Posted on 01/21/2014 2:48:27 PM PST by lbryce
NASA’s long-lived Opportunity Mars rover has accomplished what absolutely no one expected.
Opportunity is about to embark on her 2nd decade exploring the Red Planet since her nail biting touchdown in 2004.
And to top that off she is marking that miraculous milestone at a spectacular outlook by the summit of the first mountain she has ever scaled!
See our Solander Point summit mosaic showing the robots current panoramic view – in essence this is what her eyes see today; above and below.
And that mountaintop is riven with outcrops of minerals that likely formed in flowing liquid neutral water conducive to life – potentially a scientific goldmine.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/107684/opportunity-rover-starts-2nd-decade-by-spectacular-mountain-summit-and-mineral-goldmine/#ixzz2r4iZ9BwX
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
How is all of this going to further Islamic outreach ?
It’s charting which way to bow to Mecca after we send Obama to Mars.
Just think what could have been accomplished had we not wasted our time with that damn Space Shuttle. The shuttle program was the biggest boondoggle in the history of NASA. We flushed everything we gained from the Apollo program right down the crapper when we went all out for a giant friggin glider.
Sheila Jackson Lee
Member of the U.S. House
of Representatives
from Texas's 18th district
On a visit to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2005, Jackson Lee made embarrassing news by asking if the Mars Pathfinder had taken an image of the flag planted there in 1969 by Neil Armstrong.[2]
Prior to the 110th Congress, Jackson Lee served on the House Science Committee and on the Subcommittee that oversees space policy and NASA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Jackson_Lee#Political_career
Since the US is an important Muslim nation, and Islam has always been important here, it just furthers the accomplishments of the Ummah. /S
I found a link to the original Wikipedia piece where Sheila Jackass Lee made the comment about Neil Armstrong “planting a flag on Mars”.
These things were supposed to last a few months.
Sheila Jackson Lee. Ding Dong Ding Dong Ding Dong Di...................................................................Stupid
A 90-day mission and they lasted this long. The rover-building unions must hate that.
I think they intentionally underestimate the lifetimes of these missions so to make them seem even more successful when they outlast the predictions.
Amazing achievement. I’ll just pretend all the taxes I’ve paid went directly to this.
They thought these things might die during their first winter power-down I bet.
Related to Magic Countdown, the piece of dialogue where a harried subordinate needs to fire up the engines, activate a forcefield or solve the big case. It always goes something like this..."I cannae change the laws of physics! I've got to have thirty minutes!"— Scotty, eight minutes before the Enterprise might be destroyed.
("I need five hours!" "You've got five minutes.")Named, of course, for Scotty from Star Trek.
But how many times have we seen various space missions outlast the predictions? Seems to happen a lot. One example, the Hubble Space Telescope.
aluminohydrosilicates from igneous deposits? Outcrops of sedimentary materials? Potential based on what mechanism?
formed in liquid water
Water runs uphill to this promontory?
. . . life . . .
Life from non-life?
Whoa!
Was this a scientific project, or was it a religious exercise? The writer here has a very active imagination.
Give the facts without interpretation, please.
That reminds me of those exploration documentaries where they always seem to find exactly what they’re looking for in the final minutes of the exhibition. Also “reality” shows like Orange County Choppers where they seem to always just beat the deadline.
Remember though that it took a second mission to make up for the mis-manufactured lens. Without that second mission I believe the telescope's capability was not worth the trip.
That’s probably true. The distortion of the lens was something like 1/50th the width of a human hair. Yet it apparently did make a huge difference.
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