Comments on: Today, science willing, Curiosity rover lands on Mars. Here's how to watch.

By: BombBlastLightingWaltz

BombBlastLightingWaltz — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 02:05:00 +0000

Space junk at it’s height. By the way, Mars is located in Arizona, USA.

By: bzishi

bzishi — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:45:00 +0000

@twitter-8058052:disqus You have taken my half tongue in cheek comment and used it to slander me. You have no idea what my science and engineering education is. You have no idea what my experience is of working in control rooms. And you have absolutely no idea what I can ‘vaguely understand’.

By: AviSolomon

AviSolomon — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:46:00 +0000

This should be a t-shirt!

By: renke

renke — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:03:00 +0000

@facebook-652737104:disqus yes, I tried it (before I wrote something about the requirements here at BB…)

By: Dan Huby

Dan Huby — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:44:00 +0000

It looks 100% Java. Has anyone tried this on Linux?

By: nebby

nebby — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:34:00 +0000

Do you have a source that says it was peanut M&Ms? Every article I’ve seen references plain peanuts.

By: The Mixologist

The Mixologist — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:19:00 +0000

I’ve noticed one way in which science is a lot like religion; people often have very strong opinions about things they only vaguely understand. Take the fellow that started this thread. He doesn’t care that there actually was a need for most of those people to be there for the final systems check before the descent was initiated. He also doesn’t care that had something gone wrong, while they would not have been able to correct it, they would have been expected to have a preliminary answer for what went wrong fairly fast. No, he’s worried it conveys the wrong message to people.

Personally, if sexy photo-ops get people interested enough in science to keep NASA alive, I’m all for it.

By: silkox

silkox — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:10:00 +0000

Interesting: just before the press conference started, Xeni tweeted “I’m inside the presser. 8 NASA and JPL engineers and administrators on the podium. Not one woman. Let’s change that.” Then, she gets called on second and has to deal with a comment about her appearance before she can ask her excellent question. (The guy who asked the first question, kind of a dumb one, got no such comment.)

By: anansi133

anansi133 — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:01:00 +0000

Why peanuts this time? I remember it being peanut M&Ms, *that* was the tradition. Maybe they decided the chocolate was too much extra mass?

By: .

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:58:00 +0000

When I was watching the event live, I overheard something that sounded like they landed around 2k meters from target. Not sure if I heard that correctly though. They did give pretty detailed lat/long coordinates though.

By: heng

heng — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:42:00 +0000

Have you ever left an experiment running over night? Likely they’d turn up at Mars Lander HQ in the morning and discover that they’d forgotten to uncomment the test code and that the whole descent was performed with the mars_diameter setting at 20e3, and now the whole thing has to be run again.

By: TacoChuck

TacoChuck — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:38:00 +0000

Please add me to the list of pessimists who are happy to have been wrong.

By: Mark Dow

Mark Dow — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:24:00 +0000

Full quality images and descriptions from JPL:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/new

By: awjt

awjt — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:23:00 +0000

Totally. It means a lot of things. Means this guy’s life’s work has been validated. And that of hundreds of other scientists and engineers. Means that the REAL fun can begin, finding evidence for life on other planets. Validation of the most complex remote research vessel ever devised. I could go on… but this guy’s absolute FREAK says it all.

By: awjt

awjt — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:17:00 +0000

Awesome… I reworked it, so people can copy it and keep it close.

Our science, which art on Mars,
How awesome are you right now?
May discoveries happen.
And research be done.
On Earth, as it is on the ISS.
Give us this day our daily data
And deliver us from dogma,
For thine is the method, the theory, and the error
For the foreseeable future.
Ramen.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:16:00 +0000

Touch wood we will never hear of it again.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:12:00 +0000

But there was some opportunity

I see what you did there ;)IIRC it was Spirit which started rebooting shortly after landing when its flash storage filled up, and mission controllers had to get ahead of the problem with opportunity. Without all hands on deck it is likely that neither river would have survived.

By: Cefeida

Cefeida — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:04:00 +0000

Also, what kind of scientific research team sets the process in motion and then goes off to the pub? What would really be ridiculous would be if something did not go as planned, and they came back after it was all over and had to pore through the logs to figure out what, when and why it happened.

The only sensible way to do this is to BE THERE and monitor the operation live. There’s research and knowledge to be gained throughout the event.
I really feel like I should add a big, fat ‘DUH’ right about here.

By: renke

renke — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:57:00 +0000

maybe the Java applet is only used as a launcher/downloader for some platform-specific binary?

By: Cefeida

Cefeida — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:56:00 +0000

A reaction is not limited to correcting the problem. The live gathering of data is extremely important.

This is true for operations much less complex and significant than space exploration, so…well…you’re missing the point.

By: Cefeida

Cefeida — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:52:00 +0000

In the first instance, absolutely, but in the second, shouldn’t it be more ‘schedule and bureaucracy willing’? There’s nothing too terribly scientific about Xeni’s admission to the JPL :P

By: Dan Huby

Dan Huby — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:39:00 +0000

That’s odd, it’s Java. Why would it be limited?

By: Spezz

Spezz — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:22:00 +0000

They are in control up until 14 minutes before touchdown. In fact according to Adam Steltzner they were running simulations and making adjustments right up until the 14 minute mark.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:29:00 +0000

If you like cheering, go watch the Olympics.

If you dislike human emotion so much, maybe you shouldn’t be interacting with people here.

By: David Aked

David Aked — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:09:00 +0000

If we were watching this, it’s because of the same reasons you watched it. The cheering is just the ‘social’ aspect of it. Why shouldn’t we feel joy that so many people were made happy by this achievement?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:04:00 +0000

Very easy on the eyes.

By: bzishi

bzishi — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:59:00 +0000

If anyone is inspired by this it will be because of the technology of the rover and its scientific discoveries, not because a control room cheered.

If you like cheering, go watch the Olympics.

By: David Aked

David Aked — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:46:00 +0000

Nah. That was Parkes Tracking Station (New South Wales). This feed was from Tidbinbilla (ACT) :P

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:41:00 +0000

Yeah no red shirts. Bad luck.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:40:00 +0000

I don’t think the 15 gees is strongly tied to the design. With different aerodynamics the aerobraking could be extended to bring deceleration down under five G or so.