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Opportunity Breaks NASA's 40-Year Roving Record
astroengine writes "After nine years of hard Mars roving, Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity has broken a 40-year-old extraterrestrial distance record. On Thursday, the tenacious six-wheeled robot drove 80 meters (263 feet), nudging the total distance traveled since landing on the red planet in 2004 to 35.760 kilometers (22.220 miles). NASA's previous distance record was held by Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt when, in December 1972, they drove their Lunar Roving Vehicle 35.744 kilometers (22.210 miles) over the lunar surface. Although it's broken the NASA distance record, it hasn't surpassed the international record, yet. The Soviet Lunokhod 2 remote-controlled moon rover roved 37 kilometers (23 miles) across the lunar surface and, so far, remains the undisputed champion of distance driving on an extraterrestrial surface."
No I think you're confusing the decimal for a comma.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
35760m in 3309 days is about 45 cm/h
( and imperial types can translate from SI themselves)
That's European syntax. Ten thousand point five would be 10.000,5
We're still kicking ass in terms of total distance traveled in space, thanks to V'Ger... err, Voyager. But we still have a long way to go to catch up with total extraterrestrial crash landings and highest BAC in space.
Seriously, try walking 1 meter in 1 minute and 40 seconds and you'll get an idea just how slow the rovers travel. Now walk 22 miles at that speed. That said, the accomplishment is still incredible. Show me any moving device that had received no maintenance in 9 years and still works.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
Soviet Union
1st Satleite to orbit Earth
1st Animal in space
1st Man in space
1st Woman in space
1st multiple personnel in space
1st Object into inter planetary space
1st lunar probe
1st Venusian probe
1st Martian probe
1st Space walk
1st space station
NASA
1st Cokacola in space
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
, spread over 3 separate EVAs in 3 days. All of the unmanned US and Russian rovers took a lot longer to set their distance records.
If the Apollo program was allowed to continue past 17, there were plans for even longer distance surface excursions. There were even preliminary studies done for a small flying vehicle to allow the astronauts to cover even longer distances from their landing site.
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I'd say we've received SOME return on that investment.
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
I completely agree and would mod you up if I had any points; Humans have accomplished these mile-stones (or baby steps?) and it shouldn't matter, over all, who has the biggest dick. Competition is a fantastic motivator, but shouldn't be the main purpose for advancing our species.
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Kind of funny but wrong or misleading both by commision and omission. Commission: 1st Venusian probe and 1st Martian probe -- the USSR had the first landers on each (which operated for a few seconds or minutes) but the USA had the first flybys of each (Mariner II for Venus and Mariner IV for Mars; Mariner II was the first successful mission of any kind to another planet besides the earth-moon system) and "space probes" by definition include flybys.
Omission: The list of "firsts" which USA-NASA accomplished is long, but the highlights are:
Manned moon landing (had to put that one in first)
First and so far only probes to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. First and only orbiters of Jupiter and Saturn.
First and only spacecraft on escape trajectories from the solar system.
First probe to Pluto (on its way now).
First and only probes to Mercury (Mariner 10 flyby and Mercury Messenger in orbit now).
Only landers on Mars which worked for more than a 15 seconds.
The list above is far from exhaustive. Both the USSR and USA had notable space accomplishements and neither would have moved as fast without the competition of the other, but this pervasive meme that the USSR did everything first is just false.
I know sorry USA also had 1st semi re-usable space craft, 1st docking in space and 1st Geo synchronos. However if you look at it pre 1966 it's pretty one sided with I think the only NASA 1st being having two manned space craft within 200 yards of each other whilst in orbit. It all changed when Sergi Pavlovich Korolyev died he had essentially blagged the Soviet space program from the start (They only let him launch Uri Gagarin because he told them they needed someone to man the radio).
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Soviet Union
1st Object into inter planetary space
If I remember rightly, the 1st Object into inter planetary space was Luna 1 which was ment to be the first first luna probe ... but missed went into solar obit and was hurredly dubbed a "new planet" and renamed Mechta ("Dream")
countries such as India and (Peoples republic of) China.
Except that both India and China use "." as a decimal point.
Citation: Decimal Mark Use
Actually the first object into interplanetary space was a manhole cover that predated the Space Race. The Pascal-B nuclear test in 1957 was supposed to test safety features which would stop an accidental premature detonation of a nuclear weapon. Instead the safety features failed miserably, the nuke went off with almost the full force, and the 900 kg steel cover welded on top of the test shaft was launched into space at several times escape velocity.
I know far too much trivia.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin