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Ooops..TYPO..
I maent Pathfinder, NOT Pathfinfer!
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok. 
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heh. they're showing all the pictures that they're just getting now. the studios are filled with varied amounts of nerd laughter.
excelsior!
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Quote:
heh. they're showing all the pictures that they're just getting now. the studios are filled with varied amounts of nerd laughter.
excelsior!
What channel!! What channel??? 
Last edited by whomod; 2004-01-04 6:59 AM.
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OMG! They said there are beings coming out of the ground demolishing the rover!
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probably any of the 24 hour news channels. i've been flipping between fox news and cnn.
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Quote:
OMG! They said there are beings coming out of the ground demolishing the rover!
Video of that is just coming in....
My God! They're hideous!
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especially the fat Richard Dreyfus looking one!
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Some good Mars info links.
The JPL website
A JPL/NASA site
M2K4???
Well, I tried an impressive panoramic pic but it sttretched the page too much so I'll post this one.
Awaiting the COLOR (  ) pics to be posted!!
Last edited by whomod; 2004-01-05 7:36 AM.
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Who Mod : Thanks for both the pics and the Links! I have long been for exploring Mars. I'm thrilled that we are going back there. A rover is just the beginning. I'd love to see a manned landing on Mars in my lifetime. I'm 46, but it may yet happen. Just think of all the places yet to be seen close up on the Martian landscape. 
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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I failed to mention that NOVA aired an episode devoted to Mars and the current NASA missions. It will re-run again Tuesday at 8:00 pm on your local PBS station.
Fuck! I'm listening to Rodney Bingenheimer's show on the radio right now as I posted this. He just happened to play "Life on Mars" by Bowie and now He's playing "Girl from Mars" by Ash. Now it's "starman" by Bowie.
We're all on the same page tonight.
Last edited by whomod; 2004-01-05 8:33 AM.
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Who Mod -
I saw the NOVA specials on Mars.
It was Great!!
I have it on my calendar to watch NOVA
on Channel 39 here on Tues. at 8 pm, and
thanks!
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Just read on the 'net that the Spirit Rover
may not start it's exploration of the Martian
landscape until the 15 th or 16. Damn!!
It's been obstructed by the very airbags that
were deployed to insure it's safe arrival on
the fourth planet from the sun, but NASA assures
us it has another ramp it can use as an exit,
a ramp that is completely free of obstructions.
Keep your fingers crossed!
Meanwhile, the panaramic views being beamed back
to Earth are absolutely stunning. Just think...
we're gazing at photos of a planet that is millions
of miles away.
Robert Heinlein, who wrote a Few books about
adventures on Mars would be proud.
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Top Ten Things We Learned From The Mars Rover
10. Contrary to earlier findings, Mars only about a mile from Earth
9. NASA's Mars footage looks suspiciously similar to Atari's Asteroids
8. So far, no sign of Mork
7. Thought I saw Paris Hilton having sex with a Martian
6. We could've taken a photo of Death Valley and saved 400-million dollars
5. The Mars invasion force is already on its way and there's not a damn thing we can do about it
4. It's much more Mars-y than we even imagined
3. Whole "red planet" thing just a marketing ploy by Cherry 7-Up
2. Kucinich's popularity rating on Mars is the same as on Earth
1. Osama ain't there, either
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Quote:
U.S. Rover Spirit to 'Head for the Hills' on Mars
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - NASA (news - web sites) scientists on Tuesday targeted a crater and a far-off range of hills as the main destinations for the Mars rover Spirit, which was on track to roll off its lander on Wednesday night to search for ancient signs of water....
Last edited by whomod; 2004-01-14 2:09 AM.
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Well now that SPIRIT is finally on the go, we're starting
to see some interesting sites on Mars.
I still think a manned landing, then a Base and eventually
a colony on Mars would be a good thing.
I've been reading Sci Fi books on colonies on Mars
since 1965 or so..time to make it happen for REAL now.
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Quote:
NASA: Spirit Rover Not Sending Data
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA (news - web sites)'s Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars for more than 24 hours, mission managers said Thursday, calling it an "extremely serious anomaly."
Must've found something interesting again, like Phobos II did.
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Maybe Martians ate the Spirit rover. 
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Flight-team engineers for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission were encouraged this morning when Spirit sent a simple radio signal acknowledging that the rover had received a transmission from Earth. However, the team is still trying to diagnose the cause of earlier communications difficulties that have prevented any data being returned from Spirit since early Wednesday. (Jan. 22)
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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And, to be fair, one of my favorite friends there is blind and I take every opportunity available to make fun of that and we're still friends. That guy never fit there. He never got the spirit of the RKMBs. We're gonna keep an eye on the obits, see if he finally left or if he really did have a heart attack.
2,506,410.81 CAD Rack points
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after a bitter fight, and a loss of communication for over 24 hours, nasa finally hears from embittered mars rover.
nasa musta bought spirit flowers. damn robots, so frickin testy.
***
NASA Gets New Signal From Mars Rover
By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA engineers got a 10-minute signal Friday morning from the Spirit rover and planned further communications with it in an effort to diagnose and possibly patch up their ailing robotic patient on Mars.
NASA heard from the six-wheeled rover at about 4:30 a.m., but officials did not immediately elaborate on the signal in a statement released early Friday. If it contains significant data, the transmission would mark the first such signal in two days — a period of anxious waiting for scientists.
Engineers hope Spirit will manage to send data, which can be used to assess the health of the spacecraft, pinpoint any problems and allow NASA to begin working on a potential fix or fixes.
Scientists and spokesmen at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Friday. The statement said Friday's signal was received by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna complex near Madrid, Spain.
Since Wednesday, its 19th day on Mars, the Spirit had sent back to Earth only meaningless radio noise or simple beeps acknowledging receipt of commands.
Among the possible causes: a corruption of its software or computer memory. If the software is awry, NASA can fix it from Earth by beaming patches across more than 100 million miles of space or by rebooting the rover's computer. But if the problem lies with the rover's hardware, the situation would be far more grave — perhaps beyond repair.
Baffled scientists have struggled to pinpoint the trouble.
"It is precisely like trying to diagnose a patient with different symptoms that don't corroborate," said Firouz Naderi, manager of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars exploration program.
Spirit is one-half of an $820 million mission. Its twin, Opportunity, is expected to land on Mars late Saturday. The twin rovers are supposed to examine the Red Planet's dry rocks and soil for evidence that it was once wetter and more hospitable to life.
Until Wednesday, Spirit had functioned almost flawlessly and NASA scientists and engineers had been jubilant.
Cushioned by its air bags, the rover made a bull's-eye landing, surviving what was by far the most dangerous part of the mission — the descent through the atmosphere at 12,000 mph. Then on Jan. 15, in another nail-biting moment for NASA, the rover safely rolled down a ramp onto Mars' ruddy soil without becoming snagged.
It has snapped thousands of pictures, including breathtaking panoramic views and microscopic images of the Martian soil. It also carried out preliminary work analyzing the minerals and elements that make up its surroundings.
Steven Squyres of Cornell University, the mission's main scientist, cautioned that communications problems are common on spacecraft.
The problem surfaced while Spirit was preparing to resume analysis of its first rock, just a few yards from where it landed.
Early Thursday, NASA initially heard nothing from Spirit that would indicate it was in "fault mode," a state that the rover enters by itself when it has experienced a problem. Later, NASA sent a command to Spirit as if it were in fault mode, anyway. Spirit acknowledged with a beep that it received the command, indicating an onboard problem. That puzzled engineers.
The rover has since missed several scheduled opportunities to communicate, both directly with Earth and by way of two NASA satellites in orbit around Mars.
Preliminary indications suggested the rover's radio was working, and it continued to generate power from the sun with its solar panels. Spirit's internal clock also was running and had roused the rover several times on cue.
Engineers hoped to receive engineering data from Spirit by early Friday, JPL director Charles Elachi said.
"We can do a diagnostic and understand what happened, what are the corrective actions that need to be done and how do we bring it carefully and thoughtfully to its normal operation mode," Elachi said.
In New York City, Jim Garvin, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, said on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" that scientists have "gotten a heartbeat" from the rover.
He said the team was "communicating with it at very low rates to tell it how to wake itself back up."
