Humans Visiting Viking Lander(s) on Mars

Am Sun, 1 Feb 2004 21:50:40 +0800 schrieb "Neil Gerace":

Just wait till Hollywood makes the film. Then you'll see it was the
Yanks who heroically intercepted the signal.

At Jodrell Bank, California

Sounds like Goldstone, Australia :-) scnr

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
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On 1 Feb 2004 05:28:45 -0800, (Alex Terrell)
wrote:


Just wait till Hollywood makes the film. Then you'll see it was the
Yanks who heroically intercepted the signal.

No, they'll still be Brits who do it, but the movie will star Tom
Hanks or Kevin Costner...

Brian

On 1 Feb 2004 02:51:26 -0800, (Hobbs aka
McDaniel) wrote:

I find it hard to believe that anybody can say with precision what color
the surface of Mars would appear to a person on that surface since the
human eye is not an objective recording device and it does a lot of
processing to present us with what we call colors.

....And some people have slight color shifts from one eye to the other
as well. In my case, I've found that I have a slight red bias in one
eye, and a slight blue bias in the other, where the respective colors
tend to stand out more. It's not enough for me to look at an anaglyph
3-D overlap pair and see the depth, but I can take a red or blue lens
and cover the apropos eye and see a bit of it. I've talked to my
opthamologist about it on occasion, and also noted it's not constant
either. It seems to be more in effect in the first few hours after
I've woken up and having slept on the side where the eye that is
red-dominant is located(*). It's interesting to say the least, and
it's one of the reasons that I always use the blue-dominant eye to
look thru my camera viewfinders.

Well, that and the fact that the red-dominant one has a worse
prescription than the blue one...

(*) No, this does not mean I sleep sitting upright, you twits...


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On 1 Feb 2004 05:28:45 -0800, (Alex Terrell)
wrote:

Just wait till Hollywood makes the film. Then you'll see it was the
Yanks who heroically intercepted the signal.

....Didn't anyone tell you? When the Japs bought most of California in
the 80's, they also bought Jodrell Bank and moved it outside of San
Clemente.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...
On 1 Feb 2004 02:51:26 -0800, (Hobbs aka
McDaniel) wrote:

I find it hard to believe that anybody can say with precision what color
the surface of Mars would appear to a person on that surface since the
human eye is not an objective recording device and it does a lot of
processing to present us with what we call colors.

...And some people have slight color shifts from one eye to the other
as well. In my case, I've found that I have a slight red bias in one
eye, and a slight blue bias in the other, where the respective colors
tend to stand out more. It's not enough for me to look at an anaglyph
3-D overlap pair and see the depth, but I can take a red or blue lens
and cover the apropos eye and see a bit of it. I've talked to my
opthamologist about it on occasion, and also noted it's not constant
either. It seems to be more in effect in the first few hours after
I've woken up and having slept on the side where the eye that is
red-dominant is located(*). It's interesting to say the least, and
it's one of the reasons that I always use the blue-dominant eye to
look thru my camera viewfinders.

Hmm, interesting, never heard of that.

But I do recall in high school looking at one of those "colored dot" things
which help check for color-blindness.

You're only supposed to be able to see one number among the colored dots or
the other. (With some work generally if you're not color blind you can pick
out both though.) I could pick out both numbers w/o any trouble. i.e. they
were equally clear to me.



Well, that and the fact that the red-dominant one has a worse
prescription than the blue one...

That's one area I'm lucky in. I may be 1/2way blind, but equally so in
both eyes.



(*) No, this does not mean I sleep sitting upright, you twits...


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In sci.space.policy Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
somebody realized that it sounded a whole lot like a (pre-digital) fax
machine and that it must be sending a picture...

Were they actually LISTENING to the signal?

My understanding is that they were, but it's been a long time since I read
about this...

Considering the speeds / frequencies used, why not? It would give
one a rough idea of what you are dealing with.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

In sci.space.policy Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

Sorry, but there's no free lunch when it comes to making recorded
colors match what the human eye sees unless you take a gazillion
watt flash bulb with known color temperature to Mars and take a
picture using that. And even then it would only be giving you a
limited idea of what the color would look like under certain
earth lighting conditions - obviously artifical.

Sure you won't know precicely what the human eye would see - but you
would have a very good idea. If the spectrum does not conatin any
green or blue or yellow - then those colours the eye won't see either.


-McDaniel

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:
Mars actually isn't red, it's much more brown. The surface color at
the
Pathfinder site -- it's probably much the same elsewhere, given all the
wind-blown dust -- is approximately butterscotch.

Welll, sand gets blown around quite a bit here too, yet the colours of soils
around the place vary.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

I find it hard to believe that anybody can say with precision what color
the surface of Mars would appear to a person on that surface since the
human eye is not an objective recording device and it does a lot of
processing to present us with what we call colors.

The human eye-brain combination is complex, but the basics of it are quite
well understood by now. It can be a lot of work to answer the question
"what color would it look like?", but it can be done.

I'm a little surprised (though it would have cost more) that there doesn't
seem to be a 'test pattern' printed or stuck onto the lander to calibrate
the cameras to known colours. That would have prevented the original 'blue
sky' error too.

Alex Terrell wrote:

Just wait till Hollywood makes the film. Then you'll see it was the
Yanks who heroically intercepted the signal.


That will even things up for the movie "Breaking The Sound Barrier"; in
which the British do it first...much to Chuck Yeager's annoyance.

Pat

In article ,
"Neil Gerace" writes:

Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:
Mars actually isn't red, it's much more brown. The surface color at
the
Pathfinder site -- it's probably much the same elsewhere, given all the
wind-blown dust -- is approximately butterscotch.

Welll, sand gets blown around quite a bit here too, yet the colours of soils
around the place vary.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

I find it hard to believe that anybody can say with precision what color
the surface of Mars would appear to a person on that surface since the
human eye is not an objective recording device and it does a lot of
processing to present us with what we call colors.

The human eye-brain combination is complex, but the basics of it are quite
well understood by now. It can be a lot of work to answer the question
"what color would it look like?", but it can be done.

I'm a little surprised (though it would have cost more) that there doesn't
seem to be a 'test pattern' printed or stuck onto the lander to calibrate
the cameras to known colours. That would have prevented the original 'blue
sky' error too.

There is. It's on the top of the rovers, visible to the
cameras. (Well, of course, it wouldn't be much use, otherwise.)
It's also equipped with a gnomon, and thus acts as a sundial. (And
acts as the backup local time reference)


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster