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Mars Rover Begins "Whole New Mission"
sighted writes "NASA reports that the seemingly-unstoppable robotic geologist Opportunity is finding things at Endeavour crater that it has never seen before, adding new life to a mission that has already been epic. Observations 'suggest that rock exposures on Endeavour's rim date from early in Martian history and include clay minerals that form in less-acidic wet conditions, possibly more favorable for life.' In a teleconference today, one mission scientist compared this new phase of exploration to a 'whole new mission.'"
I'm still thoroughly amazed at what this little machine has accomplished. The engineers deserve a big kudos as well.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Mars Rover Scientist #1: My god, I think those little blobs in the crater wall are life. We need to get closer.
Mars Rover:
Mars Rover Scientist #2: Oh no, it's died. We've got to send another rover to that location as soon as possible. Make sure we've got the budget!
TV Announcer: And now, in other news, President Obama has announced we're in the midst of another recession, therefore we must go fight more foreign wars and increase the corn ethanol subsidy by 10000%. NASA's budget has been reduced to one guy in a tin can at the bottom of a swimming pool in San Fransisco.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://xkcd.com/695/
http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/
Orwell was an optimist.
I wish that everyone who complained about how much money NASA "wastes" remembers just how many wildly successful programs like this one that it's accomplished. They've extended this mission something like half a dozen times. It's been on Mars for eight freaking years and it's still going!
its still working cause its in a martian vr lab being fed fake data . MEANWHILE the invasion fleet nears completion .......
Unfortunately Opportunity is not well-equipped for actually checking for life and so even if it does encounter life (which is unlikely) we'd have at best circumstantial evidence for it. The Viking tests of Martian soil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_biological_experiments didn't seem to give any signs of life but they did result in chemistry which we still don't fully understand what was happening. This in general makes further tests for life to be difficult since we don't fully understand the non-organic behavior (although one thing that Viking found was a lot less organic material than was expected. That's still not fully understood.).
The follow-up to Opportunity is going to be the Curiosity rover. Curiosity is about the size of a large car and will have a lot of different equipment. That should be launched by the end of this year. If Curiosity lands successfully (it is much larger than other things we've tried to land on Mars before and there's some new tech in the landing method) it will blow Opportunity and Spirit away in terms of the number of experiments it can do and a lot of other things. For example, Curiosity can simply move a lot faster than any other rover we have put on Mars. This means that when it is in a less interesting spot it will be able to go somewhere more interesting in days or hours rather than in weeks or months.
...NASA suddenly announces they're entering the automobile business to maintain cash flow for their space exploration.
Hell, I'd love a car that goes 8 years without maintenance. What are the lease terms on a $400M dollar vehicle anyways?
~CLASSIFIED: FOR COUNCIL EYESTALKS ONLY~
~Begin Translation~
EPIC! NASA reports that the seemingly-unstoppable robotic geologist Opportunity is finding things at Endeavour crater that it has never seen before, adding new life to a mission that has already been epic.
L'avery, Executive for the Program, announced thus:
Another Member of the Program was quoted as saying "This is different from any rock ever seen on Mars", describing the presence of numerous sac-like pockets of zinc and bromine mineralization associated with less-acidic and potentially gelatinous conditions.
When a project manager reminded the NASA delegation that after having exceeded its design lifetime by a factor of 30, and suggested that "at any time, we could lose a critical component on an essential rover system, and the mission would be over", L'avery had the project manager's testicles crushed and used as robotic wheel lubricant.
~End Translation of Intercepted Broadcast~
~For Victory, For Mars, For K'Breel~
K'Breel seems to be using this invasion to get more and more power. In the early versions K'Breel was just the chief of the council. Then he started punishing Martian reporters who disagreed with his assessment of the danger. Now he's achieved such power and control that his name is directly put in the sign-off propaganda chant at the end. It seems that Martians really are just like Earthlings.
Dammit. Somebody find the engineers that built Opportunity AND HAVE THEM MAKE AMERICAN CARS.
"I don't care if it looks funny with the solar panels extended. I get a 20 year warranty, 250 miles to the gallon, and it does 100kph going up the ol' Tharsis trail."
Keep on struggling Opportunity. We'll bring you home soon. We promise. Just a little longer.
http://xkcd.com/695/ (Spirit rover)
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.
Scotty: How long will it really take?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!
Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would *really* take, did ya?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.
Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.
I look forward to seeing "The collected and annotated sayings of K'Breel" in the bookstore someday. I hope there is an Irulan clone up there taking notes.
Maybe they can send it over to dust off the solar panels of "Spirit" and winch it outta the dust it is stuck in.
But then again, by the time it gets there "Spirit" will probably have been stolen by metal thieves and sold to the Jawa.
Seems to me that work contracted for government departments never ends.
. .
I know that many of the places named come from Austrailia, but some us of should laugh when we hear Botany Bay. I instantly thought of Chekov in Star Trek II. Interesting note that even in Austrailia, Botany Bay was a penal colony (what wasn't). It just makes the movie funnier.
I'd be a bit nervous about approaching a crater with the word "End" in it.
Table-ized A.I.
"Mars rover Opportunity finds new life in epic mission!"
Thank you for these, over the years. I know that when there's Mars news on Slashdot, I'll get at least one laugh that day.
When I read things like this, I wonder if we should send similar rovers to places like NYC and London -- I know I'd read their reports on attempts to discover "life," and the oddities they encounter.
Seven of the nine major planets either have at least one probe working there or in transit to it. Plus a couple in the Asteroid belt. Next week the Grail gravity probe goes to the Moon. And the long-delayed Curiosity Mars Science Lander launches at Thanksgiving.
The future is less bright. The Hubble replacement Webb telescope is three times is original price, five years late and all but dead in the appropriations committee. Te decadonal report has selected probes for the rest of the 2010s, but none has been formally approved.