NASA Mars Rover Spots Its Ultimate Destination 101
coondoggie writes "It has been years in the making but NASA said its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has captured a new view of the rim of the planet's Endeavour crater, perhaps the rover's ultimate destination. The Mars rover set out for Endeavour in September 2008 after spending two years exploring the Victoria crater. NASA says Endeavour is 13 miles across, some 25 times wider than Victoria crater, and could offer scientists more insight into the red planet's makeup."
Start the Reactor!! (Score:3, Funny)
FREE MARS!
Ah yes, (Score:5, Funny)
" and could offer scientists more insight into the red planet's make-up"
Mars: the rouge planet!
Late-breaking news from the Council! (Score:5, Funny)
K'breel, speaker for the Council, emphasized that the site for the final battle was well-defended:
"Gentle citizens, it has been years since the twin mechanized monsters touched down on our sweet red soil, but the Council is pleased to report that the last remaining mobile invader from the blue planet has been sighted by sentries approaching the rim of End-Devaur crater. The invader set out for End-Devaur last summer after spending a year at Victory Hole; Planetary Land Defense Forces have pinpointed the invader's location to a point in the trackless wastes at least half a year's journey from End-Devaur."
"The enemy's slow progress across the wastelands leaves us with ample time to amass an overwhelming counterforce, and at last we shall see this campaign through to its end. Rejoice! Within half a revolution around our star, this monstrosity from the blue world shall find its ultimate destination!"
When a junior reporter mentioned the persistent rumor that the invader was merely a scientific probe operating at least order of magnitude past its design lifespan, K'Breel raised a spirited toast "to an opportunity for victory!", and devoured the ends of the reporter's gelsacs.
Re:Alternates to solar panels (Score:2, Funny)
They lasted too long. Bad engineering. Big fiasco (Score:5, Funny)
The requirements were for 90 days at a time when we wanted to send up many such vehicles and robots knowing they were cheap and we would lose some.
These little guys have lasted far too long, demonstrating the folks at JPL were not able to meet the requirements the taxpayers gave them.
Far better engineering would have had these things come in at 40% of the cost and had them die on day 97. Then we could have flown more and more of them.
I hope the guys who managed this fiasco were suitably fired before they had a chance to screw the taxpayer and the space program over again.
Re:Shazam! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obl. XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/ [theonion.com]
Re:They lasted too long. Bad engineering. Big fias (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, I bet you're the guy who makes laptops fail two days after the three-year warranty ends.
I am all in favour of careful engineering. Designing things to fail is extremely antisocial.
Re:Alternates to solar panels (Score:1, Funny)
Because it took the Great Morloch 6 days to build Mars, and then he rested on the seventh. Don't kids know anything about galactic myth these days?
Re:Alternates to solar panels (Score:3, Funny)
The proper physicist's notation is so boring. "A satellite could collector solar energy 1 of the time."
Re:They lasted too long. Bad engineering. Big fias (Score:3, Funny)
Grandparent is right, these things were way overbuilt.
Grandparent needs to read more and I think you do too.
Launch Successes (s) and Failures (f), 1957–1999 [aero.org]
With about a 6%-7% chance of failure of not even making it to the planet, you want to make as few launches as possible and get the most out of each.
Then you have everything that could go wrong during landing. e.g. Beagle 2 and the crater it left in the martian soil.
Yep, thank God NASA is run by actual rocket scientists rather than internet experts.