NASA detects communication from too-quiet Mars rover

Houston Comical ^ | 1/23/04 | Mark Carreau and AP Staff

[Robe]

I don't see any foot prints, however it does look like the rock in question has been disturbed. You can see it's impression in the soil and that it has moved up and to the right.
No big deal , could have been disturbed when the lander bounced to a stop

[Dead Corpse]

Boots? We are talking hip waders there. That guy is such a KOOK! He's making David Ickes look respectable at this point.

[The_Victor]

I'm speculating that we won't see Mars habitats during our lifetime.

Maybe. But we have the ability, so we should be working on it. The asteroid/comet impact risk is real and probably inevitable. The best way to insure mankind's survival is with self supporting colonies on other planets.

And in the end, our solar system will self-destruct.

In which case we'd better be further out than the solar system when the time comes.

Yeah, I know, I the timeframe I'm thinking of is in the loony longterm. :)

[SubSailor]

Finally, somebody gets it. I'm quite amused at how many responses I got to my original post about the rover costing too much money. I was only hoping for 1 and I got several! Just so I could set up my "two dollars" post. LOL.

[Dixiekraut]

Your tag line brought back some funny college memories..."See you on the Funway."

[Elric@Melnibone]

HOWEVER, the cost of this project was over 800 million dollars. How many people are in the USA? Around 300 million? I would have much preferred cancelling this project and distributing the cash equally among every citizen in the USA.

That works out to about $2.67 per person. It's your choice to be short-sighted (IMHO) but I consider it money well spent. Yes, I would prefer to see it done by private enterprise but the game is rigged so that this is the only way to play.

And, for those who think robotic missions are the way to go, if there were a person along on this mission, the problem might well be able to be diagnosed and fixed. That's not so certain by remote and, if it fails, makes the ROI much less appealing, even to me. Robots have their place, and I think we ought to be peppering the universe with them, but you can't beat a human for exploration and handling the unexpected.

People are more versatile than machines. And more curious. And more cautious. Makes for a strange breed.

[geedee]

"We know we have a very serious anomaly on the vehicle," said NASA's Pete Theisinger . . .

As the President said in Armageddon, "Enough of this 'anomaly' horseshit, what do we have here?"

[evad]

LOL..Rush sez the Rover has completed the secret communications with Haliburton and can now "wake up" and communicate with NASA.

[SubSailor]

Arithmetic (from Webster's, italics mine)

1 a : a branch of mathematics that deals usually with the nonnegative real numbers including sometimes the transfinite cardinals and with the application of the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to them b : a treatise on arithmetic

[SubSailor]

Your tag line brought back some funny college memories..."See you on the Funway."

Not many people recognize that nowadays

"Mr. President, where can I get a job?!"

[Dixiekraut]

"Where the vegetables are green,and you can pee in the stream.....and that's important!"

[Howlin]

Press conference NOW!

It's talking...sort of!

[Jason Kauppinen]

"Can you hear me now?"

[RightWhale]

I wonder if Howard Dean is reading this thread and screaming silently.

[Dog]

Sounds like it has a software problem....

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Boy, I'm good. Just heard on Fox that NASA reps are blaming the high-gain antenna. I predicted that in post 80.

[Dog]

So what does that mean??

[Dog]

Live coverage on CSPAN...

[MrsEmmaPeel]

So what does that mean??

If they are restricted to only 120 bits/second then forget pretty pictures. All they can do is transmit and receive a minimalist instruction/command set to the spacecraft.

It means the mission has taken a new kink - as every command well need to be acked. Every command will be received S-L-O-W-L-Y and ever ack will come back V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y

[truthandjustice1]

Where's my fuzzy duffle bag?