Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity Roll Out on Mars at 12 AM PST 1-31-2004 (LIVE THREAD)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory ^ | 1-30-04 | NASA JPL

[bonesmccoy]

The roll off of Opportunity from the lander pad at Meridiani Planum will occur at midnight tonight.

JPL NASA will be carried live on NASA TV.

JPL reports a 12 AM PST "Opportunity egree live coverage"

4 AM PST : Opportunity egress briefing

[ChadGore]

[ChadGore]

[InABunkerUnderSF]

President Bush's Mars Team:

Joining Aldridge, a one-time astronaut trainee and top Pentagon official on the commission, are:
_Carly Fiorina, chairman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.
_Michael P. Jackson of Virginia.
_Laurie Ann Leshin, a planetary geochemist at Arizona State University.
_Retired Air Force Gen. Lester Lyles.
_Paul Spudis, a visiting scientist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
_Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
_Former Rep. Robert S. Walker, R-Pa.
_Mars scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I don't know most of them. Robert Walker is a good guy, Maria Zuber is one of the top Mars scientists in the world, known for her work on ALH84001 and several NASA missions.

If Carly Fiorina has her way the next person to walk on the moon will be from Chennai, India. Indian astronauts are so much less expensive and more highly motivated than their American counterparts and will make the effort much more competitive.

[ChadGore]

[commish]

The picture in post 401 is awesome, and it confirms the wierd telemetry JPL was recieving during the landing.

You can see where Opportunity Bounced in from the right, bounced up the hill behind the resting place and the basically slid to its current position.

[Bronco_Buster_FweetHyagh]

Hah NASA engineers talking about watching in "real time - so to speak..."

[FreeTheHostages]

NASA engineers talking about watching in "real time - so to speak..."

I get this four-hour delay thing, being a girl. It's like when I ask my boyfriend to take out the garbage and it takes him four hours. I think he's a Martian!

Thanks for all the MARS pings! I'm reading with great interest.

[Professional Engineer]

Excellent! Now I CAN go to bed! LOL

Uh Huh. Sure you can. ROFL

[ChadGore]

A mans ability to shape time and space is legendary.

Only us men could turn "all light long, baby", into 10 minutes after leno.

[Professional Engineer]

WOOHOO!!! Look at those tracks!

[FreeTheHostages]

lol

[FreeTheHostages]

"Uh Huh. Sure you can. ROFL"

ROFL

[norton]

"lol.. tape transports and core memory.. the main box for our cpu had a 64K core memory array... what a beast'

I'm late to this one, happens a lot these days.

But I also rmember the constant 60 odd degree cooling to keep those things from toasting - fine until you left work into one hundred degrees and about 95% humidity - then fell over.

Also remember the teletype keyboard all fancied up beneath a far more elegant facade.

1960s Honeywell something or another (always backed up on an IBM 1410 (?)

[MikeD]

Not a problem at all - thanks for the pings!

MD

[MikeD]

When I was in the control room during Neptune encounter, the time delay at the speed of light was close to four hours!

Heh, just wait until New Horizons reaches Pluto in 2015. I think the delay by then will be around six hours. If something breaks during flyby, not a thing you can do about it. That's why we're running a bunch of pre-encounter practice sessions in the years leading up to the flyby...

MD

[MikeD]

Thanks for the pix. I'm late to the party.

Go Opportunity Go!!!

MD

[LibWhacker]

Good morning, everybody . . . Sorry, I must've dozed off, lol . . . Can't get over how clear those pics are, ChadGore . . . Nothing like the first moon landing.

[Frank_Discussion]

Your kind of nuisance I can look forward to! Thanks for the pingage!

[ChadGore]

Opportunity rolling off. Note the dirt inside and on top of the front wheels. We're "muddin" !

[Howlin]

Did I miss this? Is it tonight, or was it last night (when I had a houseful of grandkids?????)!!!!