Initially, engineers believed bad weather on Earth — a thunderstorm near a Deep Space Network antenna in Australia — had caused the communications glitch. But weather was later discounted as the source.
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on a related note: Quote:
New Evidence of Water on Mars
Europe's Mars orbiter has found the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on the Red Planet's surface, the European Space Agency said Friday.
While scientists have long believed that the planet's polar caps contain frozen water, the findings were based on indirect methods such as analysis of temperature data or the detection of traces of hydrogen.
European scientists said their discovery was based on analysis of vapors of water molecules detected by the infrared camera aboard the Mars Express spacecraft that is circling the Red Planet's south pole.
''You look at the picture, look at the fingerprint and say this is water ice,'' said Allen Moorehouse, the project's manager of spacecraft operations. ''This is the first time it's been detected on the ground. This is the first direct confirmation.''
If Mars once had surface water, it had the potential to support life - although Moorehouse cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions.
In 2001, NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft had determined that there is lots of ice mixed with the soil, as little as 18 inches from the surface.
However, ESA's science director David Southwood said those previous conclusions were based on indirect measurements, such as the detection of traces of hydrogen, and that the European finding was more concrete.
''Previous measurements have been indirect and this is the first time we have direct indications of molecules that are present in water,'' Southwood said. ''Of course, finding anything that has to do with water on Mars is a sort of holy grail. This is certainly better than anything we've had so far.''
However, the director of NASA's Mars exploration program disputed the Europeans' claim that their discovery was new.
''Our Odyssey spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars since 2001 did discover vast amounts of frozen water in the northern and southern latitudes. And we were surprised by the fact that there was so much, and so close to the surface,'' Orlando Figueroa, director of NASA's Mars exploration program, told CNN on Friday.
''So it's not new news but we are happy to see that their satellite is also able to pick up where it exists,'' he said when asked about the Mars Express findings
Phil Christensen, an Arizona State University professor involved in NASA's Mars projects, said the findings bolstered known data that pointed to the presence of frozen water on Mars.
''That is a very nice confirmation of the other measurements that have been previously made,'' he told The Associated Press.
European Space Agency officials said their discovery confirmed something that scientists long suspected.
''It's been looked at for such a long time and it's been inferred there was water'' at the south pole, said agency scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring.
''This is the first time we can really see vapors of the molecules themselves,'' he said.
The Europeans' announcement came as NASA tried fix a major communications problem with its Spirit rover, which landed on Mars on Jan. 3 and had sent back detailed photos of the surface.
More than 40 years of Mars exploration have been searching for evidence of whether the planet ever had liquid water.
Mars Odyssey, as well as another U.S. spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor, have been circling the planet searching for indications of water.
In October, a team of scientists reported Odyssey had detected on the surface of Mars copious amounts of a mineral that's easily weathered away in the presence of water. That suggested Mars has been a dry wasteland.
Weeks later, a second team reported evidence to the contrary after Global Surveyor beamed back images that show features apparently created by the meandering flow of rivers.
The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter is part of Europe's first mission to Mars. Mars Express hit orbit on Dec. 25 and began transmitting its first data from the planet this month, starting with high-resolution pictures of the surface that captured in detail a huge Martian canyon.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
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Rob : That is Fucking Awesome!!!! I know it is NOT definitive proof of water having ran freely on Mars, but It DOES help keep that argument alive!!!!
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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This is how all this shit starts!
First one or two machines are up on Mars and stop returning our calls.
Then more!
Soon they will find each other and breed a martian race of crappy NASA technology.
Then they shall return to conquer, enlisting our machines to help them achive thier horrible goal.
First thing tomorrow morning I'm going to Mars and I'm not coing back till I kick those commie defecting robots asses.
I should be back by evening if my calculations are correct.
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Uiltimate Jaburg 53, watch out!! The Collective of Failed Mars landers/Rovers might assimulate you!!  
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Ha! I already plan to bash them with a four d cell Maglite!
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Heat vision would do it better...
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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Well, tommorow night is another shot at redemtion. NASA Prepares for Mars Rover Landing
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Mars Rover Status Called 'Critical'
Quote:
The good news, Theisinger said, was that Spirit was now responding to commands and sending some limited data back to Earth, an improvement over the mere beeps and random radio garble received earlier, giving engineers something to go on as they puzzle through the difficulty.
