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Comments: 176 +-   Top Ten Discoveries of the Mars Rovers on Tuesday July 24 2007, @07:49PM

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday July 24 2007, @07:49PM
from the martian-winters-are-nippy dept.
space
mars
nasa
science
eldavojohn writes "Space.com brings us the top ten discoveries of the Martian rovers that landed there in 2004. They were expected to last three months but, as Slashdot has covered time and time again, they have lasted over three years. From minor discoveries about the formation of Mars to images of atmospheric phenomena, to final and definitive proof of a Mars with water, these two robots have definitely reserved themselves a place in the history books. Pending a dust storm, they may not even be done with their mission yet."
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  • Greatest discovery (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Joaz Banbeck (1105839) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @07:52PM (#19978035)
    That the best publicity comes from making moderately low predictions of success, then when you exceed them you look heroic.

    • Re:Greatest discovery (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:48PM (#19978491) Homepage Journal
      Who modded parent 'troll'??? He/she is right: NASA didn't understand publicity too well when they acted like the shuttle was safe enough for a teacher and then they killed her. Now NASA is learning how to do publicity. And in the long run that may be the most important thing because good publicity means more funding.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DerekLyons (302214)

        Who modded parent 'troll'???

        Somebody with enough brain to not credit the tinfoil hat nonsense that NASA somehow overdesigns their craft and make performance claims only a fraction of that actually built.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Wookietim (1092481)
        It's interesting.... Here we have a piece of engineering inspecting the surface of another world, sending back important information. We may be finding the building blocks of life on another planet. And the first two posts to this news story discusses the advertising prowess of NASA.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by hobo sapiens (893427)
          You make a good point, but in the arena NASA plays in, namely the great grab for public funds, marketing is essential.

          Do you work in IT? The decision in favor of a solution/team/product/company often comes down to marketing. Well, NASA is in the same boat.

          Imagine yourself in a position to make a decision that affects mountains of taxpayer money, and therefore your reputation, and in turn your future employment prospects. You certainly don't have time to critically evaluate everything that comes your way.
    • Troll? For a simple Under promise Over deliver argument. For the record, I don't agree. I think they are engineering marvels.
      • Your statements have no relation. They can be engineering marvels & still use the under promise/over deliver. It's actually pretty easy to do while being honest, as well - just have the most pessimistic engineer on any project estimate the time to failure. 90% of the time you'll exceed that.

    • Re:Greatest discovery (Score:5, Informative)

      by iamlucky13 (795185) on Wednesday July 25 2007, @01:34AM (#19980093)
      Ok, not to diminish the validity of the "Scotty method" of project estimating, but someone should probably once again join this discussion to clarify this point:

      The mission plans called for a minimum of 90 days operations and a certain amount of driving (400 meters IIRC). This was not a prediction of the actual performance, but the criteria for mission success. Less than that would be considered only partially successful.

      However, they did expect the rovers to last longer, based on the performance of Pathfinder and Sojourner, and therefore included an operations budget extension of 90 days in the budget. Not exactly a secret. By this time they figured it was about 50/50 whether dust accumulation would have robbed them of too much power or something would've broken, so the budget had an allowance for another extension of 180 days just in case.

      At this point, they were pretty sure the rovers would be dead. NASA actually had to get special approval from congress to fund an additional one year of operations funding. Well guess what happened when that year was up. Yep.

      So now they've gone 14 times the mission success criteria and 3-1/2 times NASA's best predictions. Opportunity has had a disabled heater on its infrared spectrometer for a while, Spirit has had a dead wheel motor for well over a year, and both of the rock abrasion tools are worn out from so much use, but they're still ticking. Of course, there is a real danger from the dust storm currently enveloping the planet, but I've got my fingers crossed.

  • sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djupedal (584558) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:07PM (#19978159)
    If credit is to be tossed around, anthropomorphizing devices such as these tends to ignore the 'real' people that harnessed imagination and creativity so that 'they' could scuttle around another world.

