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Spirit Outlasts Viking 2 Lander
ScottMaxwell writes "Spirit, the Mars rover designed for a 90-day mission, has now outlasted the Viking 2 lander. Viking 2 survived until its 1281st sol (Martian day); Spirit is now on sol 1282 and counting. Assuming both rovers continue to weather the ongoing dust storms, Spirit's sister, Opportunity, will reach the same age in a few weeks. They aren't breathing down the neck of the all-time record just yet, though — the Viking 1 lander lasted 2245 sols on the surface of Mars; Spirit and Opportunity won't break that record for another 2.7 Earth years."
Good list, but I'd add a couple more:
* V'ger
* Nomad
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Challenger
Columbia
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Immediately following the news release regarding the Mars rovers' longetivity, JPL announced its intention to replicate the rover design as an energy efficient and highly durable automobile. As a result, American, Japanese, American, that one German outfit, and American automobile manufacturers forced the entertainment branch of U-global-S business, the US government, to close JPL, claiming violations of monopoly, unintellectual property, lack of unrenewable energy usage, and for no good reason other than they can, Homeland Insecurity.
/. after watching The Best of Spike Milligan.
The unemployed JPL engineers and scientists then gathered their equipment at the Florida shore and launched a rover-based underwater probe to locate the cause of the Bermuda Triangle. Unfortunately the mission was a failure, as the Bermuda Triangle seems to have disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. This important failure was discovered by the scientists who noted the rover's failure to fail to return. Hopefully the ex-JPL crew will turn their expertise to neuroscience in order to discover precisely why the previous sentence makes my brain hurt.
Finally, a public service announcement: Friends don't let friends post to
Finally, finally: I have no friends.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
She canna' take much more cap'n! And it tends to last the last 10 minutes of the show :P
Maybe Viking 1 just liked the programming on a different satellite.
Have gnu, will travel.
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You're wrong, as usual, AC. Challenger challenged its crew to survive re-entry without a spaceship.
On the contrary - the hardware may eventually perish, but the Spirit will live on forever.
No, you're wrong, as usual, AC. The Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. There was no re-entry.
muggy, murky, rocky and acidic
It was faked on a soundstage in New Jersey.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
They're hanging out with the flying cars, of course.
Viking 1 lasted 2245 sols and lost contact with Earth when a bad command was sent which instructed Viking to point its antenna in a different direction (sort of like typing "shutdown -h now" on the command line of a remote server, there's no recovery short of a house-call).
Sounds like a good mission for one of the rovers. Go bump the bastard in the right direction.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
It's just like a "three-hour tour" that lasts 98 episodes and three movie sequels...
I think the rovers should find the Vikings and beat the snot out of them.