He said mission controllers should be able to "sustain the current state of the spacecraft from a health standpoint for an indefinite period of time."
He said he viewed the chances of restoring Spirit to perfect working order as "low," but likewise said it was unlikely that the rover would remain completely incapacitated.
Discouraging, very discouraging....
Still, not a total loss and we can dare to hope for tommorow.
Spirit probably had a Windows OS installed. LOL! Sometimes I reboot and reboot and the dang thing still won't work!
Last edited by whomod; 2004-01-24 11:36 AM.
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Too badit wasn't a thing to find and fix the various garbage we've already left on the face of the planet.
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Sounds like Spirit is running on Windows to me... It already rebooted itself 60 times, and still isn't working properly.   
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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The view on the other side of the world.   Second Mars Rover Sends Pictures to Earth
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cool rover site -- dunno if its been posted already
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html
its got hi-def, panaramic shots of the surface (4 mb) -- nerdily cool!! 
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Quote:
britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
1. Osama ain't there, either
 Racks be to MisterJLA
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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took and returned images on January 28, 2004, the first pictures from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image from the rover's front hazard identification camera shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack. As it had been instructed a week earlier, the Moessbauer spectrometer, an instrument for identifying the minerals in rocks and soils, is still placed against the rock. Engineers are working to restore Spirit to working order so that the rover can resume the scientific exploration of its landing area.
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NASA Hopes to Get Crippled Rover Back to Work SoonBy Jill Serjeant PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - NASA scientists said on Wednesday they hoped to get the crippled Mars Spirit rover back doing science experiments next week and said all systems were go in preparing to have the twin rover Opportunity stand up on the opposite side of the red planet. "We are working to get complete control of the vehicle (Spirit) but we are still not quite there," mission manager Jennifer Trosper told reporters at the mission control center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Mission scientists lost the ability to communicate with and receive data from Spirit for 24 hours last week just as the six-wheeled rover was preparing to drill into martian rock for the first time. The rover has been idled since then. They have been working since then to solve problems with Spirit's onboard computer memory, and will decide shortly whether to delete some of the data files built up during the spacecraft's eight-month voyage to Mars. Trosper said scientists were also hoping on Wednesday to move Spirit's high-gain antenna -- which is used for high-speed communications with earth -- back into its correct position. "If all goes well, in a few hours we will have resumed high-gain antenna communications. That will be a significant step forward," she said. "Hopefully if we are on the right track, we hope at the earliest to be back doing science early next week," Trosper said. "If we are not on the right track it would be longer than that." Meanwhile, Spirit's sister rover Opportunity, which landed in a wide flat crater known as the Meridiani Planum on the other side of Mars at the weekend, was reported to be in "very good health." Opportunity has already sent back some spectacular panoramic pictures of its surroundings. Scientists said two parts of its four-part stand up process had been completed, and that they hoped to get Opportunity on its feet by Friday. "I am one very happy landing scientist," said Matt Golombek, who helped to choose the landing site. The craft will then prepare to roll off its lander next week for the first time and start exploring Opportunity for evidence that the now barren, rocky planet once contained enough water to sustain some form of life. Opportunity has landed in sight of an intriguing outcrop of exposed bedrock -- the first ever found on Mars -- which is believed to be billions of years old. Mission scientists are anxious to explore the rock with Opportunity's array of geologic tools and have already had "a lot of fun" speculating about the make-up of the rocks based on high-resolution camera images, said panoramic camera specialist Jim Bell. "There are as many hypotheses as geologists as to what's going on out there," Bell told reporters. The twin rovers are scheduled to spend three months on Mars in the most detailed and ambitious bid so far to explore the geologic history of the planet.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 45,846 Likes: 1
cobra kai 15000+ posts
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cobra kai 15000+ posts
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 45,846 Likes: 1 |
hit that red street corver, rover bitch!
giant picture
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 19,633
I walk in eternity 15000+ posts
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I walk in eternity 15000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 19,633 |
I have heard in the news that BOTH the Spirit and Opportunity rovers are now in full working condition.
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mr Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life." - Tuvok.
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