deadaluspark writes "I work at a local news station, and found out NASA was testing their lunar rovers in a nearby city. I pulled some strings and got our news director to send out one of our reporters. I would link to the original video on the KVEW website, but the video is screwing up on the badly designed, WMP only website. So I uploaded the package to youtube for everyone on Slashdot to enjoy. Very cool video of NASA toys in action." Don't believe anyone who says it always rains in Washington.
When someone says it always rains in Washington (1) they're exaggerating. a bit. (2) they mean WESTERN Washington.
Moses Lake is in Eastern Washington.
The first time I've seen sun in two weeks, here in Puget Sound. I remember working on the 10base2 Lantastic network at your sister station KAPP in Yakima. I also worked as an engineer at KOTY (when that call was in the Tri-Cities back in the very early 80s.)
I don't know who modded this funny. I don't know about eastern Washington, but Seattle's (that's in western Washington) gone through a cold snap lately. Today (6/12) is the first day the temperature went above 65 degrees. So far in June, I was told we're colder than Fairbanks and parts of Siberia.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday June 12 2008, @07:42PM (#23772763)
Yes. Seattle is in Western Washington. If you drive East from Seattle until you cross over the Cascade Mountains, you find yourself in very different weather: dry and hot in the summer. One time I passed through Moses Lake in August, and the temperature was over 100 degrees F (Seattle was more like 75 or 80 degrees F, IIRC).
Moses Lake is in the dry part of the state, and there is a decent airport there, so that's probably why NASA is testing there. Yakima would also be a good choice.
Right now it's 77 degrees F in Moses Lake, while it is 63 F in Seattle. (The whole month has been cold and wet. People are calling it "June-uary".)
As for the famous rain in Seattle, it is indeed exaggerated. But we really do get about nine months out of the year with slate grey overcast; heavy clouds block out the sun. I don't mind; I'm happiest in a dark office writing software. But some people get "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD) from the months of bleak darkness. It sure makes you appreciate the other 3 months, though. And you can always drive over to Eastern Washington for some sun.
It's still considered Eastern Washington since it is on the east side of the Cascade Mountain range. But most just call it the dryside. But you are correct, it is indeed a key city of the Great Inland Empire of the Columbia Basin and beats the shit out of Quincy and Ritzville. Othello has it's charms though; but maybe that's because my first GF was from there.
Sorry, but if it's east of the Cascades, then it's "Eastern Washington" (at least to those of us on the wet side of the state).;-)
Anyways, pretty cool to see where I grew up getting into the news.
Well, the last time my home town (Mount Vernon, WA) was in the national news was because some whack-job took off all his clothes, ran out onto the freeway, and climbed up onto a semi-truck that had stopped because of him. This is decidedly cooler than that.
Sorry, but if it's east of the Cascades, then it's "Eastern Washington" (at least to those of us on the wet side of the state).;-)
except eastern washington, the areas around spokeane and such are all green, central washington is fucking barren and hilly, its no wonder NASA is out there, its the closest thing we have on earth to the moon.
I know it's a joke because I have been to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. They have never had a trace of rain in the last 25 years (recorded history.) They (Chileans) will all tell you they can take you to where they staged the moon landing, and they mean it (they believe their telling the truth anyway.) Hard to believe their is a place with 0 discernible life, not even any mold to be found.
How can you go overboard on a rover probe? You can't exactly Macgyver up a new one while you're up there so you need as much on the device as possible. And redundancy (which NASA have yet to learn properly I notice) in case something breaks.
[i]Don't believe anyone who says it always rains in Washington.[/i][p]Yeah, I live in Pullman, Washingington. The day before yesterday it snowed. Today it was 70 degrees. I wish it was raining.
Go visit the LIGO Hanford Observatory [caltech.edu]. It is one of a handful of places that can detect gravity waves, the kind of waves made by colliding black holes and the like.
LIGO is south of Moses lake, and just make sure to check out their public tour times [caltech.edu].
Yeah, Eastern WA has lots of interesting science installations (and one NSA installation!), yet since most of the populace is farming community there is very little local interest in these things.
Honestly, it was me and a friend in the production crew who called NASA and set it up for one of our reporters to go. We just handed it off to the news director once we had gotten in contact with the NASA reps. The news reporters at our station KNEW that this was going on in Moses Lake but didn't think A) that
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the original lunar rover did about 8 mph. I don't think they mentioned in the video how fast the chariot goes, but it looked pretty slow compared to the rate people were walking next to it. Wouldn't that kind of limit the range they could cover in some practical amount of time? Unless they're planning on outfitting that thing as the lunar equivalent of an RV. Or maybe this is just because it's the prototype and the real one will be faster.
Those are good questions. I only wish the reporter our station had sent out was smart enough to ask questions like that. Unfortunately, he is clueless on almost entirely everything in reality, and refuses to listen to anyone about anything.
Everyone I work with had wanted a longer story with better questions. It seemed really half-ass to us, because we knew it would blow up on Slashdot. So, I guess our opinion about how it should have been handled was different because we're nerds.
On the moon, fast is dangerous. There is not much gravity holding you down, so if you speed up a dune, you go sailing off into space for a while. While you are off the ground, you are not in control of your movement, or your landing. So slow is the way to go. Great bounding leaps look cool in videos, but they are a great "here's your sign, stupid".
I say this not tongue-in-cheek, I'm really curious if you got permission to post this? The reason I ask is not to enable a debate about the merits of copyright but to ensure that you're not going to lose your job over something like this which, really, is very cool. Either way, I thank you very much for the video share and hope that you're not going to get into any trouble at work for any of this.
