What is Digg?105 Comments
- DrivinWest, on 12/31/2008, -0/+104Think about this for a second... there are two robots scooting around Mars. MARS! I know they've been at it for years but I still can't fully comprehend how badass this is!
- BillDauterive, on 12/31/2008, -1/+80With successes like this you'd think we'd give NASA a decent budget to work with.
- allengeer, on 12/31/2008, -0/+71"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." -C. Sagan - dotuplink, on 12/30/2008, -1/+63This is truly what every space mission should model themselves after. Good job all! Go JPL!
- FreshPineSent, on 12/31/2008, -4/+56Humanity, ***** YEAH!
- ricoboy24, on 12/31/2008, -6/+47NASA should start making automobiles. They seem to last longer than other American brand cars.
- raf4far, on 12/30/2008, -1/+36And they were only supposed to last 3 months.
- inactive, on 12/30/2008, -1/+36Yeah that machine has done good JOB. Digging for the machine :)
btw the link took too much time to load :( - n8o8, on 12/31/2008, -1/+33I have a special place in my heart for those inanimate objects; they represent some of the best elements in our human spirit.
- jman583, on 12/31/2008, -0/+22You replied to yourself... five times.
- Militaris, on 12/31/2008, -0/+22Going to be sad when they finally stop responding, going to be like the death of a faithful dog.
- phrenzy, on 12/31/2008, -3/+17This passage is exactly the type of thing that people cling to religion to avoid trying to comprehend.
They would replace that entire beautiful passage with "The Baby Jesus did it" - karipatila, on 12/31/2008, -0/+13There's a great TED talk on the subject at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/charles_elachi_ ...
- merku, on 12/31/2008, -0/+13
If only they had installed little compressors to blow the dust away from the solar panels... - CloseYetFar, on 12/31/2008, -0/+12With the way their going, we will be on Mars before they stop working.
- carbonfilament, on 12/31/2008, -0/+11Google needs to get in on all those images and create a mars street view. Then we can steer around and follow the rovers paths just like its a street here!
- ConceptsX, on 12/31/2008, -0/+11That last picture showing Earth from Mars is awesome!
- jman583, on 12/31/2008, -0/+11They expected dust to settle on the rovers' solar panels in 3 months, killing the rovers, but a dust devils keep cleaning off the panels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil#Martian_du ... - andreas1999, on 12/31/2008, -0/+9Wall-E!
Clearly we don't need to put a man on Mars. These droids seem to be doing just fine. But perhaps we could send a few more of their buddies up there for company. - benzzene, on 12/31/2008, -0/+9I've always loved that passage. Here's Sagan himself reading it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M - CaptMonkey, on 12/31/2008, -1/+9What do you mean "clearly" we don't need people on Mars? While the rovers have done some great stuff, humans could do in hours something that would take a rover years to do. In 5 years, one has gone just over 7 miles and the other just over 4 miles. It takes days, sometimes weeks, for them to do the slightest inspection of a rock, where a human geologist could just pick it up and crack it open.
While there is a higher cost and risk involved in manned missions, there is a higher payoff. Not only could they figure out a lot more in a shorter amount of time, there is always the inspiration factor and they fact that the general public doesn't care about a rover but most of them would stop and take the time to watch men walk on Mars. I love the rovers too, but given the choice, I'd go with humans any day. - alvarezg, on 12/31/2008, -0/+8Those two little machines are a huge credit to their designers and a breath of fresh air in an era of rampant ineptitude.
- buckrogers1965, on 12/31/2008, -0/+8http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2004/08/02/oss_ ...
A lot of the software used on the mission was open source and most of the hardware was off the shelf. That article is from 2004 right after they passed the 90 day mark and they talk about the hardware, software, and communications.
http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines ...
Aerogel was used as insulation to retain the heat in the rovers. They have to run heaters inside themselves at night so they don't freeze up and break. - iheartcrack, on 12/31/2008, -1/+9I thought Wolowitz ran it into a ditch?
- morogolus, on 12/31/2008, -0/+8Color me impressed but I thought they would have travelled further than 13 miles in five years.
