So who's going to watch the Mars Rover landing?

[TheBladeRoden]

Well it's not going to be live on TV this time :( but I guess there's going to be a webcast on

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/features/mars/media/webcast.html

hopefully it will be interesting.

[JrMissToughChick]

Yes

[TheBladeRoden]

well that's at least one person to convince me I'm not crazy.

[JadedLegend3]

Wow, how sad is this? I didn't know there had been any before, let alone another one happening soon.

Or maybe I did know about something on Mars before...didn't we lose something up there once?



Jacqui :love:

[Defect9]

I'll be happy to watch this one crash too...

[BlackThorn]

"Well, what happened to it?"

"I don't know, Sir. I think we lost it."

"Where on earth could you lose a thing like that?"

"I think we lost it on Mars, Sir."

[BillFrugge]

It's not exactly a landing... More like an assault.

Let's hope there isn't life on Mars. If there were they'd be getting pretty mad, and ready to retaliate.

[Defect9]

flash back to the invader zim episode "Battle of the Planets" where the face on mars is actually a giant control for ship built out of the planet mars.

download it if you havent seen it...
-Jared

[TheBladeRoden]

oops they lost the signal after bouncing

[BillFrugge]

Originally posted by TheBladeRoden
oops they lost the signal after bouncing

SNAFU

[TheBladeRoden]

oops looks like they got a lock on the signal again
ooh snap!

[Third EYe]

Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars July 4th 1999. The mission was deemed a success.

Odd how only failures are remembered.

[BillFrugge]

Originally posted by Third EYe
Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars July 4th 1999. The mission was deemed a success.

Odd how only failures are remembered.

Congrats to NASA!

I don't really blame NASA for the failures. Mars is a long way away, and they are working on a shoestring budget to land something. Transmission delays are too long for them to take an active roll in the landing, so the lander has to make it's own decisions.

Sadly, we have no way of knowing what went wrong with the previous explorers. It went right this time, but can we do it again?

[Third EYe]

I think some Martian college do gooders turned the previously failed mission vehicles into inter-planetary officials where they were immediately debunked as weather balloons.

[grapeshot]

By the way, speaking of OTHER successful landings on Mars, there were TWO Viking Pathfinders that landed on Mars in 1976. (I know that to many here that is practically ancient history!)

[Kurt_eh]

'Twas on CNN. I cheered right along with it.

Now if they can only contact the Beagle...

[grapeshot]

This is really an awesome accomplishment. PBS is doing an hour special on this (right now, as a matter of fact.) There's also a cool article about this here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/science/04CND-MARS.html?hp

I like on the Nova special how they're acknowledging that engineers are an integral part of making the Mars probe work. (Usually it's the scientists that get all the glory.)

LOL, I just remembered something. When we're sitting around in a meeting discussing the designs for our next machine, at some point we always reach a point where we're stuck for an idea. At that point somebody inevitably pipes up to say, "hey, we can do this. After all, it ain't rocket science." I guess the MARS probe team can't say that. Heh heh.

[dktigger]

So you wanna talk "ancient" ? I am a year older than NASA is. I DO however think that ANY exploration of space and other worlds, can be a real benefit to all of us "humans". I wish more private companies would get "the bug" and start their own missions.

Dan