    Why the childish urge to conjure up cute little clanking robots instead of simply patting a fellow human being on the back? ...don't answer that, thanks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Aluvus (691449)

      The people are many and nebulous. It takes a lot of people to pull something like this off.

      By contrast, there are just two rovers on Mars. People know their names.

      And they are easy to anthropomorphize. There they are, alone in a harsh landscape far from home. "Surviving" far longer than anyone had expected. And let's face it, they're kind of cute in a way.

      The Hubble telescope is a similar situation. For that matter, so are manned launches. It's a lot easier to idolize the handful of astronauts

  • Obits for Nerds. Robots that mattered.

    Seriously, no band survives the greatest hits album.

  • Too bad #1 couldn't have been.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by imperious_rex (845595) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:29PM (#19978349)
    Dejah Thoris
    • I'd have been willing to settle for Podkayne.
      • Unfortunately, Pokayne's ended up on Venus. :(

        Died there unfortunately (at least, according to the original edit, not the original release). Beautiful Platinum Blonde girls from another planet dying in a nuclear explosion on a Jungle Venus make me a sad panda :(

  • Wasting Taxpayer Money? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:35PM (#19978385)
    OK, first of all, almost all of the taxes you've paid for the last 10 years have already been spent several times over so we can Spread Democracy and Freedom.

    Secondly, NASA engineers managed to create machines that were able to accurately and consistently navigate the surface of Mars safely and efficiently almost entirely on their own.

    If anything, I wish NASA got more taxpayer money.

    AC

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kadin2048 (468275) *
        Your rant would make more sense if it were consistent. The Russians, who you seem to be lauding, are the very definition of "mil-spec overengineered devices". Have you ever seen their Venus probes? Some of them were so overbuilt there really wasn't any room for scientific instruments. But they were going to get to the surface, by golly, and they threw titanium at the problem like it was going out of style.

        I think the success of the Russian space program is attributable in large part to the fact that they co
  • A mile long translucent worm or tunnel, Cydonia was built by ancient Martians and alien artifacts buried in the Martian soil.

    No thanks to Richard Hoagland.

  • Here's the list without all the clicks (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:41PM (#19978429)
    10 - Opportunity provides tantalizing glimpse of Victoria crater.
      9 - Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater.
      8 - First meteorite identified on another planet.
      7 - Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink.
      6 - Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras.
      5 - Martian dust devils captured on film.
      4 - First shot of Earth from distant planet.
      3 - Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars.
      2 - Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars.
      1 - First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica.

    • ASCII Version of list (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tablizer (95088) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @11:42PM (#19979619) Homepage Journal
      10 - O crater
      9 - .../ \... volcanic
      8 - ...*... meteor
      7 - ~~~ stink
      6 - A..B..C three eras
      5 - ...//... dust devils
      4 - [ . ] Earth from mars
      3 - o@o clouds
      2 - ~!~ atmospheric profile
      1 - H2O water history

      I think the 2 neatests things from a spectator's viewpoint were the dust devil movies and the spherical blueberries. Burn's Cliff was also cool.
               

      • Re:How many found AFTER the expected mission life? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by tftp (111690) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @10:39PM (#19979247) Homepage
        10 - Opportunity provides tantalizing glimpse of Victoria crater.

        Required extended mission, obviously - rovers did not land near the site.

        9 - Evidence of volcanic origin for Gusev crater.

        Same as above - you may need to travel for a long time to get to the interesting site.

        8 - First meteorite identified on another planet.

        Required extended mission - you need to find the meteorite.

        7 - Discover of sulfur suggests Mars stink.

        May not require an extended mission.

        6 - Helps scientists determine that Mars had three distinct geological eras.

        Most definitely requires an extended mission, and likely to require far more than that to know those eras in detail. Earth geology is not dead yet even though people study rocks for thousands of years.

