Slashdot Mirror
Top Ten Discoveries of the Mars Rovers
eldavojohn writes "Space.com brings us the top ten discoveries of the Martian rovers that landed there in 2004. They were expected to last three months but, as Slashdot has covered time and time again, they have lasted over three years. From minor discoveries about the formation of Mars to images of atmospheric phenomena, to final and definitive proof of a Mars with water, these two robots have definitely reserved themselves a place in the history books. Pending a dust storm, they may not even be done with their mission yet."
That the best publicity comes from making moderately low predictions of success, then when you exceed them you look heroic.
Just how much did we spend on the Mars missions compared to research on solar energy or material science ? Or quantum computer research ? (I mean stuff with possible applications) Anyone know ? I bet a helluva lot more for Mars. The NSF's entire Computer science budget was only 600 million a few years ago. How does that compare ? What is the NIH annual budget ? Not trolling, just curious, to put it into perspective. I mean, are these missions basically run just to get funds to some congressperson's district ?
My view on this is that it is cool to know, and you gotta check it out, but if we just wait 50 years it will be a lot cheaper to do, and it won't matter much about the delay. I mean, no one seriously thinks we could go to Mars soon, right ? Except maybe Archimedes Plutonium and Lyndon Larouche and George Bush.
If credit is to be tossed around, anthropomorphizing devices such as these tends to ignore the 'real' people that harnessed imagination and creativity so that 'they' could scuttle around another world.
...don't answer that, thanks.
Why the childish urge to conjure up cute little clanking robots instead of simply patting a fellow human being on the back?
1. No LIFE!!! Stop wasting taxpayer money!!
Yes, lets stop pursuing scientific discoveries and focus our meager resources on invading countries under false pretenses as a proper imperial power should. Books and learning are for hippy surrender monkeys!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
In recent years
....) 500 million
NIH: $28 billion
NSF $5.5 billion
NASA $16 billion
NSF Math and Physical sciences : 135 million in 2002
NSF CISE (Computer
Nasa's Spirit probe $820million
Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974[1] or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars
I assume that your view of archaeologists as well "Old crap from the past, stop wasting taxpayers' money". Or any other form of science that doesn't immidiately lead to direct rewards. It's our closest neighbor, in galactic distances this is like concluding that since there's noone standing on our doorstep and there's nothing interesting there, there's noone out there at all and so there's no point in leaving the house as it'd only be a waste of time and effort. Studying Mars is the second planet we get to study in any detail, any idea how much guesswork is made based on how things happened on earth? In most sciences you'd call a sample size of one "anecdotal", "spurious", "unreproducible" and "statistically insignificant". It's still the best we got, until we are able to study other planets. But I suppose that wouldn't be useful enough for you, it's science after all. Don't you have any desire for discovery or exploration?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Eh... how can we bother with learning anything about foreign cultures when even Space.com can't get the names of Martian landscape right.
"Marwth Vallis Regions"? Anyone else see what's wrong with that?
(Ok, yes, my computer naming convention at work is after the Welsh words for the planets, what's it to you?)
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Obits for Nerds. Robots that mattered.
Seriously, no band survives the greatest hits album.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
Dejah Thoris
OK, first of all, almost all of the taxes you've paid for the last 10 years have already been spent several times over so we can Spread Democracy and Freedom.
Secondly, NASA engineers managed to create machines that were able to accurately and consistently navigate the surface of Mars safely and efficiently almost entirely on their own.
If anything, I wish NASA got more taxpayer money.
AC
You should look at the above number. JUST the spirit program cost more than the NSF annual budget. Do archeologists get money from there ? (Are they scientists btw ? ) It is not a matter of not exploring, but reasonably allocating funds. NASA 16 billion and the NSF 5 billion ? That's so crazy. NSF includes math, physics, chemistry, cs, all engineering, SCIENCE EDUCATION. NSF should get way way more.
no Mars Face?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
ooohhh...I see sombody hasn't gotten laid recently.
A mile long translucent worm or tunnel, Cydonia was built by ancient Martians and alien artifacts buried in the Martian soil.
No thanks to Richard Hoagland.
10 - Opportunity provides tantalizing glimpse of Victoria crater.
9 - Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater.
8 - First meteorite identified on another planet.
7 - Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink.
6 - Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras.
5 - Martian dust devils captured on film.
4 - First shot of Earth from distant planet.
3 - Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars.
2 - Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars.
1 - First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica.
Honestly, this has got to be one of the coolest things in a very long time for NASA. Not only has their multi-million project blown away the three-month lifespan, but the amount of data being recorded has got to be making those NASA scientists and the scientific community cream in their pants on a regular basis. We can learn with greater detail how planets and the galaxies are created, and begin to develop a very crude technical draft for mars colonization. The more data we take, the better the chances that, while probably not in our lifetime, soon enough the first stage of extraterrestrial colonization can be planned and executed. Great stuff!!!
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
Of course I want to discover. I am a scientist. But the public is unaware of the resources that NASA gets compared to other disciplines. As was pointed out above NSF Math and Physical Science get 135 million. That is tiny compared to just one of these NASA missions. Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?
The whole Apollo program was made in about 10 years, and in the 38 years since we landed on the moon all things electronic have improved with such incredible speed, going to Mars soon should be a piece of cake right? No. Is it because the GHz processors we have are too weak? No. It's because after that huge effort, and a few more missions until people lost interest, the program basicly shut down. Nobody was looking to invent technology to go even further, nobody was looking for rockets to go longer than geosynch orbit, nothing. We can wait another 50 years but that technology won't invent itself. I say the sooner the better, that way it will be cheaper in 50 years because it's been designed, tested and improved. While I don't think Bush is serious and is only using this as a distraction, I think we'd be able if we were willing.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Who needs sex when you have AC trolls to feed the other AC trolls?
You can't take the sky from me.
While I feel the sciences should be getting more money in general, I don't see that as a reason to suggest alternate fields are wastes of monies. I would love to see a significant increase in funds for research in general, including NASA.
Well something tells me that electronics can take care of itself - the private sector is doing that very well. As for rocket technology, it just is a different thing. And besides, who needs it ? What people want is not blurry pictures from Mars, but crisp images of episodes of BG on their phones. I think the technology-apollo link was propaganda, or an urban legend. Has any serious study of this ever been done, or is it just stuff everyone "knows about" since they heard it when they were 14 ?
Must add the "don't bring blue suits on Mars" discovery to the list.
"La presi e te la pagai (480.000 Lire)"
Decepticons!
You fool. Don't you understand about congressional pork ? This has nothing to do with exploration. NASA makes some lame announcement every week about finding water or some shit, so they can justify all this waste. Look at the numbers - Computer Science gets 3% of NASA's budget.
I am hoping that I get email from you, so I can discuss science. Just what is your field of specialization ?
You're level of meanness is a real detriment to Slashdot, where people try to have serious discussions about science and technology.
I've worked as the director of a condensed matter lab for many years at a large well known institution. My field could use some more money, and I must admit I resent so much of it going to NASA. If your not in a scientific field, it might not be obvious to you how much corruption there is regarding the allocation of funds. Condensed matter physics has many more applications in my eyes then Mars probes.
Oh and btw, I AM a women and I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.
Well the NEA only got about $150 million. Why? cause that's how much they need. It costs alot to get to Mars, so alot was spent. Not many other groups wanted to chip in to defray the costs. NSF doesn't bear the burden of all math,physics,chemistry research alone, there are many other groups that contribute, so the budget is lower. Starving artists work for damn close to nothing, and there are many other contributing groups, so the NEA budget is lower still. It's not a question of useable returns, but what it costs to get the job done. Why would a government that runs as our kind of deficit care about getting return on money spent? They just make/take more.
We are all just people.
If I had to pick just one:
1) reread all of the calibrations to verify the ability to land (safely)
Once that is verified, how about a remake of Capricorn One?.
I'll overlook the fact (in CI) conversations are instantaneous (instead of a delay).
This time, leave OJ[1] on Mars and let the other two come back, even if the simulations say it won't happen.
[1]Yes, OJ Simpson. If you haven't watched it, there's no spoiler there because the rest of the statement is explained fairly early in the film.
I wonder what the Dream Team would say about OJ being stranded on Mars and they're trying to file a writs are habeas corpus?
When you're on Mars, _______________
(feel free to fill in the blank.