- MachineMessiah, on 12/31/2008, -0/+8You don't get much talk like that nowadays. I think our focus (at least in America) has narrowed more and more over the years, sadly.
- ninjasaurus, on 12/31/2008, -0/+7Yeah, I guess they better keep sending those Chevy trucks to the moon....
- Atomic05, on 12/31/2008, -0/+7Actually, a huge number of short and long term microgravity and near-earth space experiments have been conducted on the ISS, not to mention the health data gathered on crewmen who stay aboard for months at a time. It may also be a good platform for preparing, docking, and launching spacecraft away from Earth in the future.
The ISS is far from worthless, but in my opinion it may have been a little too far ahead of its time, and much smaller orbital installations (like the Skylab) would have been more economical.
/armchair scientist - Elderon, on 12/31/2008, -0/+6I'm very glad that the little rovers are still functioning. I must say though that I'm kind of saddened that they were only designed for 3 months of service. You would think that with the cost of a launch they would design something with the goal to last not just three months, but as long as technically possible. Just look at the voyager probes, voyager 1 has been going strong since 1977 and thanks to it's nuclear isotope reactor will, barring any accidents, still be sending signals to earth up to the year 2025 and it's already been working for over 30 years!
I don't mean to say that every probe/ vehicle should last that long, but they should be designed as if they were. When launches cost 100's of millions you better get your money's worth. - ProfessorLX, on 12/31/2008, -0/+6i like your ***** style freshpinesent... we need more diggas like you
- FreshPineSent, on 12/31/2008, -5/+11Humanity, ***** YEAH!
So lick my butt and suck on my balls, - inactive, on 12/31/2008, -1/+6Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy...
- FreshPineSent, on 12/31/2008, -4/+9Comin' again to save the *****' day yeah!
- Induane, on 12/31/2008, -0/+5Them and Wall-E
- aflaks, on 12/31/2008, -0/+5They remind me of Wall-E. Kinda human like in their quest for discovery yet immune from loneliness and boredom. Heroes of today's age of exploration and shining beacons of the human spirit.
Sorry I get all welled up thinking about what these two have been accomplishing - davidg11, on 12/31/2008, -0/+5These aren't the droids you are looking for.
Move along. - luke16, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4or like loosing a soccer ball called Wilson *tear*
- Tyrghast, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4The real issue here is, how soon can I buy my ticket and book myself in to the Mars hotel and ski down Olympus Mons?
- faceless323, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4dugg for The Big Bang Theory reference.
- FreshPineSent, on 12/31/2008, -5/+9Humanity, ***** YEAH!
- Fanrir, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4Get your ass to Mars.
- larryyhi, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4Maybe if they had lasers, so they...
lasers are just cool. - endyminion, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4Stop being such a douche for 5 seconds and just enjoy the damn passage for what it is.
- wem003, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4NASA averages $11b/year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
From the article:
For comparison, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars have cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $604 billion over the past seven years vs. the entire fifty year history of NASA expenditures.[2][3]
NASA's current FY 2008 budget of $17.318 billion represents about 0.6% of the $2.9 trillion United States federal budget.
I believe they need a much larger budget but better management of it. The trickle down technology alone is worth the cost IMO. - JQP123, on 12/31/2008, -5/+9NASA has a decent budget to work with. The problem is that the majority of it is wasted on boondoggles like the ISS.
What has the ISS discovered? That the super rich will pay big bucks for a space vacation? We could have sent unmanned rovers to every planet, moon and asteroid in the solar system for less than the cost of the ISS. - mark076h, on 12/31/2008, -3/+7Roving Mars is an awesome documentary about putting these Rovers onto Mars http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/liveaction/rovin ...
- odetonarwhal, on 12/31/2008, -1/+5wwWWAAAAAALLLLLLL-EEEEeeee
- Tyrghast, on 12/31/2008, -0/+4Yeah I read the summary of the article as well, how about that...
- chadu, on 12/31/2008, -3/+7They're like little Wall-E's up there!
- FreshPineSent, on 12/31/2008, -5/+9Martian your game is through cause now you have to answer to,
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