Posted on 02/18/2021 2:09:04 PM PST by edwinland
Nasa’s science rover Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world, streaked through the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the floor of a vast crater, its first stop on a search for traces of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.
Mission managers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause and cheers as radio signals confirmed that the six-wheeled rover had survived its perilous descent and arrived within its target zone inside Jezero crater, site of a long-vanished Martian lake bed.
The robotic vehicle sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 293m miles (472m km) before piercing the Martian atmosphere at 12,000mph (19,000km/h) to begin its approach to touchdown on the planet’s surface.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Met a woman who worked for NASA long ago. She told me they hired women because women could type out the punch cards quickly.
She also said one of the worst days of her life is when she dropped the atmosphere of Mars on the floor! My computer science class in college involved punch cards so I could sympathize.
I was great at typing and punch cards. Made extra cash doing it for others in college.
I learned Fortran and COBOL myself on punch cards in the late 1970s. I truly understand a stack of punch cards!!!!!
Yes. It’s a hoot. Especially the cringing attempts of the pilot to hit on the redhead.
No matter how many PhDs a woman has she still has to make the coffee and sammiches.
Oh I watched that just a few nights ago!
She passed only recently, Fehruary 24, 2020...102 years old.
They can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
The place is a dump. A barren, lifeless, dump.
The notion we are going to send people to Mars to live and die there is most likely a pipe dream, or if not a pipe dream, at least a worthless project serving to waste time, effort and money and distract mankind from what he should be about.
Fortran, Cobol and RPG in the early 80's here and on punch cards!
It won’t be a waste if Musk takes all the snowflakes there. We can stay here on Earth and live it up without their crap.
Northrop Grumman announced the name of their NG-15 Cygnus spacecraft in honor of Katherine Johnson; it’s the S.S. Katherine Johnson. The Cygnus cargo ship will launch to the International Space Station on Feb. 20 â 59 years to the day after Johnson’s work made John Glenn’s Mercury mission a possible.
So true. I’m all in now. Thanks.
 "It says, 'IDENTIFICATION DIVISION'." |
Black and White pic ? And we spent how much for this ?
Congrats!
Ha Ha! I think they were concerned the color film would be too sensitive to the x-rays in outer space.
Even better if Musk takes them there on a one-way ticket.
Looks the same as the last Mars rover. So what’s the big deal?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.