Slashdot Mirror
Shatner and Wheaton Narrate Mars Rover's Landing Sequence
SternisheFan tips news that William Shatner and Wil Wheaton have each narrated a NASA video titled "Grand Entrance," which documents the upcoming descent and landing of Mars rover Curiosity onto the Red planet. Curiosity is the nickname for the Mars Science Laboratory, the largest rover ever sent to another world. It is scheduled to land on Mars on August 5 at 10:31PM PDT (August 6 at 05:31 UTC), and the event will be broadcast live on NASA TV. The landing process documented in the video will take about 7 minutes, and it has to go perfectly all on its own — the time delay caused by the 154-million-mile distance to Earth means that signals will take 14 minutes to even reach us. For further details, check out Wil's video or William's. NASA's fact sheet (PDF) has more information as well.
Wheaton: We're still waiting for the first signal.
Shatner: The... probe... must have... broken... up.
greed@All_Evils:~#
I don't want Shatner narrating anything. Couldn't we have Nimoy instead? Heck Nemoy and Spiner or Stewart would rock.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I wonder which future NASA project will be narrated by Jeri Ryan
I thought the one they posted earlier with the actual NASA scientists/engineers was pretty solid: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1090
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
MSL Directory: You wouldn't crash a multimillion dollar rover just to win a bowling game!
Wil Wheaton: Keep on thinking that!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The Shatner version of that song is indelibly etched in my neurons for all eternity.
Is anyone else having a Mars lander party? It's like a geek sporting event, a virtual Super Bowl of space exploration. I'm having a bunch of friends over for a BBQ, beer, and then the main event - Curiosity vs. Mars - who will win?! Anyone betting on Mars is officially uninvited :-)
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Leaving the discussion about Shatner's narrating abilities to the side for a moment, I am shocked at how little excitement this rover is generating.
From my nerd perspective, I think about how freaking hard it is to launch something into orbit, get the payload into the right trajectory, travel nearly 600 million kilometers and then land on a relatively small and fast moving rock. The landing must be controlled, but cannot be done remotely becuase light itself takes several minutes to get from Earth to Mars. That in and of itself is freaking amazing.
The rover itself is about the size of a compact car and filled with electronics that have been optimized to run off of solar power. This solar power is mich weaker than on earth in terms of Watts/m^2. Also amazing. I understand it also has a small nuke reactor so it won't freeze in the winter, but I'm not sure if it supplements the electrical capactity for the toolsor not. Also amazing.
Other countries are partnering up to provide instruments that measure atmospheric pressure, temperature and other attributes of Mars. Also pretty darn cool.
Yet I hear very little about it on the news and surprisingly little in even tech websites like this one. I don't get it.
An onboard laser will vaporize rocks (okay, really small rocks) looking at chemical composition including organic compounds. We are looking at answering questions that have been around for centuries. Very exciting stuff.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The headline needs about 8 periods.
His... acting... style... isn't.... his narrating... style.
You could have said the same about Wheaton. His character in ST was an annoying git, but the actual guy behind the character turned out to be pretty cool, and involved in a lot of interesting projects after ST.
Don't confuse the character with the dude.
My first impression when I read the subject line was, "Wow, what an odd couple selection." Who would have thunked that in the aftermath, my childhood hero (Shatner) would have such a devistating fall from grace; while, at the same time, as an adult...my contempt for the young brat (Wheaton) would turn into admiration (if not respect). What they have done with their fame/notoriety... what they model in real life, as role constructs for the impressionable, could not be more diametrically opposed.
Wheaton... models, Be honest. Be kind. Be honorable. Work hard..."
While Shatner, well... I don't have much to say that stays within the framework of, "Be kind."
I can't spare a moment to watch the advertising debacle that is the Olympics; I won't waste a second of my time to endorse or support the corruption of the IOC by watching; I can't be bothered to weather 25 minutes of backstory, 30 minutes of commercials, to see 5 minutes of competition quick-cut between 15 different events, none of which NBC will ever let me witness the beginning or conclusion of; and furthermore as much as I can appreciate supreme human effort in pursuit of a goal, these athletes are the very class of people we geeks were neglected and abused for in school, while we tried to solve the problems that plagued civilization and tried to improve mankind's lot, so I don't have a whole heck of a lot of sympathy. Sorry.
But for all that, the Olympics are about *games*. That is, they don't matter. They produce no outcomes that advance the human species, beyond tertiary considerations.
The Mars landing, now, that represents a new frontier. Everything we do within our solar system or the universe to understand our place within it matters. Our grandchildren will wonder that we found the time to explore other worlds while most of the world's governments' attention was absorbed with worthless things like the Olympics. They'll shake their heads at the unfathomable naivete of beggaring the future to satisfy the momentary, ephemeral impulses of manufactured demand.
It's like pooh-poohing Columbus's discovery in favor of the local bull-fighting results.
I, for one, will be awaiting this landing with the ardor that others watch football. Football doesn't matter. This does (tm). Hope all you other /.-ers are there with me.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Shut up, Wesley.
Considering how complicated this landing is going to be, all the different parts that come into play, and the inability to really test the full blown procedure, I just don't think this is going to be a successful landing.
