Falling standards

[iSeal]

What was the biggest triumph of space exploration in the last ten years? Managing to prove the existence of the Bing Bang with certainty?

Re:Falling standards

[Spacejock]

Bing bang? Sounds like it went off with a crash of cymbals.

Re:Falling standards

[flyingsquid]

No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars. Pathetic.

It's only pathetic if you judge the space program in terms of cool stunts, which for the most part is what the manned program has been. In terms of collecting data for scientific purposes, we've mapped Mars, photographed the outer planets, and had the Hubble peer at planets outside our solar system. All done with automated "toys" like rovers, probes and orbiters.

So real space exploration doesn't look like "Star Wars". Tough shit. Grow up and get over it.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

What discoveries exactly? From the top of the head, I can only think of...... well..... none actually.

Re:Falling standards

[Rakishi]

Yup, humans are not designed for space and only real reason for them is: politics (robots have a hard time asking congress for funding) and processing power (we are better than computers at many problems especially ones not thought of before).

We've been sending humans to LOE for 40 years or so, and that makes it old and not that innovative. Robot rovers on the other hand are a new thing, especially in the sense of exploring another planet. If anyone thinks doing so is easy they are a fool who has seen too much sci-fi. Also, if anyone says we should send humans to Mars I'll simply say the following: humans cannot be decontaminated and until we know with very high probability that there is no life (or remains of it) on Mars sending humans there is stupid.

Re:Falling standards

[FleaPlus]

So a very tiny part of a relatively small-scale space mission went well. That's terrific.

I've personally been anxiously awaiting the Marsis deployment since last year. This "very tiny part" should hopefully settle the question of whether or not there are bodies of subterranean water currently on Mars. I don't know about you, but I consider the possibility of Martian aquifers quite exciting.

What was the biggest triumph of space exploration in the last ten years?

There's plenty of options:

* the first landing on an asteroid
* the discovery of bodies of water in the past of Mars
* the first privately-funded suborbital human spaceflight
* the first landing on Titan
* the first in-space test of an ion propulsion engine
* the discovery of and first images of extrasolar planets
* the discovery of a sub-surface ocean on Europa
* the collection of dust samples from a comet
* high resolution (10m) maps of the Martian surface

No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars. Pathetic.

And Einstein was a guy who thought about stuff for a while and wrote them down.

Re:Falling standards

[zaguar]

Well, The COBE data managed to prove the big bang theory, and the WMAP data supported that conclusion to a higher degree of accuracy. I suggest that perhaps, the proof of the origins of the univers is perhaps SLIGHTLY important and valuable. But hey, what do i know? In my view, proving that something as miraculous as the big bang occured is a stunning triumph of modern science. Perhaps it is not in your view.

Re:Falling standards

[Brett Buck]

Not to counter your point (which I largely agree with), to be picky, the ion engines like DS-1 have been around for at least 25 years.

Brett

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Exploratory science can't be done remotely. Period.

It's is exactly the unmanned-probe mafia that's holding us back. A bit like the Church held back science in the middle ages.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

And what is the point of space exploration if it does not prepare our eventual colonization of other planets?

Why don't you people just be honest about it and admit that you don't even hope to see us explore the universe by ourselves. You know you could never qualify for such a flight and that's why you're pushing for this robotics-only approach.

So sad.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Traveling in space and getting to the orbit is pretty useless stuff. It is only now that I see the futility of all manned space programs. Thanks for the hint, buddy. I'm glad that we have people like you getting our feet back on the ground before we started exploring new frontiers.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF?
Are you dumb or something? I was asking GGP about the discoveries of the mars rovers which are supposed to be "the most important" of all space program. Either give one or STFU.

Re:Falling standards

[Vellmont]

Remember the day when an entire manned space flight going without a hitch was barely considered newsworthy?