Stop wasting taxpayer money!!
Yeah, we really should get our priorities straight.
What?
No discovery of Decepticons?
What a freakin' jerk. If it makes any difference, while I don't agree with you that unmanned Mars exploration is a waste of tax payers' money, I don't think you should be attacked or harassed for your opinion. As a token of my support, I won't refer to you as Feminist-MILF (in my mind) for the rest the of the day. =)
OK, that was immature, but at least it wasn't at the same level as that stupid AC.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Raised the bar on telemetry and space communications. Advanced long distance television transmission.
Improved efficiency of fuel cells. Even though development didn't continue
Mylar film. Used as insulation to keep long distance runners warm and emergency shelter for forest fighters.
One of the first users of Velcro.
Space pen. Even though it wasn't designed with NASA funding. Made a good Seinfeld episode.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
"I AM a women and I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month."
First point: Whooptie F'ing doo! So you're a woman.
Second point: No doubt, as you're likely educated in that field. I'd like to see you strip, clean, rebuild, and calibrate (mechanical, electrical, and thermal) an analytical prober that's been EOL'd for 5 years (damn I want new equipment). I bet I could do in a day what would take you a month! (only link I could find with pics, not much demand for old crap and if you actually want one you already know what it looks like)
It's all about what you're trained for.
Sorry for the rant, but I work with some brilliant women (and a fair share of block heads as well). If you're that bitter, maybe a more open company would be a good move?
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
OK Mars mavens, here's your chance. If you read the article it is obvious that #10 is recent.
What about the others? This would give an idea of the marginal benefit provided by the extended life of the mission.
Keep in mind that as part of NASA R&D a lot of useful technology gets developed along the way. NASA is very into developing better solar panels and high-tech materials, for example. It's very difficult to measure how much is spent on things that wind up having applications here on Earth compared to those that don't, though.
The other thing, though, is that private industry is somewhat better at funding things with obvious applications than it is at funding things whose primary goal is pure science, because it's a lot easier to get investors to part with their money when there's a chance that they'll get it back some day. So it makes some amount of sense for government to be spending money on pure science, since that's research that simply wouldn't get done otherwise, especially for large things like space exploration which are just out of the reach of the universities that do other pure research.
Certain scientific speculation may have its merits, but I could do without this kind!
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
You can't forget the top research spender, DARPA.
'NSF includes math, physics, chemistry, cs, all engineering, SCIENCE EDUCATION. NSF should get way way more'
You make it sound like NSF is the only government source of funding for those things. I have heard that DARPA actually represents the primary source of government funding for research.
1. Rock
....
2. Rock
3. Rock
9. ????
10. Rock!
You know, saying "I'm not trolling" doesn't make it so. Of course your post was entirely insightful, and this is definitely the first time somebody's posted "why don't we spend this money on [foo] instead" to a space story on slashdot.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
'Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?'
I don't know. How much does it cost to sit around, examine data gathered from sources like NASA, and theorize all day? Space exploration actually requires developing and utilizing new technologies. That costs money. Besides, NASA is pretty much the only show in town for space exploration. The NSF is one of many government sources of funding for math and physical science.
Even if we decided to colonize space, we're all going to die anyway because of the thermal death of the universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death
So why bother?
I just wish we could find a planet where it is written "We apologize for the inconvenience"...
Your credibility is low.
Mars is not our nearest neighbour. Venus is, and by a fair way too.
A scientist should know this.
This business of "our nearest neighbour" has been spun by the pro-space
lobby to good effect. The fact is that probes sent to Venus are far cheaper.
For a start, they go Sun-ward and enjoy a good gravity-assist.
What? You don't like the weather on Venus? That doesn't justify the "nearest neighbour" myth.
I'm not trying to trivialise the importance of math in any way, but it costs a lot more to build shit and fire it into space than it does to build a few supercomputers and sit around thinking about / discussing numbers.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Can see now why the discussion went over the head here. Scientists and to a lesser extent Engineers are in the trade of doing new things instead of being trained to operate specific items of equipment designed by other people.
It's not like war and space research are two competing money pits. They are both money pits but money saved on one (or hopefully, both) should be channeled into something more constructive. How about lower taxes for the working stiff? Better roads? Better equipped hospitals, schools, police, fire services? Better infrastructure. Better pollution control. The list of things in this world (or in this country even) that urgently need more money does not include space research or war-making.
