Spirit of Mars
Nasa’s Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit, has been stuck in soft soil on Mars since May last year. After failing to free it in the months since, NASA has now designated the once-roving scientific explorer “a stationary science platform”. Below the fold JPL news celebrates 6 years of roving by the “little rover who could”. But first, here’s a short compilation of the sights they’ve seen.
Here’s the longer version with contributions from the scientists involved. From JPL news
Meanwhile, the second Mars rover, Opportunity, continues to traverse the Martian surface.
xkcd have it covered too.
http://www.xkcd.com/695/
Heh.
Coconnor’s link sums up an incredible feat of engineering.
A close second to the moon landings.
I am sure I was there on an alcohol fuelled holiday a few years back !
thanks pete
the kids loved the spirit of mars clip.
uh, they also think there is an apparent duststorm/tornado on the horizon is (about 16 – 25 secs in)
any ideas?
thanks
oh yeah, my 9 yr old son suggests NASA sends another Spirit to Stormont and/or Hillsborough to explore other strange and mysterious worlds
wt
Those would be Martian dust devils.
They can be up to 8 km high.
Ah scientists…what would we do without them?
A billboard in Belfast put up by Concern….shows 6 million children die from Malnutrition every year.
I am not impressed by these scientists and their boy toys.
I dont want any UNMANNED probe to actually work. Much better if they explode on launching.
These nerds can get a much better “view” of outer space by watching Star Trek.
FitzjamesHorse,
That actually would be engineers.
And without engineers, you would have nothing, no water, no electricity, no roads, nothing.
and without engineers we would have no grit on the roads……er but we dont have grit for the roads.
I salute this fine body of men (and possibly some women) who supply me withwater, electricity in return for them to be allowed to indulge their vanity projects by going to Mars.
Meanwhile 6 million children die from malnutrition.
Hooray for Engineering.
FitzjamesHorse,
I visited the UN Headquarters a few years ago. In the front hall they had a statement that if 10% of world military budgets were spent differently, poverty could be wiped out everywhere.
So I personally don’t have much time for military engineers.
“In the front hall they had a statement that if 10% of world military budgets were spent differently, poverty could be wiped out everywhere.”
If they could actuallly figure out how to do that with that 10%.
ANYhoo…
Back to the actual topic…
Indeed JoeCanuck…..another useless waste of money.
The only people actually interested in outer space are the nerds in The Bing Bang Theory and possibly Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.
My first thought on the clip was that it could have won this year’s Turner prize as a prime example of another piece of concept art being totally and utterly pointless.
My second was that Andy Warhol had done it better in 1964, in ‘Empire’, an eight hour film of the Empire State Building just being there. At least the building emoted.
My third was, ‘I suppose someone has to justify his/her salary’.
Perchance #3 could be taken up by the ‘Hill Dwellers’?