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Spirit Rover Reaches Safety
dylanduck writes "Good news for rover fans - Spirit is safe for the winter. It had been heading for a north-tilting spot to make sure its solar panels got enough sunlight during the imminent winter to survive, when a sand trap appeared. But, despite its busted wheel, it scooted round and is now sitting pretty. From the article: 'We've got a safe rover,' says principal investigator Steve Squyres. 'That's huge news for us.'"
The science team has had to make some tough decisions about which observations to make and which to cut short as the rover hustled across the plains towards a northerly tilting slope. Squyres says Spirit had to leave the circular target dubbed Home Plate earlier than the science team would have liked. But he now says the outcrop at Low Ridge Haven "might be made of the same stuff".
Yes, its made of rock.
Now wheres the damn aliens we were promised.
I know, I know - its really a good thing.
If it lasts the winter and moves on, dragging a broken wheel around may end up being a blessing in disguise, you never know what it might uncover.
liqbase
I really can not believe that the rovers are still running at all.
NASA did a bang up job on these. Build more and recover the economies of scale!
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I was really getting worried about my winter supply! :P
It seems like it's safe, but then the Sarlacc opens its big ugly mouth and the next thing you know, the rover is being digested for 1,000 years.
Now I go get my (well-deserved) Monday evening 6 pack of beer without a twinge of guilt. Way to go Rover.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
... the windows "hibernate" feature.
"Ok... wake up"
"I'm sorry Dave. Everything you were working on is know kaput and I've forgotten about everything that you were doing. By the way, where did that network connection go?"
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
AHH! Damn rover cost me 20G's! My bookie's gunna break my legs...
Las Vegas Releases Odds For Mars Probe Trifecta-of-Failure
All they've gotta do is screw-up big time and miss Venus, then drop this guy on top of the "safe" parking spot... Should at least be good for a "double-or-nothing" bet.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Another good example of NASA's success in the unmanned exploration program, which contrasts nicely with the current issues with the Space Shuttle program and its potential successors. Wonder if any of the administrators in charge of the space probe programs can help implement changes in the manned space program.
So NASA drove Spirit into a sand trap? The last time I drove a golf cart into a sand trap, I got my ass banned from the local links.
It's too bad that they were forced to give up on getting over to McCool hill. If you look at the map referenced in this update, you realize that they just gave up on the farther safe slopes in favor of the slope immediately at hand. But if it survives to survey through another martian summer, I suppose it's worth it.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
The busted wheel has been confirmed as a design flaw, and the manufacturers sub contracted by NASA, Martian Rovers R' Us have issued an immediate recall of all rovers. DHL are expected to pick Spirit up tomorrow for refurbishment.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Once again we see the advantages of an unmanned space program over our manned one. Now I am really for manned exploration of space, I'm just against nasa doing it. They have way more success on their unmanned programs (not to mention more bang for your buck). Look at voyager look at the mars rovers look at their new mission to pluto. I wish the nasa administration would see that they need to stop taking money from our unmanned programs to waste on our shuttle and shuttle derived programs.
Principal investigator Steve Squyres (mentioned in the /. summary) is the author of the fantastic
book about building and deploying the rovers: Roving
Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
Guess they can't make any more movies like apollo 13. Who the hell wants to see a movie about a rover making it to safety. The scene where all people in the control station clap and shake hands just wouldn't be the same...
Great new book on Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
Good thing it got around the "sand trap", otherwise it would have found a new definition of pain and suffering as it was slowly digested over a thousand years.
Prove it.
"McCool Hill", "Low Ridge Haven"
What a nice names! One thing I love about English and English naming in general is that English really cares about places and good naming habbits in general.
Most of the Americans take it as "a normal thing", but don't forget people that there are still nations and languges that do not care, they use latin characters like a whore, take languages of eastern Europe for example, full of phoneticaly written words that use latin characters in inproper/bad way. God bless America for choosing English. I myself speak two other languages in work and home, but more I know about English the more I like it. God safe Mars from Polish, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech language influences.
Rovers are doing great. An inoperable motor for the front wheel means nothing. It's kind of in genius of them to simply program it to go in reverse instead of giving up on it. It will fulfill it's purpose after all.
