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NASA to abandon Spirit Mars Rover
- hugh3 15y agoI wasn't aware that Spirit had been incommunicado for a full year. Yep, time to give it up. We got great value out of it. I must resist the temptation to anthropomorphize it. No, I don't feel sad for the poor rover stuck in a cold sandtrap on another planet, cruelly abandoned after years of faithful service. I do not feel sorry for it. I know that it's no more alive than the computer on which I'm typing this, that it's just a few random bits of electronics and some electric motors. And yet... sob
- trafficlight 15y agohttp://xkcd.com/695/ http://xkcd.com/695/
- mixmastamyk 15y agoWe'll be back for ya, little guy ... it just may take a hundred or two earth years.
- brudgers 15y agoMission overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sp332 15y agoNo don't, Spirit hates being anthropomorphized. Robot pride and all that.
- thomasgerbe 15y agoI cried while watching Wall-E.
- PostOnce 15y agoWell, it's solar panels look like bug wings, its stereo cameras certainly resemble two eyes, and it has arms on the front... of course it's going to be anthropomorphized. Being that the rovers are both nice looking pieces of machinery and popular, I'm surprised they don't make more & better toys and models of them. I'd have a few sitting on my desk, if I could find any decent ones.
- hugh3 15y agoI'm excited for the Juno mission, launching in three months. In my opinion, it's the best-looking space probe that mankind has ever built. But it'll never be anthropomorphised.
- JacobAldridge 15y agoIf it's any consolation, Spirit is now residing in Silicon Heaven, which is where all the calculators go when they die.
- nostrademons 15y agohttp://spiritrover.livejournal.com/ http://spiritrover.livejournal.com/
- tetha 15y agoWell some people argue that a certain degree of anthropomophization of a piece of work actually increases the efficiency of an engineer, because he feels attached to his piece of work.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- JonnieCache 15y ago>I must resist the temptation to anthropomorphize it Why? What harm can it do? You don't have to give up or compromise any part of your prized identity as an rationalist and an empiricist in order to indulge your biological imperatives to relate with the world as the squishy meatbag that your are. To deny your social instincts when you yourself admit that to do so does not come naturally is also irrational. Embrace your emotional drives and know thyself! We haven't hit the singularity yet ;) EDIT: also calling it a rover wasn't a great help was it.
- younata 15y agoImagine, in about 20-30 years time, humans land on Mars. If Spirit still has its data stored to disk, and we can retrieve it, then that would mean that the most expensive rescue operation in human history was made to rescue... a robot that was designed to last 90 days on the Martian surface.
- 0003 15y agohttp://youtu.be/OpSVCL4vxOY http://youtu.be/OpSVCL4vxOY
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- melling 15y agoHow close are the two rovers? A great follow up to the Google Lunar Challenge would be some sort of Mars Rover Challenge. Must make contact with Spirit then drive on to Viking, or some other human lander.
- hugh3 15y agoRoughly on opposite sides of the planet. If you've got a rover that can drive halfway around Mars, there's a lot more interesting things to look at than that, I'm sure.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoIf Opportunity traveled as fast as it possibly could it would take a century to reach Spirit, though the chances of it lasting that long are low.
- mkr-hn 15y ago(Some NSFW language) http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hat...
- DavidSJ 15y agoI wouldn't want to work anywhere that article is NSFW.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- russell_h 15y agoWhile I'm sure they're doing the right thing here, this is a little sad to me on a personal note. At the end of my ninth grade winter break (January, 2004) I spent all day following every bit of info I could find about Spirit's landing. The next day, back at school, I joined the school robotics club where I eventually learned C, began using Linux and decided to pursue Computer Science.
- pforpal 15y agoI was similarly inspired by the original Pathfinder rover.
- mturmon 15y agoHere's a nice pic of a Spirit clone together with Sojourner (from 1997) and the successor to Spirit and Opportunity, MSL: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/Dec4_E-3-generation-rovers.jpg http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/Dec4_E-3-generation-rove... MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) should launch late this year: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/overview/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/overview/
- ugh 15y agoThat will be one tense Rube Goldberg landing in 2012. A failure would be very disappointing. Phoenix gives at least some hope that NASA has landing with rocket motors on Mars under control.
- mturmon 15y agoYou're right about the tense landing. The thing that makes it hard is this: Phoenix mass: 350kg Spirit/Opportunity mass: 550kg MSL mass: 900kg
- fletchowns 15y agoThe way it lands is awesomely elaborate, for anybody who hasn't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudlaGh1A0o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudlaGh1A0o Watch it in 720p!
- sliverstorm 15y agoWhat are the odds we can talk them into releasing the communication frequency and protocol? If it's officially out of service, perhaps the commonwealth can take over the vigil.
- asadotzler 15y agoIt's not just the people that are short here, it's the time on the Deep Space Network. There are lots of projects competing for time and this one has simply, and rightly, (though sadly) fallen off the list.
- ars 15y agoIt's not easy to broadcast to mars. They use the deep space network of satellite dishes for that. I doubt it's something an amateur can do. The frequency is the X band, but I couldn't find info on the protocol. Also Opportunity is still active and they use the same protocol, and they probably won't want you messing with that :)
- nhangen 15y agoWe'll pick it up sometime in the future. I think that's the more exciting goal.