I understand literally some of the best minds in the world are working on this project, but that still doesn't negate the inherent difficultly of having such a complicated system work perfectly.
I really want this to succeed, but I just don't see the landing working out. The bad part is, this is a 2.5 billion dollar bet and if it fails I think it will be a serious set back to the funding that is so desperately needed for space research.
Wax on, wax off baby!
I like the idea of actors well known for scifi characters to narrate those videos. I'd love if they did one with John de Lancie and Leonard Nimoy. Their "Spock VS Q" performance was amazing.
Here is a much more detailed video the rover. What makes it a hoot is that the narrator (Carol Meier) sounds similar to Dr Carol Marcus: "The Genesis project will take a barren moon..." Nice touch by JPL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQ91fdYbP4
Their landing time is 1:31 AM, Monday morning, here on the Eastern side of the U.S. It would have been nice, NASA, since you're also on this side of the country, to have done a better job of planning when the rover was going to land.
Don't you guys ever think of this? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up!
Yet you couldn't have your landing at a more convenient time. Gees, typical government work. Always make it more difficult than it has to be.
j/k Good luck! Hopefully you can avoid the Martian Planetary Defense systems.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Not because of the making of history, but to watch the change of facial expressions when they finally realize they neglected to convert Imperial units to Metric.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Funny how a pretend space program has a much bigger and loyal audience than a real space program. Just goes to prove that people are more willing to believe garbage and lies than the truth.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Why would ANYBODY want an idiot like Shatner to narrate this. Next, that idiot will start his 'singing'.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why do you think this will fail? Just because they have tested ALL of it, but not the full thing? Well, I hate to tell you this, but that is how ALL missions occur.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There's... something on that planet. Some ... thing!
ntr
This week the BBC had a one-hour special on Curiosity. Despite entirely too much focus on "ZOMG the landing sequence is soo complicated" (*) it's worth watching (**) as it gives an overview of the whole project.
*: Deplorably, even Horizon has fallen prey to the same decline we've seen on the Discover and NatGeo channels, where documentaries are poisoned with faux suspense at the expense of information. In this case, Horizon forgets to mention WHY the landing sequence is so complicated.
**: finding the torrent is left as an exercise for the reader.
I think it will fail because it is probably the most complicated robotic landing sequence ever attempted in the history of robotic space missions.
I also see no evidence they tested other than via simulation the heat shield blowing off, the parachute separation, the rocket hovering and the lowering of the rover from the hovering rocket platform.
I don't blame them for not testing it, I understand it is next to impossible to test those things, but that doesn't change the fact they are untested.
Hopefully I'll have egg on my face come Aug 6th, I am rooting harder than ever for NASA to pull this off, I am just really pessimistic about it succeeding.
Wax on, wax off baby!
I would have prefered the comments to be made by actual astronauts/boffins instead of star trek actors...
Tomorrow is another day...
That may well be. But one difference between those missions and this mission is the number of steps involved.
Consider the current Mars rovers. What had to work? Heat shield and parachute and inflators. Consider the Mars Polar Lander. What had to work? Heat shield and landing rockets. Consider this mission. What has to work? Heat shield and parachute and hovering rockets and crane. There's a lot more that can go wrong.
That's not to say it will go wrong. It's easier to predict gloom and doom because if it happens, you're right and if it doesn't happen, nobody will care.
The landing looks like that old 8bit (or 4 bit?) LEM game!
I've heard Shatner's work and I think he's really good. I'm a little skeptical about Wheaton as I've seen some terrible celeb narrators like Christian Slater, Sigourney Weaver, and John Goodman.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"Get your ass to Mars."
Evidence of life on Mars is the kind of thing you find by accident. Serendipity. It's the kind of thing you find when you least expect it.
These missions should be about finding gold, or oil. Yeah, yeah.... I know, I'm not stupid. But most people are and support for these programs among the taxpayer citizens would increase dramatically.
Then maybe we'd really have a chance of finding something cool up there.
"In Search Of... Deadly Ants" (S2E22) Two Parts:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUzisH9OZoo
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTrsa7TBksA
That was rad(ical).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Oh man. So the descent stage, hovering on its own exhaust plume, is supposed to lower the rover down on a bunch of wires? Who came up with that idea? Kudos to NASA if this all works, but are these decisions really guided by the desire to (statistically) maximize the (Mars) science output, rather than a bunch of engineering/robotics geeks testing out their newest toys?
The "Science" channel will be airing an in-depth program on this landing on Monday, August 6, at 10pm Eastern time.
Batshit crazy he most certainly is(affordability is everything), however, he did a fantastic job on NASA's Space Shuttle documentary.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
"Mars. I am on you"
Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ............... for next 7 minutes
Is this a case of NASA double jumping the shark ?
Does Wil Wheaton have a Clever Nick Name?
Given that this lander has a pretty good chance of not landing properly how are we justifying the very real possibility of contaminating the Martian landscape with 4.8 kg of Plutonium-238? I can't wait to hear the justification for this given that we have two rovers up there that have done quite well on solar power.