        5 - Martian dust devils captured on film.

        Requires an extended mission, unless the dust devil pays you a visit just when and where you landed.

        4 - First shot of Earth from distant planet.

        Depends on the landing site and the rotation of Mars.

        3 - Photographs Earth-like clouds on Mars.

        Likely requires an extended mission, unless those clouds are common and can be always seen.

        2 - Helps scientists create first atmospheric temperature profile of Mars.

        Most definitely requires an extended mission. It will later take thousands of probes spread over the whole planet, and several years, to create the precise, correct thermal profile that the settlers will require.

        1 - First definitive evidence that water flowed on mars, including blueberries, hematite, and silica.

        May or may not require an extended mission depending on where the samples were collected.

  • This is cool stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ekhymosis (949557) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:41PM (#19978433) Homepage
    Honestly, this has got to be one of the coolest things in a very long time for NASA. Not only has their multi-million project blown away the three-month lifespan, but the amount of data being recorded has got to be making those NASA scientists and the scientific community cream in their pants on a regular basis. We can learn with greater detail how planets and the galaxies are created, and begin to develop a very crude technical draft for mars colonization. The more data we take, the better the chances that, while probably not in our lifetime, soon enough the first stage of extraterrestrial colonization can be planned and executed. Great stuff!!!

  • Missing from the list... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZiggyStardust1984 (1099525) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @09:02PM (#19978569)
    Decepticons!

  • Discovery #11 (Score:4, Funny)

    by DynaSoar (714234) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @11:15PM (#19979467) Journal
    If you need a good way to stick a CD to your dashboard, sandwich it between Legos.

    http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/001/2N1 26468357EDN0000P1502L0M1.JPG [nasa.gov]

    Do a blow up on the circular object on the panel, left and down from center.

  • The last mission of the rovers... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on Wednesday July 25 2007, @12:15AM (#19979771)
    ...should be to hunt down and kill whoever laid out that page for space.com.

    Putting the article text in a six line scroll box while 95% of the page is ads or blank should be an offense punishable by being skinned alive.

    • If I had to pick just one:

      1) reread all of the calibrations to verify the ability to land (safely)

      Once that is verified, how about a remake of Capricorn One?.

      I'll overlook the fact (in CI) conversations are instantaneous (instead of a delay).

      This time, leave OJ[1] on Mars and let the other two come back, even if the simulations say it won't happen.

      [1]Yes, OJ Simpson. If you haven't watched it, there's no spoiler there because the rest of the statement is explained fairly early in the film.

      I wo

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by andy666 (666062)
        Just how much did we spend on the Mars missions compared to research on solar energy or material science ? Or quantum computer research ? (I mean stuff with possible applications) Anyone know ? I bet a helluva lot more for Mars. The NSF's entire Computer science budget was only 600 million a few years ago. How does that compare ? What is the NIH annual budget ? Not trolling, just curious, to put it into perspective. I mean, are these missions basically run just to get funds to some congressperson's distric

        • Costs (Score:4, Informative)

          by 2.7182 (819680) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:21PM (#19978293)
          In recent years



          NIH: $28 billion

          NSF $5.5 billion

          NASA $16 billion

          NSF Math and Physical sciences : 135 million in 2002

          NSF CISE (Computer ....) 500 million

          Nasa's Spirit probe $820million

          Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974[1] or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars

          • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

            by snowgirl (978879)
            I recall hearing that recycling costs $8 billion a year, as a result of subsidizing the recycling of materials that have a net negative economic impact, because using new materials instead would be cheaper, easier and require less industrial processing to make.

            That's actually the case for everything but metals. As Penn and Teller put it, when recycling becomes so efficient that bums on the street will do the sorting, then you'll know it's actually beneficial for society.

          • Re:Costs (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Rocketship Underpant (804162) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @11:20PM (#19979495)
            Iraq War: $1,300 billion

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by shaitand (626655)
          You can't forget the top research spender, DARPA.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by G-funk (22712)
          You know, saying "I'm not trolling" doesn't make it so. Of course your post was entirely insightful, and this is definitely the first time somebody's posted "why don't we spend this money on [foo] instead" to a space story on slashdot.

        • Re:top 10 (Score:4, Informative)

          by ChrisA90278 (905188) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @11:32PM (#19979561)
          We spend a LOT more on applied research. NASA is the only one with a rover on Mars but there are many, many people at government labs, universitoies and corporations doing helthcare related work. One interesting study would be to compare NASA's budget to the amount of money we spend in the US in movie tickets, TV reality shows or on new ring tones for cell phones. Actually we as a nation spent more on the ring tones then on mars. Think of all the poor starving kids in Africa that could have been fed if not for the money wasted on ring tones. Actually none of the money NASA spent goes to Mars. All of it goes to pay people who live here on Earth a salary. The money is not "gone", just redistributed.
      • My view on this is that it is cool to know, and you gotta check it out, but if we just wait 50 years it will be a lot cheaper to do, and it won't matter much about the delay. I mean, no one seriously thinks we could go to Mars soon, right ? Except maybe Archimedes Plutonium and Lyndon Larouche and George Bush.

        • Re:top 10 (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Kjella (173770) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:41PM (#19978439) Homepage
          The whole Apollo program was made in about 10 years, and in the 38 years since we landed on the moon all things electronic have improved with such incredible speed, going to Mars soon should be a piece of cake right? No. Is it because the GHz processors we have are too weak? No. It's because after that huge effort, and a few more missions until people lost interest, the program basicly shut down. Nobody was looking to invent technology to go even further, nobody was looking for rockets to go longer than geosynch orbit, nothing. We can wait another 50 years but that technology won't invent itself. I say the sooner the better, that way it will be cheaper in 50 years because it's been designed, tested and improved. While I don't think Bush is serious and is only using this as a distraction, I think we'd be able if we were willing.
          • Well something tells me that electronics can take care of itself - the private sector is doing that very well. As for rocket technology, it just is a different thing. And besides, who needs it ? What people want is not blurry pictures from Mars, but crisp images of episodes of BG on their phones. I think the technology-apollo link was propaganda, or an urban legend. Has any serious study of this ever been done, or is it just stuff everyone "knows about" since they heard it when they were 14 ?

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Brett Buck (811747)
            >The whole Apollo program was made in
            >about 10 years, and in the 38 years
            >since we landed on the moon all things
            >electronic have improved with such
            >incredible speed, going to Mars soon
            >should be a piece of cake right? No. Is
            >it because the GHz processors we have
            >are too weak? No

            A billion times more processor power has no effect because the PROCESSOR POWER IN 1969 was PLENTY ENOUGH. The hard job of landing men on the moon had nearly nothing to do with comp

            • The hard problems to solve were structural design and propulsion, not algorithms. Propulsion technology- at least propulsion technology useful for manned lunar missions - hasn't advanced one iota since the mid-60's.

              The huge increases in computation power are extremely useful in running simulations, in engineering, fluid dynamics, etc, which may help us advance the propulsion technology. Moreover, landing men on Mars won't be as easy as the Moon, as the landing is considerably trickier (thanks to gravity and atmosphere), for which things like flight computers would certainly be useful.

              Virtually every current space project of which I am aware has had massive problems with the flight software and database, and it's coincident with trying to use inappropriate programming techniques made possible by faster computers.

              Are you are aware of the quality the Space Shuttle Onboard Systems team produces?

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by Brett Buck (811747)
                >The huge increases in computation power
                >are extremely useful in running
                >simulations, in engineering, fluid
                >dynamics, etc, which may help us
                >advance the propulsion technology.
                >Moreover, landing men on Mars won't be
                >as easy as the Moon, as the landing is
                >considerably trickier (thanks to
                >gravity and atmosphere), for which
                >things like flight computers would
                >certainly be useful.

