Mars Exploration Rovers Update - February 20, 2004

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

Sure you do. Are you NASA's DJ?

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

I understand that you don't know about my name.

My name is *never* used as "DJ". I do not work
for or with NASA.

My name is used either as "D. Jay Newman" or "Jay".

I agree that information should be free, but it
*will* be free. There is merely a year's delay.
This seems to be contractual, and there seems to
be nothing unfair about it. Most research projects
fail to release the raw data right away.
--
D. Jay Newman
http://enerd.ws/robots/

"Carsten Troelsgaard" wrote in message
. ..


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?


http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/01/24/


When you overlay a map of the hematite it clearly follows
the dark area 'wafting' from the craters. The dark appearance
of the Opporunity side seems to be from the layer of spheres.
So the density of the spheres might be indicated by the
darker areas.


Jonathan

s




Carsten

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 20:17:54 GMT, Thomas Lee Elifritz
wrote:

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?


How dare you.





--
Dr.Postman USPS, MBMC, BsD; "Disgruntled, But Unarmed"
Member,Board of Directors of afa-b, SKEP-TI-CULT® member #15-51506-253.
You can email me at: TuriFake(at)hotmail.com

"You are the kook, not me - and I won't even bother to see
what that acronym means."
- Joseph Bartlo responds to IKYABWAI

"jonathan" wrote in message
...

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.

You and every other taxpayer will get that opportunity. In one year. In
the meantime, feel free to invent more fantasy scenarios based on the
pictures that are being released. You're quite good at that. Well,
prolific, at least.

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.

I don't think you quite understand. There was a lot of work put into the
project by researchers, long before any actual data started coming back.
The payback for those researchers is to have first access to the data so
that they can write their papers and get credit for the work THEY HAVE
ALREADY DONE. Sounds fair to me. And if that's part of the price we pay to
make these projects happen, that also seems very reasonable to me. The data
will be made public after a relatively short time. One year is not a long
time. It may seem that way to someone who wants to immediately begin
bull****ting over what is being seen (which is admittedly fun) but in the
overall scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal.

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.

A laudable ideal, if overly simplistic, but totally irrelevant to this
discussion.

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

The press releases are PR tools, plain and simple. Even so, NASA has
supplied quite a bit of information to the public, including all of the
pictures being sent back from the rovers, which is what most people want to
see. They've also released quite a bit of general information about what
they have found, and I expect that they will continue to do so. As far as
detailed spectroscopy data, there are very few people outside of the
scientific community who would know what to do with it, anyway.

"jonathan" wrote in message
...
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.

It is not a matter of trust. It is about putting the data in
usable form. I am completely certain that you are not
competent to analyze the raw data. You have demonstrated
that you lack the knowledge base, the proper tools, and the
skills necessary. The same is true for probably 99% of the
American taxpayers. Even if they sent out free analysis
programs with detailed directions to every single American
taxpayer - they still wouldn't be able to do it. They wouldn't
even know what to look for. Most American taxpayers are
not fluent in the subjects required.I am equally confident that Elfritz,
who began this rant, would not be able to do a single thing with
the raw data. I think it unlikely he will be able to do anything with
the analyzed data either - when it comes out.

By the way, which specific data are YOU refering to that you
think is being "embargoed" and specifically how long do you think
it will be "embargoed"?

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.

Talk about sounding like a politician.
Another irrelevant generic argument demonstrating a total
lack of understanding of the specifics.
If you think otherwise, please provide the specifics.

On a sunny day (21 Feb 2004 14:41:54 -0800) it happened (Hud
Nordin) wrote in :

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.
I see your (their) point, but 15-230 is also a good name.
And it would tell me where it is.

"El Guapo" wrote in message
news:5EQZb.238707$U%5.1511567@attbi_s03...
The best is yet to come, believe me. Wait until the rovers get to the
larger craters.


Mmmmm, false color pictures of bigger holes in the ground.

They never should have put this stuff on the web for the general public.
This kind of tedium is what turns kids away from science. It'd be much
better suited to a spread (ala Viking) in National Geographic, six months
after the batteries go dead, and maybe after the data has been gone over
once and they've cooked up a spin on it that leaves open some hope for
finding water under some "other" rock.

----Where in the heck is my flying car?!!?----

"Chosp" wrote in message
news:VZ_Zb.11406$7k3.9844@fed1read01...

"jonathan" wrote in message
...
I'm forced to agree that any embargo is difficult to justify.

--snip--

By the way, which specific data are YOU refering to that you
think is being "embargoed" and specifically how long do you think
it will be "embargoed"?

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.

Talk about sounding like a politician.
Another irrelevant generic argument demonstrating a total
lack of understanding of the specifics.
If you think otherwise, please provide the specifics.


OK. Enough time has passed.
You have not responded.
I take it from your lack of response that you accept
my assessment of your behavior as correct.

Actually, when interpreted as ASCII it translates into:

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havRf6Rhat makes-÷W"-Æow cry it6VÆbFò6eep everyæ-v?Bâæ, come
toF?-æ²öbit, you w÷VÆBàРФullard, dò-÷W'6VÆ and ever-öæRVÇ6Ra favor,
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The above translated reads: "Spirit calling earthly DJ, do you take
requests or
dedications?"

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


Mmmmm, false color pictures of bigger holes in the ground.

Here's a shot of the scene at "Laguna Hollow":

http://www.copperas.com/astro/image_uncal.jpg ("false color")

http://www.copperas.com/astro/image_cal.jpg ("true color")

It'd be much
better suited to a spread (ala Viking) in National Geographic, six months
after the batteries go dead, and maybe after the data has been gone over
once and they've cooked up a spin on it that leaves open some hope for
finding water...

Goin' into Eden, yea brother...