If you need a good way to stick a CD to your dashboard, sandwich it between Legos.
1 26468357EDN0000P1502L0M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/001/2N
Do a blow up on the circular object on the panel, left and down from center.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
'I AM a women'
uh huh
'I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.'
Likely. Are you implying that there is some sort of association between the two?
Sorry but you aren't a female, you aren't a 'insert race here', you aren't a 'insert nationality here', you are an individual. You neither get to stand taller due to the achievements of nor spin the failures of other individuals simply because they happen to share a group designator with you.
The thing I personally find most amusing, is that the only valid use of gender as a designator is to classify sex objects. And yet, those who want to be identified first by their gender don't seem to want their sex used to identify them as sex objects notwithstanding the entire biological purpose of having genders and the natural reproductive instincts associated with them.
>The whole Apollo program was made in
>about 10 years, and in the 38 years
>since we landed on the moon all things
>electronic have improved with such
>incredible speed, going to Mars soon
>should be a piece of cake right? No. Is
>it because the GHz processors we have
>are too weak? No
A billion times more processor power has no effect because the PROCESSOR POWER IN 1969 was PLENTY ENOUGH. The hard job of landing men on the moon had nearly nothing to do with computers and faster computers don't solve any relevant problems. The hard problems to solve were structural design and propulsion, not algorithms. Propulsion technology- at least propulsion technology useful for manned lunar missions - hasn't advanced one iota since the mid-60's.
To the contrary, all that essentially infinite computer power has brought is C++ or other, more inappropriate languages and associated junk programming - THAT MAKE IT HARDER. In fact, I predict that the biggest issue on return to the moon and even return to capsule Earth-orbital missions will be the flight software - too much to test correctly and innumerable bugs caused by modern "computer science" approaches. Having 6k of RAM and implementing the firmware *on a loom* was sufficiently limiting to prevent the worst of the current bloatware approach to programming. Virtually every current space project of which I am aware has had massive problems with the flight software and database, and it's coincident with trying to use inappropriate programming techniques made possible by faster computers.
Brett
We spend a LOT more on applied research. NASA is the only one with a rover on Mars but there are many, many people at government labs, universitoies and corporations doing helthcare related work. One interesting study would be to compare NASA's budget to the amount of money we spend in the US in movie tickets, TV reality shows or on new ring tones for cell phones. Actually we as a nation spent more on the ring tones then on mars. Think of all the poor starving kids in Africa that could have been fed if not for the money wasted on ring tones. Actually none of the money NASA spent goes to Mars. All of it goes to pay people who live here on Earth a salary. The money is not "gone", just redistributed.
10 - O crater .../ \... volcanic ...*... meteor ...//... dust devils
9 -
8 -
7 - ~~~ stink
6 - A..B..C three eras
5 -
4 - [ . ] Earth from mars
3 - o@o clouds
2 - ~!~ atmospheric profile
1 - H2O water history
I think the 2 neatests things from a spectator's viewpoint were the dust devil movies and the spherical blueberries. Burn's Cliff was also cool.
Table-ized A.I.
Well, obviously you have never had sex before either...
Perhaps someone can update these lyrics for me:
Rambling Rover
- trad,from Silly Wizard
- chorus: -
Oh there's sober men & plenty
And drunkards barely twenty
There are men of over ninety
That have never yet kissed a girl.
But give me a rambling rover
Fae Orkney down to Dover
We will roam the country over
And together we'll face the world.
I've roamed through all the nations
Ta'en delight in all creation
And I've tried a wee sensation
Where the company did prove kind.
When parting was no pleasure
I've drunk another measure
To the good friends that we treasure
For they always are in our mind.
There's many that feign enjoyment
From merciless employment
Their ambition was this deployment
From the minute they left the school
And they save and scrape and ponder,
While the rest go out and squander
See the world and rove and wander -
And they're happier as a rule.
If you're bent with arthritis
Your bowels have got colitis
You've galloping ballicitus
And you're thinking it's time you died.
If you've been a man of action
While you're lying there in traction
You may gain some satisfaction
Thinking "Jesus, at least I've tried."
Regardless of any of the claims you have made, my feeling is that your simplistic and poorly-structured rant implies that you are/were not a director of a condensed matter lab. You may know something about physics, but you are not a professional. I would suggest you either improve your online presence in effort to support your future claims. Frankly, scientists tend to be very detail oriented and would not progress very far via efforts such as yours above. For starters, I wonder if you can identify three grammatical errors in your four sentences above?
I simply doubt your claim based on your ability to express yourself (I strongly suspect that English is your first language).
I invite you to prove me wrong.
Cheers.
I don't think incrimental discoveries will make space travel & living cheap or common. It will require a huge leap in technology, some revolutionary source of compact energy. We're on horseback, but need the locomotive to be invented.
Table-ized A.I.
do as the Martians do?
...should be to hunt down and kill whoever laid out that page for space.com.
Putting the article text in a six line scroll box while 95% of the page is ads or blank should be an offense punishable by being skinned alive.
"You're level of meanness" should read "Your level of meanness". "If your not in a scientific field" should read "If you're not in a scientific field". "Oh and btw, I AM a women" should read "Oh and btw, I AM a woman". Based on limited data I'd conclude that you are a 14-year old troll. What really bothers me is that no-one else picked up the "women" error despite several posts quoting it. So maybe this is what passes for technical English in the US.
Weather satellites, this tech alone has paid for the NASA programs.
Even if their scientific value were nil, which they're not, these pictures and data coming back are great PR value. And also, it is insane to repress the quest for knowledge as it is for sex. If you wish to cut the waste, then go after the political corruption behind it. Vote the ruling party out. That will also take of your distribution of food and medical care, and everything else you mention there. The programs in and of themselves are worth every penny.
What?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I was a little bit annoyed reading through that. You'd get this tiny little 300x200 image that you wanted to see larger and not a single link too you anywhere that you could view it... That was more than a little frustrating.
"They were expected to last three months but, as Slashdot has covered time and time again, they have lasted over three years"
:) I kid, I kid.
So, Slashdot discovered this. Remarkable! Congratulations to Slashdot for discovering it, not once, but time and time again. So next year, if the probes are still working, will someone else discover that Slashdot was wrong again and again? That wouldn't be too much of a surprise, I suppose.
So what? That's still less than the economic damaged caused by a few years of MS viruses, the damage runs at several billion per quarter. Then there would be the general maintenance costs for MS junk which is throwing even more good money after bad. I'd say compared to all that, the Mars rover is cheap. When you start taking into account the merits of what you get for the money, the difference is even greater.
It took a few decades for the scientific benefits of the Apollo missions to spread out to the general populace. It will be similar here, though probably faster due to the Internet and other communications technologies.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Then main reason they could do it in 10 years back then is that back then you had an enemy to compete with. Winning over the Soviet Union had priority, and the public even accepted loss of lives to win. Unless the US gets an arch enemy to compete with again some time in the future, it will not be possible to ever convince the American public it is worth the risk to push ahead at the speed they did in the Apollo program. NASA can still push development, but not at the same speed or with the same resources.
www.aleo.no
my eyes, the googles do nothing.
what a horrible website. Yes, I know what colour Mars is, they didn't have squeeze everything into a small window and colour it red to make sure I got it.
And I can't be bothered clicking through a page at a time, for a tiny bit of text about each discovery.
potentially interesting article, completely ruined!
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
It's not all rock. What about the dust?
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Then: 66 PRO
Now:
1. Use track ball to designate flight control system UI
2. Pull down Control Mode menu
3. Select Manual Mode option
4. Wait for confirmation dialog
5. Click Yes (and uncheck Don't ask me this again)
6. Check distance to landing site
Its a joke, I know, but I have never met a pilot who likes the Airbus UI. It needs a Dumb mode. All the Apollo spacecraft were dumb.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"We have reason to believe that Al Qaeda operatives have established a secret base in the caves of Mars. ... "
We'd be landing troops next month.
>The huge increases in computation power
>are extremely useful in running
>simulations, in engineering, fluid
>dynamics, etc, which may help us
>advance the propulsion technology.
>Moreover, landing men on Mars won't be
>as easy as the Moon, as the landing is
>considerably trickier (thanks to
>gravity and atmosphere), for which
>things like flight computers would
>certainly be useful.
