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NASA Testing Lunar Rovers In Moses Lake, WA
deadaluspark writes "I work at a local news station, and found out NASA was testing their lunar rovers in a nearby city. I pulled some strings and got our news director to send out one of our reporters. I would link to the original video on the KVEW website, but the video is screwing up on the badly designed, WMP only website. So I uploaded the package to youtube for everyone on Slashdot to enjoy. Very cool video of NASA toys in action." Don't believe anyone who says it always rains in Washington.
When someone says it always rains in Washington (1) they're exaggerating. a bit. (2) they mean WESTERN Washington. Moses Lake is in Eastern Washington.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Partial testing :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
You should have seen the rovers during spring break.
I think NASA went over board with the number of probes installed on the rover.
What amuses me is how closely the NASA's color scheme matches the LEGO mars mission color scheme. ;)
http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=7690
Which came first I wonder?
Is the mars one out there as well also is the moon landing site near by also?
Are they shooting in HD or imax. ?
Yes. Seattle is in Western Washington. If you drive East from Seattle until you cross over the Cascade Mountains, you find yourself in very different weather: dry and hot in the summer. One time I passed through Moses Lake in August, and the temperature was over 100 degrees F (Seattle was more like 75 or 80 degrees F, IIRC).
Moses Lake is in the dry part of the state, and there is a decent airport there, so that's probably why NASA is testing there. Yakima would also be a good choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Lake,_Washington
Weather data here:
http://www.wunderground.com/US/WA/Moses_Lake.html
Right now it's 77 degrees F in Moses Lake, while it is 63 F in Seattle. (The whole month has been cold and wet. People are calling it "June-uary".)
As for the famous rain in Seattle, it is indeed exaggerated. But we really do get about nine months out of the year with slate grey overcast; heavy clouds block out the sun. I don't mind; I'm happiest in a dark office writing software. But some people get "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD) from the months of bleak darkness. It sure makes you appreciate the other 3 months, though. And you can always drive over to Eastern Washington for some sun.
that's not Washington, that's Eastern Washington.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
[i]Don't believe anyone who says it always rains in Washington.[/i][p]Yeah, I live in Pullman, Washingington. The day before yesterday it snowed. Today it was 70 degrees. I wish it was raining.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
It hurts my eyes!!!
Go visit the LIGO Hanford Observatory. It is one of a handful of places that can detect gravity waves, the kind of waves made by colliding black holes and the like. LIGO is south of Moses lake, and just make sure to check out their public tour times.
You've obviously never driven through Eastern Washington
Humor aside, the area around Moses lake is mainly dust and exposed lava rock. Would think it'd make a pretty good proxy for the moon's surface.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
According to Wikipedia, the original lunar rover did about 8 mph. I don't think they mentioned in the video how fast the chariot goes, but it looked pretty slow compared to the rate people were walking next to it. Wouldn't that kind of limit the range they could cover in some practical amount of time? Unless they're planning on outfitting that thing as the lunar equivalent of an RV. Or maybe this is just because it's the prototype and the real one will be faster.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Actually, while trying to find more out about this before I was able to contact the NASA reps, I ran across and article that said Moses Lake had been considered before in the 90s (I think 97, but don't quote me on that.). So, its been in the running to get used as a testing ground for quite a while.
There is also a lot of volcanic ash from St. Helens.
Testing? Or filming...
As of 6:31 pm PDT Views: 209 Thought it might be neat to see how many views the youtube video has as a function of time.
This was cover a while ago, except they were testing in Huston. Cool to see more footage though.
Note: as I said in original post, the video on the KVEW website was malfunctioning and I personally do not tender the video to the website, so I was unable to attempt to fix it on their website. So, instead I took a hard copy of the tape, converted it and uploaded it to youtube. The video in question as of now still does not exist/work on the KVEW website. Sorry if my own frustration with the website itself came off as stupidity.
With a population of just over 3,190, this vibrant, progressive community offers a quality of life that is rare today. I don't think they know what the common usage of the word progressive is. Isn't that part of the 4th district of Rep. Richard "Doc" Hastings? I thought that my mom was the only progressive in the dryside, and she lives in Yakima, the Palm Beach of Washington. Hell hole? Just because the nearest towns are Sulphur, Curry, Mesa and Cactus.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I say this not tongue-in-cheek, I'm really curious if you got permission to post this? The reason I ask is not to enable a debate about the merits of copyright but to ensure that you're not going to lose your job over something like this which, really, is very cool. Either way, I thank you very much for the video share and hope that you're not going to get into any trouble at work for any of this.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
And it's for a reason other than a school shooting or how the Grant County PUD fucked up the county-wide fiber optic network to an unbelievable degree. Cool!