Yah, I also remember a day when ALL of Nasas resources were dedicated to one single mission, rather than a 100-200. You just think it might be a bit easier to accomplish one single goal while dedicating all your resources to it than it is to work on 100 things at the same time? We spent billions upon billions of dollars for a guy to play golf on the moon and get some rocks back. That's great, and we learned a lot but in terms of science it was peanuts compared to the science we get from all the missions being worked on now.

Since then, we've had blurry telescopes, lost probes, crash landings, re-entry burn-ups, space station fires, metric conversion errors, and a plethora of other humiliating failures.

True. We've also had wonderfull sucesses. We fixed the "blury telescope" in orbit, and have upgraded it several times since. We've STILL got two robots wandering around Mars far after they were designed to operate. We had a probe land on a moon of Saturn, had another probe land on an asteriod, and have another set to crash into a comet. We've got another probe set to orbit mercury for the first time ever. Oh, and we've got a small armada of probes set to be sent to mars over the next few years. Compared to the "glory days" where we also had massive failures like rockets exploding, I think we're doing damn well. As far as past failures, if you want something with that's a bit safer, try something a bit more easy like designing ashtrays.

No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars

Quite a manipulative way to put it. The rovers have produced an enourmous amount of information on the geology of Mars in the more than a year they've been active. We never would have gotten the evidence for liquid water on Mars we have without being able to move around the surface.

But you seem to be more upset that we're not doing "glamorous" things like going to the moon, or producing pretty pictures of Saturn. If all you care about is sexy space stuff, I'd suggest one of the fine eye-candy sci-fi movies hollywood puts out. Nasa is in the business of science, and partially in the business of manned exploration. Creating "Star Trek" isn't in that mission.

Re:Falling standards

[Jafafa Hots]

Ok, how about the discovery of proof that Mars had bodies of water? Sure, we had lots of indirect evidence, but not conclusive proof. Now we have it.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? STFU?

I really don't think you are old enough to remember many other space programs, so you should really shut up.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Nasa is in the business of science, and partially in the business of manned exploration.

Huh? How is manned space exploration mutually exclusive with science? You know, there's a reason why science on earth is done by humans.

It is doubtful that full scientific potential of any space mission can be fulfilled without a human component.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I know you've always dreamed about having your very own 'Enterprise', and would like to march around in a Star Trek uniform shouting "Engage", but you're going to have to be patient, OK?

Re:Falling standards

[FleaPlus]

Thanks for the correction. Do you happen to know then what was noteworthy about the ion thrusters on DS1?

Re:Falling standards

[isometrick]

RTFP. Where in "first in-space test of an ion propulsion engine" do you see this problem?

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to be patient when the robotic-space-exploration mafia is driving manned space flight to the ground.

Besides, I don't like Trek. I prefer B5 and Battlestar Galactica.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsk, tsk... So you can't even name one big discovery... You lose, buddy...

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't the OP. Dumbass.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

More proof of water, excessive methane showing a possibility of life of some kind. There's many more. Ask Google instead of being a prick.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

And you really think that ranks amongst the most important discoveries of the space program? Some water on a piece of rock? Compared to for example the multitude of ground breaking work done with the Hubble Space Telescope? To the enormous mass of scientific data from the Cassini Probe? And so on...?

Excuse me, but I don't think you know anything about space science... You're just fascinated by the "Cool - remote-controlled cars!"-factor. Don't get me wrong, I love the rovers too, but from a scientific point of view they're not really exciting.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're only the idiot posting completely unrelated drivel...

Re:Falling standards

[Rakishi]

To increase our knowledge, and you yourself just said "prepare". Knowledge is preparation, doesn't mean it'll lead to anything soon. Robotics are much better at gaining information and for now are the best approach honestly.

Also the knowledge we'd gain from finding life or its remains on Mars is far, far greater than what some half-assed manned mission could ever hope to achieve.