I am fully aware of that, I do it for a living. However, the simulation capability was sufficiently good at the time of Apollo. Better is only vaguely better and doesn't greatly increase the probability of success and doesn't decrease the cost at all. In fact, developing the simulations is a continual problem and over-reliance on simulation (vs. test and flight experience) tends to increase the risk. The cost tends to be higher (to monumentally higher) and the schedule is almost always limited by slow software development. I run simulations every day of the same level of complexity, or higher, that ran perfectly well on computers extant in 1970. In fact a lot of the code was written in the late 60's and is still in use. "Improved" versions in "modern" languages require 8-processor DEC Alphas TO DO EXACTLY THE SAME CALCULATIONs, but with persistent and apparently unresolvable bugs. It doesn't *have* to be that way, of course, but the fact is that in practice that has happened time and again.
>Are you are aware of the quality the Space Shuttle Onboard Systems team produces?
Yes, because the process discipline used is not in line with "modern" standards, thankfully. If they had to redevelop it today, in 2007 (not 1980) there is no reason to believe that it could be done in any reasonable amount of time or with any reasonable chance of success. And once again, increased software sophistication IS NOT REQUIRED. A few minor operational irritations could be avoided but the Apollo system was quite obviously sufficient, and "improving" it would almost certainly entail all sorts of unnecessary bloat like autonomous failure detection, etc, that was handled with a guy flipping a toggle switch back in 1969.
Brett
Possibly as its last assignment, Opportunity provides tantalizing glimpse of Victoria crater:
... the marketing people are having the spin the hell outta' this one. They're doing a good job of it. In fact I've seen /. posters who want to GO to Mars !!!
Has holes in the ground.
Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater:
Has a rock.
First meteorite identified on another planet:
Has a foreign rock.
Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink:
Maybe Has some kind of smell.
Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras:
Has rocks.
Martian dust devils captured on film:
Has atmosphere.
First shot of Earth from distant planet:
Earth is still here.
Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars:
It has atmosphere.
Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars:
It has atmosphere.
First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica:
Didn't find any water yet.
Dust are really really really small rocks.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
So trained wasn't the right word. It's all about what you've been educated to do. Better?
My education is to be a R&D design validation tech/engineer. I took a maintenance position for the change of pace and found it to be peaceful. Now, when A0 silicon is in the lab and a piece of equipment has issues I'm busy until it's fixed. I don't go home, I take minimal breaks (one still must eat). However, with proper preventive maintenance that rarely happens and because my job no longer involves writing test procedures for entry level techs to follow, compiling and analyzing data, but instead involves hard assets, I can no longer take my work home with me. That was soooo liberating that when I was asked how I liked my maintenance rotation I replied "Very much, I think I'll stay."
Now I'm sorry if I sounded bitter, I am not. But the post I replied to really dug in under my nails with that last line. I don't particularly care if your a woman or a man, Jew or Palistinian, black or white or yellow or red. If you can do the job and not ass it up then I want you on my team. As a "plain 'ol white boy" I am in the minority at my company I'm not sure if Asian or Indian are the majority, but it is not white (at least in my devision). We have a fairly high percentage of women, considering the lopsided ration in applicants.
Oh, and how many techs need to understand inverse lattice space as part of their job? I think mine is one of very few hands going up...
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Dust is really tiny rocks.
I drank what? -- Socrates
From a naive perspective, I figure that we have a canoe, and that going to the moon is like going through the British Channel, and going to Mars is like going several times the Pacific Ocean. That's would be why we're not there yet.
Most days the scientist/engineers upload the daily commands in the Martian morning, then download telemetry and data in the evening. Inbetween the Rovers pretty much operate on their own. There have been occasional snafus like Opportunity getting stuck in a sand dune for six weeks. But its been reprogrammed to detect getting stuck and not digging itself in now.
Another top 10?
1. Rock
....
2. Rock
3. Rock
9. ????
10. Rock!
Yes but does it go up to 11?
Propulsion has been solved back in the 60s. The political will to fund the mission and tell the anti-nuke, "let's all go live in unheated mud huts to save the earth" crowd to bugger off is what's lacking. After all, why fund exploration and aspirations when there are farm subsidies and endless petty wars right at hand?
Computers aren't the issue here, mechanical engineering and guts are.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Work out at some point what NASA actually spends on science vs the shuttle, and then the alternatives (farm programs, weapons to fight an enemy that no longer exists, office of faith-based initiatives), and you'll see they're not much better off than your field. Coming from an expensive corner of the sciences (chemistry), I used to resent the particle people. 100 authors on a paper, 10s of billions of dollars (and yes, the big ring at Fermilab is way cool, but still...) in construction costs, and a final yield that works out to 1/12th of a fundamental particle/author, if they really saw it. I'm kind of a fan of big telescopes and NASA, as it's the closest most average people come to seeing a frontier and the possibilities therein, and therefore allowing the rest of us to get funded at all. If most people had their way, we'd fund nothing but cancer, fat, and anti-aging research (ok, cynicism off)
Now I'm older and slower, and just sigh and say, "well, at least it's not going to subsidize someone growing rice in a desert".
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
What a highjack. Now instead of talking about the top 10 discoveries we're talking about money. You ass nugget.
If only they had sent a hummer up there instead, especially one of those robotically controlled hummers from the DARPA automation contests. Then we wouldn't have to worry about dust storms... the dust would have had to worry about its butt getting kicked by the hummer. The hummer is man enough for anything Mars can throw at it.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
A lot of the cost of a super-successful mission like Magellan, Galileo and the Rovers is the continuing operating cost. At some point the return on cost shrinks so that NASA ends the mission. I suspect the 2007 and 2009 Mars launches could compete with operating resources.
Another example is Hubble, initally $1.5B. However three servicing missions doubled that, and two decades of operation doubled it again. Still getting great results but may be retired if the final servicing mission never occurs due to launch delays.
Watching a show last night on Saturn, I started asking myself why we don't fund more large missions. Cassini was 3.4 Billion Dollars. That's a lot of money. The Federal Budget for 2008 is requested to be $2.9 Trillion though.
Wouldn't building Cassini-like projects get cheaper per unit if multiple projects were designed off of a common reference and shared parts? Obviously launch fuel wouldn't really get cheaper, but the craft themselves might, even with some specialized instruments for each mission. It would be incredible to have ten or fifteen missions to all of the planets, several moons, and the asteroid belt, and would definitely advance science...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Who cares? Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! and the results can't really be judged until well after the event. I mean, Who would have thought how important the Transistor or Velcro would have been at the time?
The space program causes creativity and innovation in ways that can rarely be predicted.
Some examples from NASA are found
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
and from another page
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
The benefits to society are immeasurable, from Baby food, to running shoes, to breast cancer detection to wind shear protection to, Well my Internet connect is a satellite connect today...
The issue I have with NASA is they are still political and the thought of a $450 Billion mars mission in ludicrous and entirely politically motivated. 4Frontiers (http://www.4frontierscorp.com/) has a plan for an entire Martian settlement, complete with labs and manufacturing facilities, sleeping 42 (including some remote habitats.) for a loose estimate of a quarter of that politically driven $450! And this is using tech that is pretty close to current or easily extrapolatable from current tech!
Having said that, the settlement plans count pretty heavily on the probes sent by NASA and ESA...
In any case, we could build a settlement, a nearly self sustaining colony, for less that six month of Combat Ops in Iraq (and soon Iran) - And we'll probably be done sooner...
I know this is too late to get modded, I just hope someone reads it!
Your Moon, Your Mission, Get involved! http://www.openluna.org
In return should I feel bitter that I had to complete a long degree course and a variety of other requirements before being recognised as a professional engineer while you call yourself that after going to a trade school for a shorter period of time? I don't because that's the way things changed due to clueless HR, and if you don't you miss out on technical jobs. You would of course be far better at your job than I would be - but it is a different job. You are looking at it from a different angle than the poster above (different again but I spent a short time doing research) - the job of the poster above is to work out how to do new stuff based on small amounts of often contradictory information and efforts to get more, then find patterns. Their job is not to follow the rules but to work out what the rules are.
"I AM a women and I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month." wrote a mom from mars with love :)
enough joking, this is serious bussinis and I guess religion and social studies have nothing to do with engineering.