Slashdot Mirror
The Phoenix Has Landed
Iddo Genuth writes "Precisely at 7:53PM EST, the "Phoenix Mars Lander" touched-down on the desert-like surface of Mars. Since its launch on August 4th, 2007, the spacecraft has covered more than 680,752,512 kilometers, traveling at average speeds of around 120,000 km/hr. Upon arriving at its destination, the Phoenix will begin its exploration of our intriguing neighbor planet, in a mission to help astronomers resolve at least some of the many questions regarding Mars. The key question remains: can the Red Planet support some form of life?" Hella grats to our nerd brethren — you looked great on the Science channel. Yes I'm watching this live. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Update: 05/26 03:0 GMT by KD : zof sends a link to the first pictures from Phoenix.
Update: 05/26 03:0 GMT by KD : zof sends a link to the first pictures from Phoenix.
... who simulates nuclear war... for fun? ;)
(I love DEFCON, too. Its a perversely fun game. Speaking of which: You know the difference between NASA and the nuclear arms race? One of them is a way to channel billions to defense contractors by exploiting the hopes and fears of Americans... and the other one involves nuclear weapons.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
to think of a huge problem like this and surmount it with science.
Why not start with the huge problems that mankind has CREATED here on our home (only) planet?
- pollution, waste, overdevelopment, greed, corruption
- general failure to achieve social justice, in fact rich/poor divide is widening at an increasing rate
- corporations controlling seedstocks for human food? what kind of evil is this?
- environmental destruction increasing rapidly (Amazon, Indonesian forests, and pretty much every other snippet of old growth gone in a decade or two)
- foodstock depletion (major species of fish depleted) and species extinction (forget about meeting a Pangolin, but thousands are already gone) increasing rapidly
- waste of military spending
- the idiocy of burning non-renewable fuels like there's no tomorrow (oh wait, there IS no tomorrow!)
- cars: one of our worst ideas ever
When we can manage this planet with an iota of competence, let's talk about interfering with the rest of the solar system.
Fuck the space programme (in particular the manned space programme).
you had me at #!