The rovers could end up helping during a manned flight to the planet. They could end up being the basis for future manned rovers.
Anyone volunteer for a Manned Rover trip?
\
We've already had plenty of "lame" tags on the stupid articles. It's time we started tagging stuff "awesome". If anything, the rovers most definitely deserve it for their progress.
if ALL of NASA worked as well as the Mars rovers?
I won't make assumptions about what you did or didn't own, but just about any toy you buy from radio shack, the toy store, or dept. store is utter trash compared to a hobby quality RC vehicle.
Once you think your kid is old enough to handle the responsibilities of an expensive toy, pick something out from a hobby catalog and introduce them to real RC stuff.
Compared to a $30~$50 car, yes, it's an expensive investment, but like the rover, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It is a shame that Maestro appears to have stopped updating their data.
Still, it is excellent software, and fun to use even if you don't get where Spirit is today. With Maestro you can see what the rovers see, and what the rover operators and instruments see... Actual software used in mission control.
Space and Computers.
It depends on what you mean by success. The Mars rover missions have failed more than 2/3 of the time. Those aren't really good odds.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
why dont they just send the parts in orbit(using all shuttles) and leave them there in orbit,since they can't re-enter?
Muzik.4.Machines
However, the desire to increase it's size, lead to the large external booster tank, the SRB's, all of which reduced the maximal launches to around 20/year, also increasing it's complexity and cost per launch. I still think it's done pretty well despite all the compromises.
..........FULL STOP.
Heck, MSL still states that solar power is under consideration.
I'm surprised to hear that solar power is being considered for the next generation of Mars Rovers. That alone would rule out examining any feature with significant relief, like canyons and polar regions. Both Spirit and Opportunity got aid in cleaning off their solar panels from Martian wind gusts.
Would any engineer want to sign off on a design that requires sporadic Martian wind in order to keep power levels high? Without solar panel cleaning, the life expectancy of the mission would be short.
The radioisotope thermoelectric generators have just too many benefits, including the ability to keep the rover electronics warm.
The only real reason I can see to continue to use solar power on Martian rovers is politics.
The Energizer battery company should be all over these rovers as sponsors. A better association comes but once in a lifetime. The rovers to batteries are Michael Jordon to shoes.
Table-ized A.I.
The disparaging comment above was really about the one or the other attitude in some sections of government. Robot exploration will help the chances of success of manned exploration in the future without taking away much of the budget. Identifying what we don't have to get out of the gravity well to build things elsewhere will mean that other things can be moved instead - which is why water is high on the list.
Once again we see the advantages of an unmanned space program over our manned one.
Were you referring to a craft with a broken wheel that would take about ten seconds for a human to replace if there were one close at hand?
Or the fact that the entire life of both rovers has done about as much science as a human could do in a day, if they took a long lunch?
It's like if you had built a scooter that carried you to the end of your driveway, then proclaimed that no-one would ever need an aeroplane. The two things are not even on the same level.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On behalf of English speakers everywhere, we apologize for idiotic Slashdot moderators who saw fit to slap you for a heartfelt expression of goodwiill. As the saying goes, see you in metamod, faceless jackals (or perahps I should use something else that begins with jack).
I do not myself know if it's exactly an English thing though so much as a space science thing, I would wager that space oriented scientists have a lot of imagination to devote to names - or at least a lot of desire to do so.
Mars science has been exemplary in that regard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That the rovers are actually situated on a testground in the middle of the Nevada Desert, and that the whole rover-thing is a scam to prove NASA is still capable of launching a space mission just like they did with the apollo missions.
Now they slowly want to end the project and have broken off a leg of one rover. Next, people that work on the project start disappearing and the whole thing is cancelled.
Hey, what is this little pill reading 'prozac' doing here ?
It seems I need to use the -tag more often.
Axe me while I slumber
This should have said: "-tag". Sorry. Why does it disappear when I use plain text?
Axe me while I slumber
Just mod me "literal".
Now its sitting on the green, with a busted wheel no less - that can't be good for the putting surface and I bet the members who hit it with their approaches and bounce back into the bunker are not amused.
I bet the ground's staff have that thing out of there in no time.
Squirrel!
YES! This new rover could use atomic batteries for power, and turbines for speed!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage