JPL News conference

February 28, 2004

mlm wrote:

Hats off to JPL.

**** JPL.

Thursday's news conference was excellent.

It was embarrassing, sick really.

The
participants were engaging and really wanted to show off the interesting
things they have been doing.

Like what they have done with the spectroscopy data?

Their enthusiasm was evident and that is a
refreshing change.

It was very refreshing to look at a pancam soil spectrograph that they took
on Sol 1.

I don't think we can get too up in arms about the slow release of data.

We sure as hell can. Consider arms up.

They are an intensely conservative, methodical bunch (maybe explaining
how they managed to get these rovers to Mars in the first place).

Explaining too how they have no clue about what is going on at Meridiani.

Hopefully, though, they realize what a public relations opportunity they
miss when they don't engage the interested public.

It appears the public has given them a miss.

No doubt JPL could
do much better in this regard.

Feel free to start doing better any day now, JPL, it can't bet much worse.

Here are some suggestions for regular :

Image of the day
Curiousity of the day (Threads, rabbit -- I mean pronged structure,
blueberries)
Speculation of the day
Interesting findings
A day in the life of ...
Types of meetings being held
Summary of meeting discussions
FAQ
Pictures of the team at work
Animation of MER-B EDL.
Description of process behind certain composite images from the person
who made them.

Why no FAQ? Why why why?

Why no spectroscopy, why,. why why? Oh the horror of it all.

THey promise in the canned response to the
Feedback link that they will post interesting questions. Nothing to
date on this though.

One could be disappointed if the stuff that is coming out wasn't so
fascinating, even in the small spoonfuls they dole it out.

Like no spectroscopy spoonfuls. And they can't release any conclusions when
they're clueless, that's for sure.

Are you being sarcastic, or am I just imaging this?

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net