Shortage of Mars Headlines

Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire
primary for news coverage? For all I know, JPL is making huge strides
forward, and I'm missing the whole thing, because all the headlines are
about Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards. I'm as big a fan of presidential
politics as the next guy, but the search for life on Mars is a trillion
times more interesting. Why can't journalists get their priorities
straight?

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 02:11:17 GMT, John Schutkeker
wrote:

Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire
primary for news coverage? For all I know, JPL is making huge strides
forward, and I'm missing the whole thing, because all the headlines are
about Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards. I'm as big a fan of presidential
politics as the next guy, but the search for life on Mars is a trillion
times more interesting. Why can't journalists get their priorities
straight?

There hasn't been any news this weekend at all, near as I can tell.
Spaceflight Now's latest update is still from Friday.

Brian

John Schutkeker wrote in
3:


Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New
Hampshire primary for news coverage?

Check out Space Today http://www.spacetoday.net/, which collects space-
related stories.
--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 02:11:17 GMT, John Schutkeker
wrote:

Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire
primary for news coverage? For all I know, JPL is making huge strides
forward, and I'm missing the whole thing, because all the headlines are
about Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards. I'm as big a fan of
presidential
politics as the next guy, but the search for life on Mars is a trillion
times more interesting. Why can't journalists get their priorities
straight?

There hasn't been any news this weekend at all, near as I can tell.
Spaceflight Now's latest update is still from Friday.

One reason is that Spirit is sitting still and doing the same thing all
weekend (taking measurements with the two spectrometers).
NASA isn't giving any press conferences until Monday when
they are expected to give some preliminary results from the
spectrometers and to tell where they plan to move to next.
Once the rover starts moving, I suspect it will once again catch
the attention of the press.

John Schutkeker wrote in
3:


Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New
Hampshire primary for news coverage? For all I know, JPL is making
huge strides forward, and I'm missing the whole thing, because all the
headlines are about Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards. I'm as big a
fan of presidential politics as the next guy, but the search for life
on Mars is a trillion times more interesting. Why can't journalists
get their priorities straight?

There is very little news *of interest* regarding the rover. Its job is to
examine the geology of the area. To do this, it has the ability to drive
around, looking for rocks that differ from the basic dirt & dust that
covers most of the surface. But! To do the comparison, we need to know just
what the dust & dirt is made of. That is what the rover is doing right now.
Its not driving around, its not drilling into rocks, its not doing
*anything* exciting. What is *is* doing is staring at the dirt in front of
it, photographing the dirt, analysing the dirt. I expect this will be
followed by an in-depth examination of the rover tracks in abovementioned
dirt. Boring!

Later on, once the basic mars-dirt is understood (and all the instruments
on the rover checked out & calibrated), we should get some more exciting
happenings. Just keep in mind that the rover can complete some 50+ percent
of its job right where it is now, just off the lander. No need to do any of
the glamorous stuff, before the first set of objectives are met.

Marvin writes:

There is very little news *of interest* regarding the rover. Its job is to
examine the geology of the area. To do this, it has the ability to drive
around, looking for rocks that differ from the basic dirt & dust that
covers most of the surface. But! To do the comparison, we need to know just
what the dust & dirt is made of. That is what the rover is doing right now.
Its not driving around, its not drilling into rocks, its not doing
*anything* exciting. What is *is* doing is staring at the dirt in front of
it, photographing the dirt, analysing the dirt. I expect this will be
followed by an in-depth examination of the rover tracks in abovementioned
dirt. Boring!

Later on, once the basic mars-dirt is understood (and all the instruments
on the rover checked out & calibrated), we should get some more exciting
happenings. Just keep in mind that the rover can complete some 50+ percent
of its job right where it is now, just off the lander. No need to do any of
the glamorous stuff, before the first set of objectives are met.

This had to be said... If they can get the rover over to a larger crater
and do the same boring stuff on the rocks and soil ejected by the impact
(and/or the crater itself) this can easily be the remaining 50%.

Nevertheless I'm stunned by the lack of discussion regarding the images
sent by Spirit. I you look for keywords like "geology", "mars" and
"spirit" with Google, you will find almost nothing. I you look for
"bush" and "mars" you will drown in speculation and nonsense. Oh my...


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take
away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Jochem Huhmann wrote in
:

Marvin writes:
...Just keep in mind that the rover can
complete some 50+ percent of its job right where it is now, just off
the lander. No need to do any of the glamorous stuff, before the
first set of objectives are met.

This had to be said... If they can get the rover over to a larger
crater and do the same boring stuff on the rocks and soil ejected by
the impact (and/or the crater itself) this can easily be the remaining
50%.

Yep Yep.
The purpose of the rover is not to hot-rod over the horizon, but rather to
move the science package just far enough to reach the more interesting
rocks.

I find it amusing that the news highlights and most visitors to these
forums, all seem to care about the rovers power and mobility but not about
what it is actually capable of discovering. Ive seen 300++ posts on the
solar cells, and 100+ about the "fake" color in the camera shots. But ZERO
discussion about the interesting nature of the sand on mars. Things like
why ultra-dry super-fine dust should clump together like that on the
smaller scales.

Ah well, patience will lead to answers, eventually
At least the rover seems to be operating perfectly sofar.

I've had the same feelings. I watch the press conferances, either on
NASA TV or the WWW version of that, and the few related news articles
and web sites seem to have nothing more than is mentioned in the
conferances (which is sorely limited -- the press pool only has time
to ask a few good questions and they get fewer good answers). The
only other source of news is the images at the "marsrovers" site. I'd
like to see some blogs or informal articles by project personnel, but
I suspect that there's a gag order preventing that. It would be nice
to get a better feel for what people are doing and why progress seems
so slow. And how decisions are made. And I'd like to see project
documents and org charts and...

January 19, 2004

"Gary W. Swearingen" wrote:

It would be nice
to get a better feel for what people are doing and why progress seems
so slow. And how decisions are made. And I'd like to see project
documents and org charts and...

I can tell you what the hold up is. Steve Squyers.

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

On 19 Jan 2004 22:18:03 +0200, Marvin wrote:

I find it amusing that the news highlights and most visitors to these
forums, all seem to care about the rovers power and mobility but not about
what it is actually capable of discovering. Ive seen 300++ posts on the
solar cells, and 100+ about the "fake" color in the camera shots. But ZERO
discussion about the interesting nature of the sand on mars. Things like
why ultra-dry super-fine dust should clump together like that on the
smaller scales.

Wanting everyone to be a geologist now?

I am certainly interested in the soil and the rocks, mostly hanging
around the question of "what the hell is that?". I am under the
assumption that the scientist there will explain this in time.

And don't forget the water.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk