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Mars Rover Begins "Whole New Mission"

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-to-the-beginning dept.

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.'"

13 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Still amazed... by sadness203 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Imagine what the other one would have achieved if there was a chiropractor up there to fix all the subluxation it suffered from radiation poisoning. We need more chiropractor in space!

  2. Re:Still amazed... by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We need more chiropractor in space!"
    I could agree more.
    In fact, put all those lying bastards there.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  3. A much better article by Wolvenhaven · · Score: 3, Funny

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/

    --
    Orwell was an optimist.
  4. Just gotta say by guspasho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  5. still working because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    its still working cause its in a martian vr lab being fed fake data . MEANWHILE the invasion fleet nears completion .......

  6. So what does this mean? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:So what does this mean? by mbone · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was part of Viking, and it is not correct to say that "Viking tests of Martian soil didn't seem to give any signs of life." The protocols and expected results were published before the mission, and all 6 (3 tests each on 2 spacecraft) passed at the one bit level (i.e., some of the details were not what was expected, but at the "we do X and Y happens" level, they all passed). What didn't "pass" was the mass spectrometer, which didn't reveal any organics.

      Funny thing was, the mass spec was listed as one of the tests of life before the mission.

      Now, they think that perchlorates may have removed all of the organics when the samples were heated for the mass spec. Oh well.

    2. Re:So what does this mean? by Ga_101 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Which makes it all the greater same that the Beagle 2 did not land. We need a robotic chemist up there.
      While the two NASA rovers have done great work, they are very specialised as robotic geologists. This is great if you wanted pretty pictures of rocks, but does leave you stuffed if you want hard data on potential organic molecules.
      For it's many, many flaws, the Beagle 2 did manage to pack in a lot of science (indeed it would have provided much more interesting results IMHO) into a very small space on a shoe string. I can't help but think that if a little of the now obvious considerable redundancy (two rovers for crynout loud) built into the NASA mission had been given up for more science there would not be such a the need to send a rover the size of a car.

  7. Next up... by MachDelta · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...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?

  8. EPIC! Late-breaking news from NASA! by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Funny
    ~Translation of Intercepted Broadcast from Blue Planet~
    ~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:

    "This is like having a brand-new beachhead for our battle-hardened juggernaut of steel; a remarkable bonus that comes from being able to rove with imputiny and utterly dominate the Martian surface."

    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~

  9. Re:Still amazed... by mywhitewolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    well, you know what they say...

    2 stones in the hand are worth more than killing the bird in the bush with all their eggs in a basket....... or something, give me a break, this isn't rocket surgery!

  10. Re:Still amazed... by ae1294 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would be interested in knowing the story of the engineering. When you consider a bonus of years of use from a device designed with a 90-day warranty, you'd really like to meet the folks who put the device together.

    Yes, clearly they need to be fired immediately. I mean, creating a product that outlives its warranty by more than 3 months is ridiculous. Frankly it should be a crime and god willing soon will be.

  11. Estimations. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.