NASA Mars Satellite Snaps 1st Public-Picked Photos

coondoggie writes "NASA today said it took eight high-resolution photos of Mars that were chosen through a public suggestion box the space agency put up in January. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is nicknamed 'the people's camera,' NASA stated. Through the suggestion box known as HiWish, NASA has received nearly 1,000 suggestions. The first eight images of areas the public selected are available online."

Comments

Site down.

[Anonymous Coward]

The site which hosts the images is already down, so this article is almost redundant.

I was all like, "Take pictures of the surface"

[Anonymous Coward]

And they listened.

Re:I was all like, "Take pictures of the surface"

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, the other 992 suggestions requested pics of the Mars Face specifically.

Re:I was all like, "Take pictures of the surface"

[Anonymous Coward]

And that was after they threw out all the ones that wanted pictures of Uranus instead.

Re:I was all like, "Take pictures of the surface"

[thatskinnyguy]

Where the hell are my mod points? NASA made satellites easier to use because I told them some vague thing. I did that for Microshaft once! THE SYSTEM WORKS!

Re:I was all like, "Take pictures of the surface"

[DeBaas]

To be fair, the other 992 suggestions requested pics of the Mars Face specifically.

They'll get to that, but their Photoshop specialist is currently working on the Prius project.

And within seconds...

[Brett Buck]

SLASHDOTTED!

Re:And within seconds...

[Fx.Dr]

It would appear the resources allocated to resolve the issues with the Prius were pulled from NASA's pool of web devs.

Mirror?

[Beelzebud]

An article about pictures isn't that interesting when you can't see the pictures...

The face

[s122604]

I need more pictures of the face, and Kermit the Frog

Re:The face

[Anonymous Coward]

Actual site is down, so here's the next best thing (already taken 3 years ago, way before the public suggestions started)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HiRISE_face.jpg

Re:The face

[pushing-robot]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HiRISE_face.jpg

My God! It looks nothing like any face I've ever seen! Obviously the beings who created it possess an intelligence entirely unlike our own!

Re:The face

[ZosX]

http://bradkaya.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ipod-indian.jpg

My God! It looks totally like a face!

The worst part about trolls

[Jeng]

Is that you can only mod them down once.

Re:The worst part about trolls

[segin]

I was going to say that the worst part of conservative nutjobs is that they can only destroy the economy once, but no, they can destroy it each and every time the people bring it back.

pics

[majortom1981]

The actual link to the pics is here but its down right now . http://uahirise.org/releases/hiwish-captions.php

Re:pics

[gyrogeerloose]

As of 22:19 UCT, that one is down too.

Give them a break....

[Orga]

You know you guys have to wait for the images to get from Mars to here. stop hitting REFRESH!

Re:slashvertisement

[Itninja]

I use NoScript and AdBlock so noticed none of those.

Barsoom

[SnarfQuest]

I want pictures of the ancient martian cities. And the mostly naked martian girls.

Re:Barsoom

[Locke2005]

Yeah! 3-breasted women are HOT!

Re:Barsoom

[Anonymous Coward]

I want pictures of the ancient martian cities. And the mostly naked martian girls.

"What is it with you mechanical monstrosities, always trying to meld metal with gelatin?"
- K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, private memoranda

Buzzkill

[Itninja]

And why are schools closing again? I squee about space coolness as much as any nerd, but it's like otherwise rational people just ignore the cost-to-benefit ratio on things like this. Cognitive dissonance I guess. They rail against bailouts that sucked but probably did save the economy from a total collapse. But then things like pretty pictures of Mars it's all 'whatever it takes!'.

You tax dollars at work?

Re:Buzzkill

[TheDarAve]

Your comment would make sense if it was procured or launched since August 2008. HiRISE has been on station over Mars since 10MAR2006. The asset is there, not using it would be a bigger waste of money.

Re:Buzzkill

[CopaceticOpus]

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter cost $720 million dollars. There are over 75 million students in the United States. Please reply with your plans for fixing the education system with a budget of $9.60 per child.

Personally, I can't think of a better way to encourage students to dream big and to pursue science than a mission like this one.

