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Post by tomaan on Aug 6, 2012 15:53:50 GMT
In case you've been in a cave for the last 24 hours, we landed successfully on Mars! ;D Unfortunately, the JPL/Mars website has been crashing periodically since then, but it's still very cool nonetheless (and a great teaching moment if you have kids). mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/First medium-resolution pics are here with hi-rez shots to come later this week (you can see the rover's wheel in the lower right of this photo):
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Post by Feng on Aug 6, 2012 18:45:30 GMT
How Awesome is This Huh
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Post by evilkittenofdoom on Aug 8, 2012 1:51:22 GMT
It's not a person on Mars.... so I'm largely unimpressed. But then again, I suppose it *is* progress in that direction....
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Post by vorshlumpf on Aug 8, 2012 19:31:33 GMT
"Unimpressed"? Wow...
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Post by Feng on Aug 8, 2012 20:38:06 GMT
ok , yeah , so its a Rover .... But ... It weighs 1 Ton and is nuclear powered And ... We got it to Mars .... Intact .... Thats Freaking Awesome
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Post by chirality on Aug 9, 2012 1:38:40 GMT
I don't get the fuss to be honest...I'd sure hope that 23 years later we can replicate the feat successfully, just with a bigger, better rover.
Don't get me wrong, it's impressive, but come on...the size, scale, and success of the project damn well better increase in impressive proportions, given the amount of time and money elapsed since the first success.
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Post by tomaan on Aug 9, 2012 3:52:51 GMT
So why is this so cool? Part of it has to do with Mars' history as a spacecraft graveyard - we've lost multiple and I don't think the Russians ever landed there successfully. Then there's the fact that this is the largest and most sophisticated spacecraft we've ever landed on another planet. Who knows what commercial applications we'll find for the technology they created specifically for this mission? You also have the aforementioned teachable moment -- I taught my 7 year old how to calculate the time it takes radio signals to travel from Earth to Mars (about 4 minutes) and explained that he could be the person who makes the "artists renditions" and "simulation videos" if he studied computer graphics and animation. Lastly, it's Mars and Mars has always captured the human imagination...especially if you're a geek like me. Here's another shot of Curiosity in it's new home (link only, the photo is kinda big for this board): photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA16013_modest.jpg
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Post by chirality on Aug 9, 2012 4:15:24 GMT
Fair enough To be clear I'm not trying to bash it; it would be a direct insult to a family member of mine, in addition to being a jerk in general. It's awesome stuff, just like all the other grumbledy-grump tax-sucking "waste of time" stuff NASA does--shrug, I'm a cynic and a jerk but I do believe that there is much value to be gained, in several forms, from Mars projects. What impresses me most is the fact that this got the funding to get off the ground in the contemporary climate :/ Score 1 more for .... fill in the blank ... non-regressives?
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Post by tomaan on Aug 9, 2012 13:39:26 GMT
Fair enough To be clear I'm not trying to bash it; it would be a direct insult to a family member of mine, in addition to being a jerk in general. It's awesome stuff, just like all the other grumbledy-grump tax-sucking "waste of time" stuff NASA does--shrug, I'm a cynic and a jerk but I do believe that there is much value to be gained, in several forms, from Mars projects. What impresses me most is the fact that this got the funding to get off the ground in the contemporary climate :/ Score 1 more for .... fill in the blank ... non-regressives? No worries....like I said, I'm a big geek. You are right, however, about funding -- if this one didn't/doesn't work out, it could be a major setback toward funding future projects.
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Post by evilkittenofdoom on Aug 9, 2012 16:21:38 GMT
Don't get me wrong either, I do tip my hat to them. They did move forward in their Mars exploration quest; and given the nature of the rover, I'd say pretty decently forward.
Give them Kudos for progress, certainly. Impressed, not so much.
I just have this weird thing of " Uhh... and this relates to me how, exactly? " - thus, when they start putting people on Mars, then I'll be interested. (And probably impressed since that'd at least be a [in my mind] 'true' first)
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Post by Werehound Silverfang on Aug 9, 2012 18:59:40 GMT
Don't get me wrong, it's impressive, but come on...the size, scale, and success of the project damn well better increase in impressive proportions, given the amount of time and money elapsed since the first success. Yes, 23 years and only $446B in all those 23 years. A single bailout in the past two years is 2x the size of ALL of NASA's funding for the past 2 decades. It's pretty impressive.
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Post by chirality on Aug 9, 2012 22:02:52 GMT
Eh, I wasn't going down that path so there's really no need to start making comparisons. It's a lot of time and money, period. And I wasn't judging anything, nor trying to slide in some sort of political commentary through the back door. I was just saying that yes, I would expect such an impressive result at this point given these investments. Even if I was one who liked to decry NASA funding (which I'm not--I wasn't being sarcastic with my comments earlier), it would be a bit brash to do so given that the existence of said funding over the decades has largely put food on the table for my uncle's family. I think you may be barking up the wrong tree. I'm just anti-anything new and cool and buzzworthy, not anti-wasting money on useless space projects
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