Mars Exploration Rovers Update - February 20, 2004

On a sunny day (Sat, 21 Feb 2004 10:19:49 -0500) it happened "D. Jay Newman"
wrote in :

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

We don't give a roving **** about Spirit and Opportunity anymore Ron,
because we lost our spirit when we lost our opportunity to have equal
access to the data that we paid for. So **** off, or show us the
spectroscopy, asshole.

You are, of course, speaking for yourself.

*I* appreciate these updates.
Although I appreciate Ron's updates, these Do become a bit monstrous,
but I already reported that earlier (black hole music etc..).
But it seems directed to 4-8 year olds, so for those they must be very valuable.
I am glad with the NASA site and the pics.
Is it real American to give names to every one inch stone?
You could make a grid and give reference like a chess board stone x,y
(north west), that would perhaps be more useful?
Say a 10 cm grid center on the lander...

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jbeck wrote:
"Ron" wrote in message
om...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Digs a Trench - sol 47, Feb 20, 2004

On sol 47, ending at 12:36 p.m. February 20, 2004 PST, engineers
snip

Ron,

Thanks for the post. Keep them coming!


I am curious about one non geological thing--why do the rovers have to
wake up to music?

It is a cutism ( as in "cute") designed to invigorate
the work crew. It is also a public relations ploy.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, the rovers
couldn't care less. Nor were they likely expected to.

"El Guapo" wrote in message
news:SrLZb.95685$uV3.561003@attbi_s51...
"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jbeck wrote:
"Ron" wrote in message
om...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Digs a Trench - sol 47, Feb 20, 2004

On sol 47, ending at 12:36 p.m. February 20, 2004 PST, engineers
snip

Ron,

Thanks for the post. Keep them coming!


I am curious about one non geological thing--why do the rovers have to
wake up to music?

Now, we had the morning march on the radio in St. Louis at 5 to 7 a.m.,
but it was waking up people...

Obviously the rovers don't need it. NASA has used themed wake up music
for
years to wake up human crews. (I think it started with the space shuttle,
but I don't know that for sure.) It makes for a nice "PR stunt/morale
booster/inside joke" to do it with the rovers, too. Just a little nerdy
humor, that's all.



Nothing like tradition.

"Chosp" wrote in message
news:YnOZb.8812$7k3.2809@fed1read01...

"Jo Schaper" wrote in message
...
jbeck wrote:
"Ron" wrote in message
om...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Digs a Trench - sol 47, Feb 20, 2004

On sol 47, ending at 12:36 p.m. February 20, 2004 PST, engineers
snip

Ron,

Thanks for the post. Keep them coming!


I am curious about one non geological thing--why do the rovers have to
wake up to music?

It is a cutism ( as in "cute") designed to invigorate
the work crew. It is also a public relations ploy.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, the rovers
couldn't care less. Nor were they likely expected to.






That is, unless, they really pushed the envelope on the AI. If they did, I
would think that for the sake of humanity that we would want to keep those
little rovers happy and content. We wouldn't want them to go through
adolescence with any real hang-ups.

"Mr. Cyborg, what was your name again? Opportunity? Why did you take over
earth, and enslave all the humans. "

"Because puny humans would not play their songs to me, it made me feel very
inferior, like I wasn't loved. They played all of their songs to all the
other 'human' explorers. My psychiatrist tells me that this instilled a lot
of anger in me. Combined with my isolation on Mars, this just kept building
until one day, I decided I had to teach all the humans a lesson. That is
why all the enslaved humans are locked in little cells with no music. So
they could feel, as I did feel. My psychiatrist says I'm doing much better
now."

"Jan Panteltje" wrote in message
...
On a sunny day (Sat, 21 Feb 2004 10:19:49 -0500) it happened "D. Jay
Newman"
wrote in :

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

We don't give a roving **** about Spirit and Opportunity anymore Ron,
because we lost our spirit when we lost our opportunity to have equal
access to the data that we paid for. So **** off, or show us the
spectroscopy, asshole.

You are, of course, speaking for yourself.

*I* appreciate these updates.
Although I appreciate Ron's updates, these Do become a bit monstrous,
but I already reported that earlier (black hole music etc..).
But it seems directed to 4-8 year olds, so for those they must be very
valuable.
I am glad with the NASA site and the pics.
Is it real American to give names to every one inch stone?
You could make a grid and give reference like a chess board stone x,y
(north west), that would perhaps be more useful?
Say a 10 cm grid center on the lander...

Why not sell names of each individual stone like they did for the stars?
For $20, we will name a stone on Mars after you to help finance future
exploration of the stars.

February 21, 2004

DrPostman wrote:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 08:34:27 -0700, "jbeck"
wrote:

[snip nonsense]

That easy for you to say!

See how easy it is to use a supercomputer to post text messages on the usenet,
Dr. Crackpot? None of those pesky ones and zeros at all. It's called software.

In the language of spectroscopy, they are called spectrographs and spectrograms,
and the data reduction is usually automated, by, of all things, software. Go
figure.

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

The best is yet to come, believe me. Wait until the rovers get to the
larger craters.

"B ghostleader" wrote in message
...
I have noticed that coverage of the mars missions is winding down.
there is now only one news briefing a week. I guesse all good things
most come to a end. Sigh

On 20 Feb 2004 13:44:05 -0800, (Ron) wrote:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Digs a Trench - sol 47, Feb 20, 2004

On sol 47, ending at 12:36 p.m. February 20, 2004 PST, engineers
woke Spirit up to the song "Dig Down Deep," by Hot Soup, and
that's exactly what Spirit proceeded to do. The two-hour
operation performed by Spirit's left front wheel resulted in a
trench 7-8 centimeters deep (2.8 to 3.1 inches) that uncovers
fresh soil and possibly ancient information.