Personally, I'd love to go to space although going to another planet is iffy. Given current technology such a journey would not be exactly pleasant and the effects on my body would be rather bad (as I said humans and zero-G don't mix very well). As for qualifying, I doubt I'd pass the physicals and I have enough allergies to disqualify me from most things, although I'd probably satisfy any non-physical requirements. It's interesting and cool until you look at the details, for example one of the Apollo astronauts didn't take a shit during the whole mission due to the annoyance of the act.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

That 'piece of rock' is one of the best candidates for human colonisation. Are you seriously suggesting that finding water on it is no big deal?!

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. There's two of us now.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother. These "scientists" don't care about colonisation. They just want to figure out some trivial detail of the big bang before a big rock from space makes us go extinct. Just because figuring out a way to colonise other plants wasn't "scientific" enough.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's pretty much a joke compared to the data MARSIS will provide, if it turns out to work.

If you really think Mars will be colonized anytime soon, you must be a naive cookie.

Re:Falling standards

[Jafafa Hots]

lol. Friend, I've forgotten more about space science than you ever knew.
I was enough of a space fanatic that I memorized the names and launch dates of every major nasa unmanned mission, the launch dates of every manned nasa mission along with the mission accomplishments and of course the astronauts names... the names, launch dates and accomplishments of the soviet unmanned missions, the names of all the soviet cosmonauts, their missions, durations...
In the mid 1980's I had a letter published in Time Magazine correcting their science writer about some historical data on one of the soviet missions.
I've moved on to other things in recent years, but for many years I lived and breathed the space program.

Yes, the hubble has done great work, and would rank up there with Apollo and Voyager too. The Cassini probe is a great mission, the huygens probe was great, though in my opinion the enormous mass of scientific data it returned (and is returning) is not quite as groundbreaking as the Mars Rovers'.

And my enthusiasm has nothing to do with "cool! remote control cars!" but instead has to do with having a lab that is testing and sampling rocks and soil including subsurface soil from multiple locations, allowing comparison, etc...

There has been an immense amount learned, but it just doesn't convert resdily into snazzy headlines . Frankly, Skippy, to say that from a scientific standoint they're not exciting is complete idiocy - I have seen the geologists and chemists and other space scientists this excited since Voyager II's flyby of Saturn.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing mission dates by heart doesn't mean you understand their importance. Just shows that you're a zealot. And we all know those aren't necessarily rational.

You still didn't come up with any ground breaking discovery.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's a big conspiracy, it's based on a few simple problems with humans - ie life support, you have to send them back, and they're a a lot larger than a robot. We don't really have the technology to send a human to Mars yet.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Prior to the Challenger explosion, it seemed almost inevitable that mankind would simply get better and better at putting men and objects out into space.

I feel your pain, but you assume that the Shuttle program was worthwhile. Newsflash: When the Shuttle isn't busy exploding on takeoff, it explodes on re-entry. It's a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible design and should have been retired 15 years ago. It was such a compromise between military and civilian design goals that it could do neither very well. I'm of the opinion that government programs could never do safe manned space travel.

And unfortunately there's a limit on the usefulness of putting men into space. Men report back things like: "yep, I'm cold and hungry." And: "I'm still hungry." Nothing that a robot couldn't do for 1/10th the cost and none of the risk to human life.

What *is* worthwhile is putting men in space *permanently*. Until we're at the point where we're talking about having a permanent manned base on another planetary body (the moon / mars) - there's not much use. And there's still a lot of really boring stuff to do first: figure out how to make concrete from lunar materials, how to safely dig tunnels and caves in the rock, figure out how to plant underground farms to feed and sustain a population, figure out how to prevent gravity sickness in lunar colonists and how to provide them with adequate radiation shelter from solar flares.

If we pushed into space right now, astronauts would be dying in the hundreds. We're not ready yet. The human race (and it's hundreds of overregulatory governments, stock-price obsessed corporations and not-on-my-dollar private citizens) is not yet mature enough to do it properly.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think Mars will be colonized anytime soon, you must be a naive cookie.