Re:Buzzkill

[c6gunner]

Buzzkill is right. You could at least have formulated a reasonable complaint, instead of being a whiny bitch. How much do you figure it costs to snap a few pictures using a satellite which is already in orbit of mars? Enough to buy lunch for 10 kids in your hypothetical "closing schools"?

Re:Buzzkill

[Nadaka]

NASA budget for 2010 = 0.52% federal (18724 million).

That is almost exactly 26 days of war in iraq or about 1500 times the bonus of the CEO of Goldman Sachs after receiving the bailout.

Our return on investment for NASA is spectacular.

Re:Buzzkill

[LanMan04]

We have to multitask as a species. If we stopped the whole world to work on one problem at a time, nothing would get done.

Context switching is expensive.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter cost $720 million dollars. There are over 75 million students in the United States.

I'd start with teaching you that $720 million dollars is read, "720 million dollars dollars."

Re:Buzzkill

[Itninja]

720 Million was just to cost of the physical craft. That pales in comparison to the billions up billions of dollars worth of infrastructure required to even get the thing off the ground.

Re:Buzzkill

[Itninja]

Me-OW! No reason to go all space-program fangurl on me. And regarding the cost, remember the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did not get into space powered by love and unicorns (though admittedly, that would have been awesome). There's that whole tax-funded NASA thing....

The 720 million mentioned on Wikipedia as the 'cost' was just the cost of the physical craft, not all the infrastructure required to make it more than a 720 million dollar paperweight.

Re:Buzzkill

[Chris Burke]

Cognitive dissonance I guess. They rail against bailouts that sucked but probably did save the economy from a total collapse. But then things like pretty pictures of Mars it's all 'whatever it takes!'.

What you call "cognitive dissonance" I call "having a sense of proportion".

In other news, I'm unhappy with the automotive and banking bailouts for wasting money, yet just yesterday I payed extra for a completely unnecessary helping of guacamole for my quesadillas. Clearly I am a hypocrite.

Re:Buzzkill

[Itninja]

True. And giving each public school ~$2500/student(money available for schools if NASA funding was diverted for a single year) would be an even greater return. Imagine every student being taught in classrooms with only a dozen or so kids.

Re:Buzzkill

[snooo53]

Guacamole and sour cream are never unnecessary when it comes to quesadillas!

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that makes total sense. Stop learning new things, so we can focus on teaching our children. Wait a second. If we don't learn anything, what is there to teach?

How can you, on the one hand, decry "wasteful" acquisition of knowledge, while on the other hand complain that we aren't educating our children? What the fuck sort of quantum superposition must exist in your brain in order to enable THAT irrational combination of opinions?

Re:Buzzkill

[c6gunner]

What can I say ... your comments are a perfect demonstration of the fact that education is wasted on most people.

The US spends about 1 trillion dollars per year on education. The entire NASA budget clocks in at under 19 billion. If you scrapped NASA entirely, you could increase education spending by less than 2 percent. Now, it's clear where you stand on the issue, but I'd personally much rather use that money to push back the boundaries of human knowledge instead of giving it to the school system and praying for a miracle.

Re:Buzzkill

[Nadaka]

Throwing money at schools won't improve education. The extra money will go for more rent-a-cops, metal detectors and an extra limo for the members of the school board. It has been tried before.

However canceling NASA will eliminate the aspirations and goals of thousands of bright young people and put us in a position where all the knowledge and skills of a generation of aerospace engineers are lost. The cost of restarting the space program after giving it up for a decade would dwarf the amount saved. We give that up and we as a nation will have accepted our place among the third world nations while nations like Pakistan, India, China and even North Korea take the lead.

I agree that we need a larger focus on education in this country, but gutting NASA isn't the answer. It is going to take a major policy change to fix education because the system is degenerate. If that costs more, then can find the money somewhere else.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

It would just fund the teacher's union and we would still be at 35+ student per class.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

And giving each public school ~$2500/student(money available for schools if NASA funding was diverted for a single year) would be an even greater return. Imagine every student being taught in classrooms with only a dozen or so kids.