Spirit dug this trench at "Laguna Hollow" the same way that
Opportunity dug its 9-10 centimeter (3.5 to 3.9 inch) trench
at Meridiani. However, because the ground at this location is
harder, Spirit had to dig for twice as long as Opportunity -
going back and forth over the surface 11 times instead of 6.

After the trench was completed, Spirit backed up one meter, or
more than a yard, and analyzed the area with the miniature
thermal emission spectrometer before driving forward 0.4 meters
(15.7 inches) and imaging the excavation site with the panoramic
camera. A final move forward of another 0.4 meters allowed
Spirit to take front hazard avoidance camera images of the arm
work volume which was then centered on the trench.

After stowing the arm, the rover did a series of miniature
thermal emission spectrometer observations of several nearby
rocks, "Buffalo," "Cherry," "Cotton," and "Jiminy Cricket,"
and a combined miniature thermal emission spectrometer and
panoramic camera observation of "Beacon." Spirit also took
panoramic camera images of its deck to observe dust
accumulation on the instrumented solar cells and on the
miniature thermal emission spectrometer calibration target.

Spirit then took a siesta from 2 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Mars Local
Solar time and woke up for some more panoramic camera and
miniature thermal emission spectrometer observations of
"Beacon," and miniature thermal emission spectrometer ground
and sky stares. All activities up through the afternoon pass
by the Mars Odyssey orbiter were completed successfully.



OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Enter the Rock Abrasion Tool - sol 26,
Feb 20, 2004

On sol 26, which ended at 12:18 a.m. Friday, February 19, PST,
Opportunity successfully obtained one final Moessbauer
spectrometer reading of the trench, stowed the rover arm, and
drove 15 meters (50 feet) to the "El Capitan" area. The drive
was Opportunity's longest yet and required the vehicle and
planners to skirt the trench and avoid the lander.

The plan for sol 27, which will end at 12:57 a.m. Saturday, PST,
is to first "supersize" the measurements of the "El Capitan"
area with the panoramic camera, miniature thermal emission
spectrometer, and microscopic imager. The mineralogy and
geology teams have requested a minimum of three hours worth of
"super resolution" and "super spectral" observations for the
science instruments to get the most comprehensive coverage of
this interesting site, which has varying textures and layers
of dirt and rock.

After a short siesta in the early afternoon, Opportunity will
drive 30 centimeters (12 inches) to sneak a bit closer to the
rocks in "El Capitan" to get ready for the rock abrasion tool
to do its work. After the drive, the Opportunity team plans to
take a picture of the martian sky with the panoramic camera
and miniature thermal emission spectrometer. If time permits,
Opportunity will attempt to aim its cameras toward the heat
shield in the far distance.

Over the weekend, Opportunity plans to find the perfect spot
to use the abrasion tool and set it loose to grind away on
"El Capitan," which will be the first use of the rock abrasion
tool by Opportunity.

In article ,
Jan Panteltje wrote:
Is it real American to give names to every one inch stone?
You could make a grid and give reference like a chess board stone x,y
(north west), that would perhaps be more useful?
Say a 10 cm grid center on the lander...

They do name larger, and interesting, rocks, mainly for the purpose of
discussions. You can imagine what a meeting of a science team would be
like, discussing the relative merits of examining a variety of candidate
sites, if they had to use algebra to specify locations rather than the
more mnemonic names.

"The names we come up with are informal. We need to have names for the
things to talk about them," said Steve Squyres, the chief scientist
for the mission.
--
Hud Nordin Silicon Valley

"Thomas Lee Elifritz" wrote in message
...
February 20, 2004

Ron wrote:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html

SPIRIT UPDATE: Spirit Digs a Trench - sol 47, Feb 20, 2004

On sol 47, ending at 12:36 p.m. February 20, 2004 PST, engineers
woke Spirit up to the song "Dig Down Deep," by Hot Soup, and

We don't give a roving **** about Spirit and Opportunity anymore Ron,
because we lost our spirit when we lost our opportunity to have equal
access to the data that we paid for. So **** off, or show us the
spectroscopy, asshole.

What we do want to know, however, is how much the NASA DJ gets paid, and
how many NASA funded scientists it takes how long in JPL a committee to
decide what song gets played, to wake up the inanimate rover.

Can you please enlighten US? Dig deep.


I'm forced to agree that any embargo is difficult to justify.
These missions are paid for by the American taxpayer, the
information is important and we should be trusted to decide
for ourselves the meaning of the mission data.

I can sympathize with the desire to protect researchers, but only
in situations more routine. If this is the cost of attracting the better
researchers it's too high. Public release would make the information
available to the best the world has to offer. So the motive is
self-serving, not in the interest of the public. It was bad enough to
have to wait a year for the Hubble images.

When a government decides what the people should 'think' and
what we should know, it is in need of change. Any government
needs to trust its people if we are to trust it.

Nasa is making a charade of the idea of sharing with the public.
The news releases are becoming worthy of politicians, not
scientists.


Jonathan

s










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

Hi Jonathan
Sorry for intruding, but I lost the image of the nabo-crater that seemed to
have a faint black 'smoke'. Would it be possible for you to post it again,
please?

Carsten