                I am fully aware of that, I do it for a living. However, the simulation capabili

      • Re:top 10 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by GodfatherofSoul (174979) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:08PM (#19978167)

        1. No LIFE!!! Stop wasting taxpayer money!!

        Yes, lets stop pursuing scientific discoveries and focus our meager resources on invading countries under false pretenses as a proper imperial power should. Books and learning are for hippy surrender monkeys!

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by snowgirl (978879)
          Eh... how can we bother with learning anything about foreign cultures when even Space.com can't get the names of Martian landscape right.

          "Marwth Vallis Regions"? Anyone else see what's wrong with that?

          (Ok, yes, my computer naming convention at work is after the Welsh words for the planets, what's it to you?)

      • Re:top 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kjella (173770) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @08:25PM (#19978319) Homepage
        I assume that your view of archaeologists as well "Old crap from the past, stop wasting taxpayers' money". Or any other form of science that doesn't immidiately lead to direct rewards. It's our closest neighbor, in galactic distances this is like concluding that since there's noone standing on our doorstep and there's nothing interesting there, there's noone out there at all and so there's no point in leaving the house as it'd only be a waste of time and effort. Studying Mars is the second planet we get to study in any detail, any idea how much guesswork is made based on how things happened on earth? In most sciences you'd call a sample size of one "anecdotal", "spurious", "unreproducible" and "statistically insignificant". It's still the best we got, until we are able to study other planets. But I suppose that wouldn't be useful enough for you, it's science after all. Don't you have any desire for discovery or exploration?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Feminist-Mom (816033)
          Of course I want to discover. I am a scientist. But the public is unaware of the resources that NASA gets compared to other disciplines. As was pointed out above NSF Math and Physical Science get 135 million. That is tiny compared to just one of these NASA missions. Don't you think we should support string theory, the study of the big bang and number theory just a little more ?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by warrigal (780670)
          Your credibility is low.
          Mars is not our nearest neighbour. Venus is, and by a fair way too.
          A scientist should know this.
          This business of "our nearest neighbour" has been spun by the pro-space
          lobby to good effect. The fact is that probes sent to Venus are far cheaper.
          For a start, they go Sun-ward and enjoy a good gravity-assist.
          What? You don't like the weather on Venus? That doesn't justify the "nearest neighbour" myth.
          • Well the NEA only got about $150 million. Why? cause that's how much they need. It costs alot to get to Mars, so alot was spent. Not many other groups wanted to chip in to defray the costs. NSF doesn't bear the burden of all math,physics,chemistry research alone, there are many other groups that contribute, so the budget is lower. Starving artists work for damn close to nothing, and there are many other contributing groups, so the NEA budget is lower still. It's not a question of useable returns, but what i

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Feminist-Mom (816033)
          I am hoping that I get email from you, so I can discuss science. Just what is your field of specialization ?

          You're level of meanness is a real detriment to Slashdot, where people try to have serious discussions about science and technology.

          I've worked as the director of a condensed matter lab for many years at a large well known institution. My field could use some more money, and I must admit I resent so much of it going to NASA. If your not in a scientific field, it might not be obvious to you how m

          • Re:top 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

            by shaitand (626655) on Tuesday July 24 2007, @11:19PM (#19979487) Homepage Journal
            'I AM a women'

            uh huh

            'I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month.'

            Likely. Are you implying that there is some sort of association between the two?

            Sorry but you aren't a female, you aren't a 'insert race here', you aren't a 'insert nationality here', you are an individual. You neither get to stand taller due to the achievements of nor spin the failures of other individuals simply because they happen to share a group designator with you.

            The thing I personally find most amusing, is that the only valid use of gender as a designator is to classify sex objects. And yet, those who want to be identified first by their gender don't seem to want their sex used to identify them as sex objects notwithstanding the entire biological purpose of having genders and the natural reproductive instincts associated with them.

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