Yeah, Mars will not be colonized anytime soon -- thanks to naysayers like you. I bet the same thing was said about the moon missions, too.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

And - is moon colonized? Nope.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but that was not the point. At least we went there at a time when it must have seemed technologically impossible. Now people like you are giving up before even trying.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

And sending out those unmanned probes helps in developing human lifesupport... how?

Re:Falling standards

[Vellmont]

Where did I say they were mututually exclusive? For the most part they're different missions though. Sending humans into space is so expensive that it takes money and resources away from pursuing the actual science.

It is doubtful that full scientific potential of any space mission can be fulfilled without a human component.

More resources always increase the scientific potential of any mission. More money, more time, more talented engineers, whatever. The key is of course getting the most scientific potential out of the resources you have. Currently this means sending probes, and not people.

Re:Falling standards

[macpeep]

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean you should ridicule it and call it pathetic. Good thing you're posting anonymously, because you're making quite a fool out of yourself.

Here's some examples of what you conveniently forgot:

- Two rovers on Mars, which have covered more than 10 km so far, combined, and taken tens of thousands of high resolution photos and other measurements, found solid evidence of past water, and expanded our knowledge of our closest neighbor so much that it will take years and years to even fully comprehend it all
- Huygens landing on Titan
- Cassini's elaborate tour of Saturn which is revolutionary in how much it teaches us about how the solar system came to be
- High resolution mappings of the moon, Mars, Jupiter & moons and Saturn & moons, as well as a few asteroids
- Vast amounts of experience about large scale construction work (crucial to planetary missions) and long duration living in space
- Near 100% track record of current satellite launchers, such as the Titan, Delta, Soyuz and Ariane rockets. Majorly improved from the days of Apollo
- Major advancements in adaptive optics in telescopes, which give ground based telescopes close to equal resolution to the Hubble
- First private flight to space
- The arrival of commercial companies in larger scale to the space business (Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, Starsem, etc.)
- A high number of new members of the space launch capable countries; India, Japan, China, and soon Brazil, South Korea and probably many others I've forgotten

Pretty much the only thing we haven't done is go to Mars or continue going to the moon. But going to the moon always has been a topic that is very hard to understand for many. Because it's so much further away than low earth orbit, people assume that going there is equally much more complex and hard. That's simply not the case.

The biggest challenge by far in space exploration is getting heavy equipment to go fast enough that it stays on orbit. To get to low earth orbit, you have to reach a velocity of nearly 8km per second. And the main challenge here is that you're launching through a thick atmosphere. Once you're in low earth orbit, getting to the moon only requires a very small (proportionally) amount of additional velocity. You don't burn the engines all the way to the moon - you just light them up for long enough to accelerate 2 more km/s. To go to Mars, just a tiny bit more velocity still is needed compared to going to the moon.

The navigational challenge of going to the moon is actually quite simple. We're doing orders of magnitude more complex things right now with probes like Stardust, NEAR, Cassini, Gallileo, all of the Mars probes, and for example Rosetta. Compared to what those have done in terms of navigation, going to the moon is child's play.

And of course, to land on the moon and go back to earth, all you have to do is change your velocity a little bit more. But since the moon's gravity is low and because there's no atmosphere, it's way easier than launching a rocket to space from earth.

ESA's Smart-1 probe is a good example of what we can do today. It went to the moon using less than 100kg of fuel, and using pin-point accuracy navigation. It did so hitching a ride on an empty slot of a rocket that was putting up a couple of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. With less than 100kg more fuel, and a lot of smart people, it's nor orbiting the moon.

That's how far we've come from the Challenger days. That's what you're calling pathetic.

And sure, we've had some problems too. But no more than we used to back in the Apollo days. Or have you forgotten Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Gemini 8 spinning out of control and making an emergency landing, Friendship 7 (Mercury) failing to jettison the retro rocket pack and nearly burning up on the way down, Aurora 7 (Mercury) running out of fuel, Liberty Bell 7 (Mercury again) having a hatch just suddenly blow after landing, without being commanded to do so, half the Ra

Re:Falling standards

[drsquare]

That begs the question of whether human lifesupport is something we need.

