[ via Oliver Morton ] Planetologist Jeffrey Bell doesn’t think much of Mars. If the planetary science crowd gets excited over some feature, Bell harumphs from behind his desk at the University of Hawaii, and points to an analog he says he can find by walking around the campus or by asking a passing vulcanologist. [...]
Kip covers the languages, ethnography, and class systems of some other Mars. Just read it. Brilliant stuff.
MER-A (Spirit) and her sister rover are having a bit of a spat. Spirit’s claiming that MER-B (Opportunity) is faking her data. [ Obvious Disclaimer: It's a joke son, a funny. ]
The caldera of the largest volcano in the the Solar System: detailed images from the ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft.
The recent photo MER-B (Opportunity) took of its backshell and parachute on the Martian plains might remind you of a find made by Apollo 12, the second human landing on the Moon. Astronauts Bean and Conrad landed their ship about 600 feet away from the Surveyor 3 spacecraft that had arrived a couple of years [...]
A dozen wheels on Mars.
Last year, after Columbia fell to pieces above us, Ken MacLeod wrote in Ansible: Husband, McCool, Anderson, Brown, Chawla, Clark, Ramon. Komarov, Grissom, White, Chaffee, Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev, Resnick, Scobee, Smith, McNair, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Onizuka. These names will be written under other skies. Since the Mars rovers have landed, all those names, except for the [...]
[ via Martian Soil ] Oliver Morton, from The Economist, who wrote one of my favorite books from last year, Mapping Mars, has a weblog.
David Grinspoon had this as a slide at his lecture last week. Hike length is approximately 5.5 km or 3.6 miles one way, with a total elevation gain of nearly a thousand feet. Rating…. easy at start and midsection, with some very steep sections. Take plenty of water and oxygen. This will make more sense [...]
NASA and JPL have been quiet about this last image received from the Rover before it stopped responding to commands.
Mars welcomes their new, carbon-based, conservative masters. 10. American troops sure to be greeted as liberators.
My friend the Badger compares the discarded boosters, cruise stage, aeroshell, etc. used to get a package on Mars to the ancient goddess Inanna shedding her symbols of authority to get to the Underworld. I’m always amazed by how Badger’s mind works.
Photo of photos from Spirit (MER 1) at Gusev Crater, Mars. Yes! Update: Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now My friend Beth says in a comment to a friend’s blog: [w]hat a fine time to be raising a child. “Look, child, we put a big truck on mars with a radio and it’s talking to us!”
Susan Kitchens is in Pasadena, blogging the first of the two Mars Rovers’ landings. She reports that it’s landed in Gusev Crater, and we’re watching it on the NASA TV feed. No video from Mars, as it’ll take awhile for the rover to deploy, but Hell yeah baby! w00t! Many, many congratulations to the Mars [...]