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NASA Will Crowdsource Its Photos of Mars
tedlistens writes "NASA is asking the public to suggest subjects for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, its super powerful camera currently orbiting Mars. Since it arrived there in 2006, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has seen more success than that lost lander, recording nearly 13,000 observations of Martian terrain, with each image covering dozens of square miles and revealing details as small as a desk. By letting the public in on the Martian photo shoot, scientists aren't just getting more people excited about space exploration. They're hoping that crowdsourcing imaging targets will increase the camera's already bountiful science return. Despite the thousands of pictures already taken, less than 1 percent of the Martian surface has been imaged."
Find Dr Manhattan and that cool floating ice scupture thing of his.
...NASA has heard of 4chan, right? I don't want to see thousands of "crowdsourced" pictures of the robot's crotch.
There's a similar thing going on for some time on ESA Mars Express mission, where public is invited to participate in obtaining, processing, etc. of images taken with a camera that was meant originally to observe Beagle separation.
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/VMC/index.html
One that hath name thou can not otter
They've found desks on Mars?!
If they've imaged 1% of the surface of Mars, then my vote for new pictures would be (drum roll..................!) the OTHER 99% Thank you - no applause, please.
Cheers! - Steve from MyBrotherSteve.com
Since they are now claiming its possible to notice things as small as a Desk
Good. That might go a long way in explaining where my supervisor has been hiding for the last month.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
They need to send one of these up around the moon and prove the moon lander is there.
I'm not sure how that's supposed to be better evidence than the presence of mirrors for laser range-finding placed there by the astronauts that a variety of institutions around the world have used to measure the earth-moon distance (and of course in the process verifying their presence) would be.
I don't know would be more annoying - finding out its faked or seeing conspiracy theorists reject it as evidence.
Annoying? If the probe provided evidence that the landings were "faked", meaning we could no longer see the landers that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged only months ago that wouldn't be annoying. It'd be one of the most baffling mysteries in modern history!
The question wouldn't be "does this mean we never landed on the moon?", it'd be "who landed on the moon without telling anyone and stole the fucking landers?!"
Oh and obviously if the conspiracy theorists are not satisfied with the existing evidence, they will never be satisfied, because they simply don't want to be satisfied.
The enemies of Democracy are
Remember there is a lot to cover. Mars has a similar land area to Earth.
The Phoenix Lander was extremely successful. It found exactly what it was sent to look for. I don't know any better definition of success that that. It was never designed to survive the winter... they are just looking to see if somehow it did. The writer should be a little less cavalier.
Are they trying to suggest that only about 1% of Mars is obviously interesting to Martian scientists? There's really nothing else they know they want to look at? Okay sure, the PR could be a good thing and they might get some cool suggestions, but honestly:
- Pictures of the rovers
- Pictures of the canals
- Pictures of the mountains
- Pictures of the ice caps
Outside of that, everything is just "more red sand." Nobody really cares which small portion of the planet it is as long as they get cool desktop photos in a handy resolution (1680x1050, please). Do your own damn work and figure out what deserves to be photographed.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.