Sheesh, who the hell said that about Moses Lake? It's NOT progressive, I can guarantee you that. There are some liberal folk, but it's mostly conservative. Strangely enough, the town has a very large Mormon population, too, probably at least 10-15%. And no, the quality of life is not that great. The lake may look pretty, but it stinks of goose shit, especially in the summer. There are plenty of shitty neighborhoods and the local government is fucking incompetent. Like weeds, sagebrush, cheatgrass that sticks in your socks like there's no tomorrow, and shitloads of pollinating kocia? Then it's the town for you! Either the guy who wrote that is insane or didn't spend much time there. Then again, they do have the Tree Cafe, which is some of the best damn Chinese food I've ever had.
and get your company's website /.'d
You have big balls my friend. Either that or your stupid. Or maybe you have photo's of someone at the office? Bah, I could keep guessing here, but seriously, I can't imagine this will make you popular at work.
Oh, you are right though. The website does suck.
That was about Connell, WA http://www.cityofconnell.com/
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Doesn't the fact that there's water right there make it somewhat unsuitable? How much space is there to really drive around and such without falling into the lake?
Where is the "+/-1 WTF!?!" moderation?
I don't therefore I'm not.
No source, but I heard on the radio a while back that the place where the nickel is mined for toyota's hybrid car batteries is another place where NASA has tested lunar rovers. Carved out of some forest in Canada, if memory serves?
Anyway, just FWIW
Bookmarked CERT. Err... Just 'cause... A search for KGIII will take you to my site, most of the time, where there's a contact link. I don't want to go too far off topic but if you figure you want to rant and go off-topic then I'm ALWAYS willing to engage in digression. Any conversation worth having shouldn't have limits about the topic so long as the new topic somehow returns to the conversation that was started. I am, so you know, still looking at the first two links and likely will be for the next few hours off and on. (I'm insane like that.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Oh, you'd be talking about this: CLARAty
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
...is that people actually LIVE where they test those rovers. I guess when we send men to Mars we know where to start looking for volunteers!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Unless you're skipping rocks on Moses Lake, you don't know it's there. I live in Wenatchee (about an hour away). It's a semi-arid desert here, and ML gets less precipitation than we do. Trust me, the lake isn't going to interfere with desert-based operations :)
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
Sure there is.
I-90 goes right through it. I would imagine that intelligent life is seen several times per day if you have a good high-speed camera. . .
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
It's weird... on geographical maps eaastern Washington looks more mountainous than deserty.
The ZDNet article just grabs a couple of pics from this 70 image gallery, which has a load of cool pictures.
Yeah, I heard there's atmosphere there too, and the gravity is way off, as is the cosmic radiation. They should just go somewhere on Earth with no water, no atmosphere, no magnetosphere and partial gravity.
Boeing does testing of their aircraft (or at least they did when I worked there) near Moses Lake because there is not much around there. They do things like turn all the engines off on a 747 and see if they can restart them while nose diving towards the ground, and flying them upside down and other fun stuff like that.
Watch out for falling cows in adjacent counties.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
between your obvious disdain for the stations website, your obvious feelings toward the reporter in question, the implied feelings toward the rest of the "non-geek" people at the station, all taken from your posts within this thread, you might want to hope that none of the higher ups where you work become aware of this article.
After all, you do come off as someone not really happy about where you work, and they can always fix that for you......
I'm just sayin'.........
"...the area around Moses Lake is mainly dust and exposed lava rock. Would think it'd make a pretty good proxy for the moon's surface." Is that where they filmed all the fake moon landings?
If you find this difficult to believe, then you've never lived in a community that has a (relatively) large mormon population. This is common practice, and the mormon students have to leave school for one or more classes per day to go get brainwashed across the street. I live in the Tri-Cities (about an hour and a half south of Moses Lake), and I seem to recall that all of the high schools here have these little mini-churches across the street. Of course, it's been 17 years since I was in high school, so things may have changed...
Twinkies sure taste good for something that is 68% air.
That's no moon!
Here's a map of the area I assume they're in. All the green you see is due to massive amounts of irrigation. . .
linky
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
So instead of making the videos on earth and saying they went to the moon, they're now just saying they did it all on terra firma.
OK, I believe they did go to the moon, but if they didn't I wonder why the hoaxing stopped.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.