NASA Will Crowdsource Its Photos of Mars

tedlistens writes "NASA is asking the public to suggest subjects for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, its super powerful camera currently orbiting Mars. Since it arrived there in 2006, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has seen more success than that lost lander, recording nearly 13,000 observations of Martian terrain, with each image covering dozens of square miles and revealing details as small as a desk. By letting the public in on the Martian photo shoot, scientists aren't just getting more people excited about space exploration. They're hoping that crowdsourcing imaging targets will increase the camera's already bountiful science return. Despite the thousands of pictures already taken, less than 1 percent of the Martian surface has been imaged."

Re:Umm...

[maxume]

Sure the had, one of the stipulations on the internet poll was that it wasn't final.

They named the COLBERT after him because it was good publicity.

Re:Second Priority

[Chris Burke]

They need to send one of these up around the moon and prove the moon lander is there.

I'm not sure how that's supposed to be better evidence than the presence of mirrors for laser range-finding placed there by the astronauts that a variety of institutions around the world have used to measure the earth-moon distance (and of course in the process verifying their presence) would be.

I don't know would be more annoying - finding out its faked or seeing conspiracy theorists reject it as evidence.

Annoying? If the probe provided evidence that the landings were "faked", meaning we could no longer see the landers that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged only months ago [nasa.gov] that wouldn't be annoying. It'd be one of the most baffling mysteries in modern history!

The question wouldn't be "does this mean we never landed on the moon?", it'd be "who landed on the moon without telling anyone and stole the fucking landers?!"

Oh and obviously if the conspiracy theorists are not satisfied with the existing evidence, they will never be satisfied, because they simply don't want to be satisfied.

Why the Phoenix Negativity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Phoenix Lander was extremely successful. It found exactly what it was sent to look for. I don't know any better definition of success that that. It was never designed to survive the winter... they are just looking to see if somehow it did. The writer should be a little less cavalier.