Cool beans 'cause it'd suck balls to have someone get in trouble over something like this. I was more concerned. for their sake, with the employer than I was legal troubles. We are at liberty to discuss the merits of copyright and even patents here online but when the real world rears its ugly head and someone loses a job over it then, well, that'd really suck. I, for one, really really appreciate the share. I've been scouring the 'net for the Mars rover activity in video format that's not CGI crap and whil
No really, this is small market TV. They would kill to get notice like this. I just hope that this may lead to more coverage of science by the station. They are sitting with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation [wikipedia.org] and the Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratories [pnl.gov] in their backyard. But most anyone with a clue that grew-up there, left. I did.
Bookmarked CERT. Err... Just 'cause... A search for KGIII will take you to my site, most of the time, where there's a contact link. I don't want to go too far off topic but if you figure you want to rant and go off-topic then I'm ALWAYS willing to engage in digression. Any conversation worth having shouldn't have limits about the topic so long as the new topic somehow returns to the conversation that was started. I am, so you know, still looking at the first two links and likely will be for the next few hou
And it's for a reason other than a school shooting or how the Grant County PUD fucked up the county-wide fiber optic network to an unbelievable degree. Cool!
You have big balls my friend. Either that or your stupid. Or maybe you have photo's of someone at the office? Bah, I could keep guessing here, but seriously, I can't imagine this will make you popular at work.
Oh, you are right though. The website does suck.
Actually, while trying to find more out about this before I was able to contact the NASA reps, I ran across and article that said Moses Lake had been considered before in the 90s (I think 97, but don't quote me on that.). So, its been in the running to get used as a testing ground for quite a while.
Unless you're skipping rocks on Moses Lake, you don't know it's there. I live in Wenatchee (about an hour away). It's a semi-arid desert here, and ML gets less precipitation than we do. Trust me, the lake isn't going to interfere with desert-based operations:)
Nah, they are using old DVCPro cams.
They digest the video from DVCPro tapes to Apple G5's and from there the video is edited in FCP.
everything around here is kind of held together by duct tape.
With a population of just over 3,190, this vibrant, progressive community offers a quality of life that is rare today. I don't think they know what the common usage of the word progressive is. Isn't that part of the 4th district of Rep. Richard "Doc" Hastings? I thought that my mom was the only progressive in the dryside, and she lives in Yakima, the Palm Beach of Washington [oregonlive.com].
Hell hole? Just because the nearest towns are Sulphur, Curry, Mesa and Cactus.
Sheesh, who the hell said that about Moses Lake? It's NOT progressive, I can guarantee you that. There are some liberal folk, but it's mostly conservative. Strangely enough, the town has a very large Mormon population, too, probably at least 10-15%. And no, the quality of life is not that great. The lake may look pretty, but it stinks of goose shit, especially in the summer. There are plenty of shitty neighborhoods and the local government is fucking incompetent. Like weeds, sagebrush, cheatgrass that stick
Rain in WA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rain in WA (Score:4, Funny)
We got mixed rain and snow here last Tuesday; some of the surrounding towns got as much as an inch.
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Moses Lake (Score:5, Informative)
Moses Lake is in the dry part of the state, and there is a decent airport there, so that's probably why NASA is testing there. Yakima would also be a good choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Lake,_Washington [wikipedia.org]
Weather data here:
http://www.wunderground.com/US/WA/Moses_Lake.html [wunderground.com]
Right now it's 77 degrees F in Moses Lake, while it is 63 F in Seattle. (The whole month has been cold and wet. People are calling it "June-uary".)
As for the famous rain in Seattle, it is indeed exaggerated. But we really do get about nine months out of the year with slate grey overcast; heavy clouds block out the sun. I don't mind; I'm happiest in a dark office writing software. But some people get "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD) from the months of bleak darkness. It sure makes you appreciate the other 3 months, though. And you can always drive over to Eastern Washington for some sun.
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Or, as a friend of mine puts it "there is a reason why the Puget Sound area is a petri dish for serial killers".
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It's the dead turtle smell in Moses Hole, not rain, that one has to watch out for.
-- mÂ, Toppenish expat
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I know it's a joke because I have been to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. They have never had a trace of rain in the last 25 years (recorded history.) They (Chileans) will all tell you they can take you to where they staged the moon landing, and they mean it (they believe their telling the truth anyway.) Hard to believe their is a place with 0 discernible life, not even any mold to be found.
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The rovers were bad! (Score:4, Funny)
I think NASA went over board with the number of probes installed on the rover.
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Color scheme (Score:5, Interesting)
http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=7690 [lego.com]
Which came first I wonder?
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NASA. They've been using the white (standard reflective paint), black (heat shields) and gold (reflective gold foil) color scheme since the beginning.
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Is the mars one out there as well also is the moon (Score:2)
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Get it right (Score:4, Funny)
It always rains in Washington (Score:3, Informative)
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While your in Eastern WA (Score:3, Interesting)
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Ooooh. (Score:5, Funny)
Holy shit! My hometown in the news! (Score:2)
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So you slam your company's website on /. (Score:2)
You have big balls my friend. Either that or your stupid. Or maybe you have photo's of someone at the office? Bah, I could keep guessing here, but seriously, I can't imagine this will make you popular at work.
Oh, you are right though. The website does suck.
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Humor aside, the area around Moses lake is mainly dust and exposed lava rock. Would think it'd make a pretty good proxy for the moon's surface.
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I-90 goes right through it. I would imagine that intelligent life is seen several times per day if you have a good high-speed camera. . .