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Journal of Cosmology Contributor Sues NASA To Investigate Mars "Donut"
An anonymous reader writes "Rhawn Joseph, a self-described astrobiologist involved with the infamous Journal of Cosmology, is suing NASA, demanding 100 high-resolution photos and 24 micrographs be taken of the 'donut' rock that recently appeared in front of the Opportunity rover on Mars, on the basis that it is a living organism. The remarkable full text of the complaint, which cites NASA's mineralogical analysis of the rock as evidence against it being a rock, is available to read at Popular Science."
Really, the lawsuit is worth a read.
Translation: Some attention whoring quack is going to waste taxpayer money and NASA time to no good end.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This reminds me of the time Julia Childs sued Neil Armstrong because he bring back samples of the strain of cheese composing the moon.
Dude, that's a shroom!
its the arm off of one of my kerbals
Very funny, this makes my day on /.
You won't be laughing when this guy wins his lawsuit, and we all find out that this "rock" is a piece of styrofoam knocked loose from one of the props in the back lot of Disney Studios. John Carter of Mars was filmed to provide a cover story for the Martian landscape used for the faked rover landings. There is no other plausible explanation for that movie.
The rover has a finite life until it fails. The donut has already been examined enough for NASA to think it's boring, and there are far more interesting goals further ahead that we'd like to reach before the wheels fall off, the power supply dies, or the sensors get too dusty to function.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Kind of the entire point of having a little robot on Mars is to gander at each and every "interesting" thing they roll up to.
Rover isn't a full blown laboratory, it's a slightly smarter than dumb camera. It will die. Catalog all the interesting things you see before it does so, then send another robot tailored to inspect instead of find.
Dr. Squyres says that if this object has been recently flipped over, "we are seeing the surface, the underside of a rock, that hasn't seen the Martian atmosphere for perhaps billions of years."
Trouble is, unless he's proposing that the underside of this rock was somehow vacuum-sealed against atmospheric influence, it has very much been exposed to the gases of the Martian atmosphere.
The undersides of rocks experience a different environment due to less exposure to wind erosion and the UV component of sunlight. But as far as being exposed to the gases that make up the atmosphere, the undersides are about as exposed at the topsides.
Most if not all of the minerals observed on Mars have been seen before, on Earth. Can you think of a terrestrial example of a rock whose underside has a significantly different chemical composition than its topside? I can't.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Dr. Squyres and his team have already chosen to spend lots of time and effort investigating this object.
How would releasing this data to the public, through existing channels that have already conveyed thousands of photos to the public, be a waste of NASA's time?
NASA has already acknowledged that this is "a very special rock, with rare properties." Therefore, shouldn't it, at a matter of course, release more data about this rock than it releases about the average Mars rock?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Actually, the fact that it was filmed on location is the only plausible explanation for its budget.
Why on earth would you have that impression? Venus is 0.949 Earth diamaters and 0.82 Earth masses; Mars is only 0.532 Earth diamaters and 0.11 Earth masses. More to the point, did you not read all the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom (Mars) novels by age 10?
Seriously, why not get the data? It's an exploration drone, with no solid destination or timetable. If something is interesting, point every sensor you've got at it until it's boring.
If some loudmouth thinks something is interesting that you don't, it's really not like you're in a hurry, spend a day getting data and then go on your way again.
They basically already have done this and determined it was a rock. No matter how many times they send the rover back to the same spot, since the instruments on the rover haven't changed, what exactly do you expect to find different?
Rhawn is bullying NASA for the simple fact that he wants the data, and if NASA agrees that the item is biological in nature, then he wants the court to force NASA to have Rhawn as first author on its publications regarding this item. In other words, he wants the prestige of being a researcher in a project he had no hands in, and wants all the credit for a find he didn't find.
Power is still a problem for Curiosity since, the RTG does not provide the full power requirements to the rover in real-time. The rover runs off of a battery pack. The RTG is responsible for recharging the battery pack. Curiosity must periodically take breaks to allow for the RTG to catch up with the power consumed during the rover's active period. That said this is not Curiosity's problem (it is some distance away) this is Opportunity's discovery.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
If this idiotic shitstain spent more than five hard seconds looking at the processed press release images, forgetting to take his meds, and crying conspiracy, he would've discovered that the Mars Exploration Rover site on JPL actually releases every single raw image the second it gets downlinked from Mars, including photos that deny claims of not taking micrographs, and also ignorant of basic traits of the MERs (well, MER now - RIP Spirit), such as the relatively low resolution of its sensors compared to modern standards, the microscopic imager just having a resolution of 1024x1024 and a working area of 3.1cm square at operating distance, and because it doesn't have an light on it like MSL/Curiosity's MAHLI, isn't as good at taking photos of things on the ground, like a little rock on the surface of mars.
In fact, there's even hazcam images of the arm being swung into place, denying that the rover never got close, and that it's actually just the really small rock it is.
Before arm placement, and after.
Anyways - oh look, close up, in focus images of a mushroom. Not. I hope this fuck gets laughed out and never returns.
"8. The refusal to take close up photos from various angles, the refusal to take microscopic images of the specimen, the refusal to release high resolution photos, is inexplicable, recklessly negligent, and bizarre. Any intelligent adult, adolescent, child, chimpanzee, monkey, dog, or rodent with even a modicum of curiosity, would approach, investigate and closely examine a bowl-shaped structure which appears just a few feet in front of them when 12 days earlier they hadn't noticed it. But not NASA and its rover team who have refused to take even a single close up photo."
His claim for standing to sue is pretty funny too. It boils down to, "I did a bunch of impressive neuroscience work in the late 70s & early 80s, vanished for 20 years, and then reappeared two decades later in full Linus Pauling crank mode churning out books on astrobiology and 'proving' that the evolution of DNA predates Earth by 6 billion years, that upper atmosphere plasma are actually extremophiles, and that otherwise I'm super interested in Mars."
"Oh, and I'm a taxpayer and really interested in this rock, therefore I deserved to have control over what NASA does in regards to it since they're too boneheaded to see how important it is."
Here's one of his other books. The reviews give you an idea of how far this man has fallen as a scientist.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Actually, NASA would do well to drive the Rover back there and study the hell out of it, if nothing else than to put the whack-job conspiracy nuts to shame.
You're assuming that whack-job conspiracy nuts can be shamed, an idea which is not supported by the evidence.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I am suing NASA demanding 100 high resolution photos and 24 micrographs be taken of Scarlett Johansson, at various angles, from all sides, and from above, and under appropriate lighting conditions which minimize glare, on the basis that this is a living organism.