NASA Unveils Color Photo of Mars

AP ^ | 01/06/04 | AP

[Pikamax]

PASADENA, Calif.

[Stirner]

The link takes you to a story on Fox News. This is a bit off topic, but when you click on the link to the actual photographs, Fox has inserted a slide that says "Dec.6, After a flawless landing, Spirit sent back images...". They are off on the date by a month, but such things often happen to us at the changeover to a new year. But last night I was watching on Fox News when they had a brief story about the Senate Race between Thune and Daschle. What the announcer said was fine, but in the graphic they had pictures of the two candidates. Under Daschle's picture it said "Gephardt". Once again, a slip that any of us could make, but maybe Fox's quality control is going downhill or maybe even there's an internal troublemaker at work. Who knows?

[TheBigB]

%$^&*#()@%#$^#$(#)@#^@(!))!_#%!@)#*#$%#*#

(Translated from Martian): "Foolish humans! You have inadvertantly discovered our secret Marsbase! We have no choice but to attack and destroy your puny planet!!"

[metalboy]

Hey, if you look closely, you can see some rocks there.

[Paradox]

Look carefully there in the upper left hand corner. You can just make out some artifact. It looks like a book. The cover says "To Serve Man".

[Maceman]

Well,.... WHERE ARE THE MARTIANS?

[_Jim]

I have to agree with Glenn Beck - looks like some part of the desert out in Nevada (exc for the coloring 'they' have done) ...

[longtermmemmory]

kyoto accords would have saved mars.

[CasearianDaoist]

O, that's right. Say, wasn't he a Vietnam vet at the time?

[Neville72]

Where is Gort? Gort, klaatu barada nikto!

[longtermmemmory]

not from mars

[Charles Henrickson]

I'm struck by the diversity . . .

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

There is something in the extreme lower-right of the full hi res image that looks like a squashed cactus!!!!

[martin_fierro]

Mars ROCKS!

[longtermmemmory]

does anyone know the lifespan of the rovers?

I read it was only for a few weeks. If they are solar powered why not run for much longer?

[martin_fierro]

There's a Jack In The Box burger wrapper there in the middle distance.

[chimera]

I read it was only for a few weeks. If they are solar powered why not run for much longer?

The Achilles' Heel of any solar power system. Energy storage. You store the energy you collect in batteries, which provide a reservoir of electrical energy. Eventually those batteries can't hold a charge, just like your car battery when it gets old or, in the case of my good old Nissan Sentra, when it gets old and gets periodically frozen in near-zero temperatures. Spirit (and Opportunity, if she makes it) will have it worse, having to brave nighttime temperatures around -150 deg. F. or so. The Warm Electronic Box (WEB) helps on that score, but eventually the WEB will freeze up as well.

They could have helped themselves on this score by going with an RTGs. That kept the ALSEPS on the Apollo missions and the Viking Landers going for years, and have done quite nicely on the Voyager and Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, but the wackos didn't like it because of that "nasty nuclear material" (plutonium). So you go with the PC solar panels and storage batteries, and end up with a 90-day mission (if you're lucky).

[Charles Henrickson]

What! What's this they've spotted now?!?

[martin_fierro]

Ah! NOW I get it!

[richardtavor]

As Rush Limbaugh said: "These liberals are so out of touch and so conspiracy-oriented, that they'll probably call these new color photos from Mars frauds shot from an SUV in Bush's ethnically cleansed Afghanistan."

[Burkeman1]

They could have helped themselves on this score by going with an RTGs. That kept the ALSEPS on the Apollo missions and the Viking Landers going for years, and have done quite nicely on the Voyager and Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, but the wackos didn't like it because of that "nasty nuclear material" (plutonium). So you go with the PC solar panels and storage batteries, and end up with a 90-day mission (if you're lucky).

Unbelievable. That's criminal.