No matter important we humans think we are, a robot or a computer is much better suited to the task of exploration. They don't need feeding, they don't need oxygen, or gravity. A computer doesn't get bored, it doesn't make human errors, it can explore for decades in outer space and won't go insane. Think a human would last long in a pod on Mars? How long 'till he opens the door to commit suicide?

We could explore the entire galaxy without a human even leaving LEO.

As for finding habitation for when the Earth is hit by an asteroid, what makes you think that an asteroid-hit Earth in a perpetual global winter will be any less of a habitable place than Mars? If you can live in a 'space city' on Mars with artificial oxygen/water/food generation, you can do the same on Earth, with less hassle if something goes wrong.

Space isn't like on Star Trek or Star Wars, it won't be full of exciting planets all with Earth gravity and human-breathable atmosphere, filled with aliens who both look and sound like humans, and speak English or have a perfect translator. Space is largely a dead and empty place, planets are years of travel apart, inter-stellar would take decades, and you wouldn't find much when you got there. Space-stations or planet/moon habitations wouldn't be nice places to be. There'd be little or no gravity, you'd spend most of your time floating around, shitting and pissing in tubes, and eating re-hydrated powder.

Even if there was a largely-pleasant space-station to live on, within a few months the novelty would wear off and you'd be begging to go back to Earth, even if just to breath fresh air or to feel rain.

Re:Falling standards

[caston]

I don't think it will always be like this though. Human technology has come so far in the last 100 years. Another hundred and we may well be using solar sails to travel at near the speed of light.
A bright Aspie might come along and work out we can exceed it.
Possibly 10% of the stars in the galaxy are in the "habitable zone" and there's more stars in the galaxy than there are grains on sand on this planet.

Re:Falling standards

[amightywind]

No, our highwater mark for the last ten years is a solar-powered toy car which rolled around for a few days on the surface of Mars.

I am generallly critical of the current US space program, but the Mars rover missions are truely historic. "Roll around on the surface for a few days", you say? They have been alive for almost 1.5 years! They have discovered and imaged evaporite rocks, salts, dust devils; climbed up hills, into craters, probed rock outcrops, got stuck in sand dunes...! This is success beyond scientists wildest hopes. No, the Mars rovers deserve their place among Apollo, Voyager, Viking as great voyages of exploration.

I do agree with you that this story is not noteworthy at all.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

More proof of water, excessive methane showing a possibility of life of some kind. There's many more. Ask Google instead of being a prick.

Bzzzt.

The water proof came from a later, non-toy-car, probe.

You still have not named any major discoveries.

(Hint: That's because there were none. Just pictures of a few rocks.)

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I did call it our greatest achievement of the last ten years.

I'm just disappointed that this is the case. We would be all over the moons of Jupiter by now, had we retained the spirit that got us to the moon in the 60s.

Re:Falling standards

[drsquare]

Yeah, but most of them are too far away for it to be practical to get to them. You're never going to find a planet with earth gravity and atmosphere, so just give up. Who wants to live in a rotating tin can their whole life?

Re:Falling standards

[Jafafa Hots]

Yes I did, but you choose to belittle and ignore it. Not my problem. As far as knowing dates by heart, what I meant is that I knew the missions and their discoveries so well that I even knew their dates by heart... not that I only knew the dates.

Re:Falling standards

[m50d]

OK as far as the asteroid, but what about when the sun gets big enough to make it like venus surface on earth? We need to be out on Mars or one of the Jupiter moons by then (iirc ~3 billion years), and another star not too soon after.

Re:Falling standards

[Brett Buck]

Because it was the first time NASA did it! Just like it was a big deal when ESA did it this year. PR! Brett

Re:Falling standards

[Captain DaFt]

Has anyone ever considered that if Earth were destroyed in the next few years, and all life extinguished, The only sign left that we ever existed will be a few bits of technology scattered around the solar system?
(It seems our machines are better situated to survive than we are.)

Re:Falling standards

[Trunkboy]

And Einstein was a guy who thought about stuff for a while and wrote them down.

Thank you -- that was great. (Seriously)

Re:Falling standards

[Cecil]

Who wants to live in a rotating tin can their whole life?

*raises hand*

Re:Falling standards

[cthulhu11]

The way they fuxored Gallileo by repeatedly trucking it across the country still pisses me off. grrr.

Re:Falling standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you happen to know then what was noteworthy about the ion thrusters on DS1?

Umm, they worked without a hitch...

Stay tuned folks...

[uberdave]

At 1530 BST on Wednesday, a command was sent to release the boom, which forms one half of Marsis' primary antenna.

The primary antenna's second boom is now due to be deployed on Sunday.

Stay tuned folks. We'll find out late next week whether today's boom deployment will have been successful.

Re:Stay tuned folks...

[houseofzeus]

If we're really luckly we'll find out again the week after too. 3 /.

Happy Scientists

[bloglogic]

'the mood amongst instrument team members is now said to be positive' I can just picture them spinning the propellers on their beanies.

why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

why is it that anything, no matter how insignificant, that nasa accomplishes without a hitch, we feel the need to report it. honestly i had classes in highschool that demanded higher expectations. i mean do they not run test suites? do they not demo their sw/hw before launch? i'll be impressed when something goes horribly wrong, yet due to the sw/hw design the system recovers. i WILL NOT be impressed when something planned (which should have been tested to death and guarentee'd success under normal circumstances) actually happens. fuck nasa and their mediocrity.

Re:why is it

[Jafafa Hots]

Mars Express is not a NASA mission, dipshit.

Fuck anonymous cowards and their mediocrity - why am I even responding to you?

Re:why is it

[jacksonj04]

That's nice dear.

It's an ESA mission, not NASA. The fact that this is the first ESA mission to Mars makes it slightly more newsworthy, ESA has never worked at these distances before.

Re:why is it

[TapeCutter]

For a start (as another poster pointed out) it is not NASA. You obviously have not heard of the concept of a "support department". ESA did test it to death (I belive they are CMML5 compliant) and kept on testing it after launch. The post launch testing is why they CHANGED THIER ORIGINAL PLAN.

How would you suggest anyone "guarentee success" with anything when the most you can do is mitigate risk through testing? I would say the biggest problem NASA has, is educating taxpayers who have an unreasonable expectation of perfection because they once wrote a flawless "hello world" in highschool.

Re:why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an ESA mission, not NASA

Of course it's not NASA. The NASA Mars mission really did land with a boom.

(The question is, since there is no life on Mars, did it make a sound ?)

Re:why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

I skimmed the FA and got the impression NASA thought the booms would "whip around" and damage the spacecraft. Whip around. Like if you stuck your hand out of the car on I-80? Or like just enough to scare the ESA scientists so they decide not to deploy?

Sounds to me like NASA is worried the ESA might discover water on Mars before Spirit or Opportunity do. I have nothing against a little friendly rivalry, but scientisits these days really seem to worry about the size of their pricks. Or is it the size of the checks?

Re:why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck nicks and their unearned arrogance - why do you take this so seriously?

Re:why is it

[Narishma]

What does life have to do with making a sound ?

Never mind the commies

[Anonymous Coward]

What we really need is for al qaeda to start a space program. That'll get us moving for sure.

Al qaeda could do a very good job at a space program I think. The thing that would make stuff easy for them is that they would not have to worry about life support systems or any of that difficult stuff. They could just have their manned rockets shoot up in the air and then explode in LEO

I scored last night!

[Anonymous Coward]

I extended my boom last night...

