NASA rover reaches Mars flawlessly

[johnny861]

NASA rover lands safely on red planet


PASADENA, California (CNN) -- A NASA robotic explorer touched down on Mars, sending a signal home that it survived the risky descent through the Martian atmosphere and bounced to a halt.

The $400 million rover Spirit, designed to conduct unprecedented geologic and photographic surveys on the Martian surface, transmitted a simple hello to Earth minutes after landing.

"This is a big night for NASA. We're back," Sean O'Keefe, NASA's chief, said at 12:30 a.m. ET Sunday, about half an hour after confirmation of the successful red planet landing, the space agency's first since 1997.

Within hours, it beamed back images from its new home, stunning black and white snapshots that elicited excited shouts from mission controllers. Spirit will need more than a week to begin its roaming expedition, which is expected to last at least 90 days.

The golf cart-sized Spirit went through what NASA assistant administrator Ed Weiler characterized as "six minutes from hell" -- the time it took to enter the Martian atmosphere, descend and land in Gusev Crater.

During the descent, Spirit deployed parachutes and fired retrorockets to decelerate. Seconds before impact, it inflated a protective cocoon of airbags. Everything went as planned.

"It went to perfection. I can't tell the difference between what was predicted and what actually happened," said Rob Manning, the descent and landing manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

A series of bounces and rolls may have sent the robot up to four stories high and more than a mile from its landing spot, according to mission control scientists at JPL. The final stopping spot has elated mission researchers.

"The rocks, to a great extent, look swept clean. It's a much cleaner surface than what we had a right to hope for," said Steven Squyres, a Cornell University geologist in charge of the scientific instruments on Spirit and its identical twin, Opportunity, which will complete the 300 million-mile trip to Mars in three weeks.

"It's a very good surface for driving. It couldn't be better for what this vehicle is designed for," he said.

Stunning panoramas
Packed with a slew of geology instruments and cameras, Spirit has much more mobility and capability than the most recent successful visitor to Mars. The 1997 Pathfinder mission included a lander, which beamed back thousands of images, and Sojourner, a toy-sized test rover that scurried around the rocks and boulders littering the landing site.

Each of the new rover twins, however, is built to explore nearly as much territory in one day as Sojourner covered in three months, about 100 yards.

And each comes equipped with eight cameras that should provide stunning panoramas of the Martian surface, with resolutions so sharp they retain crisp detail when blown up to the size of a movie screen, according to NASA. Their microscopes, spectrometers and drills could unlock geologic secrets from billions of years ago, when the now cold and dry planet is thought to have been warm and wet.

Death planet
Spirit's landing generated cheers, hugs and applause at NASA's mission control. Team members had waited nervously for confirmation, knowing too well that Mars has often proven a deadly place to visit. Two-thirds of the more than 30 spacecraft that have attempted to reach or orbit Mars have met with disaster, including two NASA attempts in 1999.

The most recent casualties include Japan's Nozomi, a satellite zapped by lethal solar radiation during its four-year odyssey to Mars. Mission engineers abandoned their attempts to steer the ailing craft as it neared the red planet last month.

Another possible victim is the Beagle 2, an ambitious life-searching lander from Britain, which has remained silent since its presumed touchdown December 25.

[USAcommitteeX]

Have we claimed Mars for The United States yet?

[Dionysos]

Originally posted by USAcommitteeX
Have we claimed Mars for The United States yet?

I realize you're joking, but I'll go ahead and play the foil and mention that no government or corporation can claim other planets & moons as their property.

http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html

Then again it is a UN law, and we've seen how well they enforce those.

[alex]

i wanna go to mars... seems like we are way behind on technology though,im mean come one,i want a condo on mars hehe. Where are my flying cars and super flying space ships? oh well.

[Dionysos]

Originally posted by WarLord
There is no such thing as a "U.N. law".

UN treaty, thank you Captain Semantics.

No "right," treaty, law etc is any more controlling than one's ability to enforce it.

[Infrared]

Originally posted by xiannaix
No "right," treaty, law etc is any more controlling than one's ability to enforce it.

Or more controlling than one's ability to ignore them!

[johnny861]

fuggit.. we didn't need a security counsel approval to invade Iraq....


To Mars and Beyond!


Spirit rover: I claim Mars for America!

Martians: you can't claim us, we live here! There's 500 million of us you bastard!

Spirit rover: .......Do you have a flag?

Martians: Well, no we never needed one...

Spirit rover: No flag, no land! Those are the rules..... that I just made up!

Originally posted by Infrared
Or more controlling than one's ability to ignore them!

which would be the other side of that same coin yes.....

[Element4040]

Bah, gotta get to the Moon before you can get to Mars. We'll all be old geezers by the time they land someone on Mars.

[johnny861]

Originally posted by WarLord
Two things propelled us to the Moon. 1) The Cold War, 2) JFK stating publically that we would have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His subsequent assassination made it one of the highest policy goals of the government.

Take either of those two things away, and it would not have happened when it did.

so we needs to start a cold war with some other nation... china perhaps...

then elect a nice well spoken dem.. have him gargle something about mars... and then off him...


Not a bad plan

[mc E]

400 million dollars for this rover thingy

good appropriation of funds? yes/no?

discuss

[Element4040]

Originally posted by mc E
400 million dollars for this rover thingy

good appropriation of funds? yes/no?

discuss

Well I think it's better than 100 million to see how space effects the eating habits of rats.

IMO if they aren't braving new frontiers then they are wasting money, which they've been doing for the last 10 years. I wanna see some advancements being made in the exploration of the universe. We haven't even been back to the moon for 40 years.

[johnny861]

with all the engineers, scientists, administrators, sub contractors and their lot and their sub contractors, administrators over review boards, etc... yea... that's probably about right...


This is also an argument for the privatization of space...

If you could achieve all this under the roof of one corporation, like maybe somebody such as the Space Island Corp., you will see a drastic drop in the price tag.