Except that that would never happen, and you know it. If NASA disappeared tomorrow, that money would not go to education. At best only a tiny percentage of it would. Your only real argument here is that you think the money could be better spent elsewhere. The fact is, there are many things that the US government spends money on that people will agree or disagree with. You are more than welcome (and even encouraged) to make such criticisms, but at least make an argument that is based on something rational and tangible rather than posing a false dilemma as an argument against NASA.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

but we need the war in Iraq. We don't need NASA. Right?

Or maybe I have it backward. Whatever, there was never a problem that killing people not like us didn't solve.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost listed on wikipedia is the budgeted cost of the mission, which includes construction of the spacecraft, the launch vehicle (and a use of the launch site), and the operations team for the spacecraft for its expected lifetime. So yes, 720 million is the total cost. I don't know what other "infrastructure" you could possibly be talking about.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

It got into space powered by an Atlas V401 rocket, which cost $90 million and is included in the cost listed on wikipedia. See http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/space_missions/mars_reconnaissance_orbiter/facts.html

Re:Buzzkill

[Nivlheim]

That figure is off by a factor 6-10 too. In October 2008 the number of people enrolled in anything from kindergarten to college was ~76 million. ~48 million in elementary and high school. Source.

$18.7 billion / 76 million students = $246/student
$18.7 billion / 48 million students = $390/student

Doubt that would fix much, even if every single dollar trickled all the way down.

Re:Buzzkill

[Khyber]

Don't forget the hot sauce!

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's you again. You should get a job, or a hobby, even a boyfriend, ANYTHING to stop your trolling your way through here.

Re:Buzzkill

[Anonymous Coward]

They rail against bailouts that sucked but probably did save the economy from a total collapse.

Wow. You didn't just drink the "KoolAid" you hooked it up directly to the vein.

suggestions?

[c6gunner]

I'll give you 20 to 1 odds on 90% of those "suggestions" being something along the lines of "Take pictures of Uranus!".

Re:suggestions?

[Obfuscant]

I'll give you 20 to 1 odds on 90% of those "suggestions" being something along the lines of "Take pictures of Uranus!".

I'll give 40 to 1 that the few wishes selected out of the 1000's were pictures that the NASA scientists wanted to take anyway, but created a huge public relations event to make themselves look good. "Just consider the kids...!"

Re:suggestions?

[Fallingcow]

Kind of like the space station module naming contest.

"Suggest a name for the module! Or, just vote on one of the ones we've selected for you! Oops, the one that won isn't one we listed and it's silly, guess we won't do that. Also, we're not picking the one that got the most votes of the ones we ourselves suggested. Apparently we only put that one on there to fuck with you."

Re:suggestions?

[Chris Burke]

,i>I'll give 40 to 1 that the few wishes selected out of the 1000's were pictures that the NASA scientists wanted to take anyway, but created a huge public relations event to make themselves look good. "Just consider the kids...!"

The odds that NASA is only taking the pictures they want to take because they look scientifically valuable to them is 100%.

The odds that NASA is selecting such pictures from the set of public suggestions is also 100%.

I mean sure the orbiter is taking other pictures besides, but the whole point of this exercise is that NASA by itself does not have the resources to manually go over the lower resolution photos taken of Mars to find things to look at closer and keep the HiRISE camera busy.

The PR aspect is there for sure, but they really do want the public to serve as a first-level filter of the massive amount of photographic data taken of Mars. That's why they don't just ask you to submit coordinates, but also to categorize the picture and suggest why it's scientifically interesting, to make winnowing through the suggestions easier. Otherwise they could just have you submit coordinates, or give you a list and let you 'vote' like they did for the ISS module. :P

Re:Mod me down if you're a liberal pansy

[Toonol]

I'm a conservative libertarian, and I'm eager to mod you down as well.

Samara Valles

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, Samara Valles you wrinkly old bellybutton you! http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_016895_1525 [www.uahirise.org]

Martian Mutant City

[AmigaHeretic]

>>And the mostly naked martian girls.

Or really any chick with 3 boobs will do.

Re:slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god you're here to let us know that.

Re:Mod me down if you're a liberal pansy

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't "conservative libertarian" just a euphemism for "gay Republican"?

Re:slashvertisement

[Itninja]

Just doing my part to bring knowledge to the unenlightened.