Just letting you people know that I SCORED WITH A WOMAN!!!! :-) :-) :-) :-)

You just lost your geek license

[Anonymous Coward]

You're no longer a virgin, eh?

Please report at your local geek HQ and turn in your geek badge and the nerf gun.

Re:You just lost your geek license

[qualico]

lol, gotta love /. humor

Antenna salute

[Anonymous Coward]

At Mars Express control center: "Gentleman, we have full erection, I repeat, we have full primary antenna erection. "

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded me down and why?

Now it's trolling to advocate manned space exploration??

Re:WTF?

[houseofzeus]

Posting with an abrasive attitude is all well and good but it doesn't stand up as well when you hide behind the AC tag.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And hiding behind "houseofzeus" or some other tag is so much less anonymous? I've never understood what's the difference.

Re:WTF?

[houseofzeus]

Any post I make is tied to one identifiable tag, anything posted as AC could be any one of thousands of 'randoms'.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have an account because getting one means accepting the fundamentally broken and unfair moderation system.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, as we all know, it's IMPOSSIBLE!!! to get more than one account.
*shakes head*

Re:WTF?

[houseofzeus]

True, but this is why it takes time to build a good karma rating so that anyone will pay attention to you no? Sure I've posted some stupid stuff, and my karma is bad as a result, that's life.

Re:WTF?

[drsquare]

No, but if you make a post as a certain user, then another in the same discussion as the same user, then whoever's reading knows it's from the same person. They can also confront them about it later if they see the same user posting something contradicting something they've already said. An anonymous coward could be anyone, it could be ten people pretending to be one in the same discussion.

Re:WTF?

[eraserewind]

I don't have an account because getting one means accepting the fundamentally broken and unfair moderation system.

Help, I'm being oppressed!

Ep!!

[Anonymous Coward]

*BSD has lost more reciprocating the most. Look at

"boom"

[Makzu]

I was under the impression that when something went "boom" in outer space, it was a bad thing. But for it to do so on schedule... these space program guys think of everything!

So it didn't go "Boom", then ?

[Ray Alloc]

Yeah, I know, quick and easy one...

No boom today...

[Anonymous Coward]

Boom yesterday. Always was a boom yesterday.

Mars Empress Successufly Deploys First Bomb

[AndyChrist]

Now the Earthlings will feel the wrath of the Martians!

Re:Mars Empress Successufly Deploys First Bomb

[AndyChrist]

Mars Empress Unsuccessfully Deploys Spelling

Karma helps you to get noticed?!

[Anonymous Coward]

good karma rating so that anyone will pay attention to you no?

Bwahahahahahaha! So you really think that people read posts based on karma? What a boring place /. would be if I didn't read it at -1 threaded all the time.

I bet you use your Karma bonus regularly, too. A true believer...

Re:Karma helps you to get noticed?!

[houseofzeus]

Considering the only reason I'm in this area of the thread is because I saw your original post before you (quite rightfully) got modded down yes they do. My counter is what a retarded place /. would be if I had to read the retarded crap that comes through at -1 threaded all the time.

We need a common enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

A good post and sadly you're right about the governments, corps and beer-and-titties redneck citizens.

What we need is a common, alien enemy. We'd be colonizing space in no time. Now that would be worth of a Big Lie (framed alien attacks).

What do you call satellites with two booms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boom Boom Satellites
(Pada-bummm... Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

Jamais 2 sans 3

[Anonymous Coward]

And the third boom directly on Mars's surface should follow shortly after.

No boom Today...

[DustinB]

Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.

But those were more exciting!

[Zancarius]

Yeah, but those engines 25 years ago were altogether much more exciting.

You know what they say..

[Rob T Firefly]

A new boom sweeps clean.

"If there is life on mars, the dutch will find it"

[Arleo]

Check out the Succesfull Landing clip of the H-e-l-l-o project.

Designing Ashtrays?

[Cryacin]

Now that's not a very creative way to kill someone...