Mars Spirit Rover update (January 29) Back at work early next week!

[frogfromthenorth2]

SNIP

In a promising development late today, Mission Control released the first photograph taken by Spirit since the rover's computer problems began. It shows the rover's science arm reaching out to examine a pyramid-shaped rock nicknamed Adirondack.

SNIP
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040128spirit.html

Spirit took this image on January 28 and relayed it to Earth, the first picture from the rover since problems began a week earlier. Credit: NASA/JPL

[trotsky]

1. Hot damn!

Kudos to the NASA team. Man, what they do is incredible.

[frogfromthenorth2]

2. And this all done 100 millions miles away! Just incredible!

[Tesha]

3. It would have been fixed faster, but...

It would have been fixed faster, but "All technical
support calls are being answered in the order in which
they are received."

(Music from "Girl from Ipanema" plays gently in the
background.)

Tesha

[frogfromthenorth2]

4. lol "Your call is important to us..."

[mhr]

5. Please Hold For The Next Available Representative To Assist You!

eom

[tekriter]

8. If you are calling from a rotary phone press 1...

:silly:

[bif]

6. "For hardware problems press 1. For software problems...

n/t

[tekriter]

7. For quality assurance purposes...

your call may be recorded.

For cover-our-ass purposes, that recording may be destroyed.

:beer:

[Baclava]

9. Hey! Who moved that rock?

...it wasn't like that before...and...wait!...they've all been moved around!

[daleo]

10. I know it's a quibble

But this giving rocks cute little names bugs me for some reason. Maybe other people like it, but it seems infantalizing or something like that to me. Anyway, I am glad the rover's mission is likely to continue.

[ThreeCatNight]

11. It's a lot easier....

than "rock #18527-6" or some odd classification like that.
Plus, it is good publicity. Makes it easier for the general public to grasp.
That is probably the same reason that nebulas and galaxies and other stellar objects are named too. Easily digestible by the general population.

[Atlant]

12. I think you'd find that human brains are more facile with...

I think you'd find that human brains are more facile with
names than with numbers or other arbitrary designators.
Yoou could form an immediate mental association with a
rock named, say, "Gibraltor" that you just couldn't form
with a rock named, say, "B-612".

People ALWAYS come up with code-names for projects.
And don't you find you're more likely to refer to "The
John Hancock Tower" rather than "123 Boylston Street"
(or whatever its address really is!).

Atlant

[daleo]

14. I see the point about names over numbers

They are easier to remember and it makes the exercise less distant to the public. It is probably just that these are such small rocks that makes it seem sort of like Pee Wee's Playhouse (to me). Personally, I have a hard time remembering people's names, let alone rocks names.

By the way, I think Gibraltar would be a good name for a fair sized Mars rock. Perhaps naming Mars rocks would be a good GD thread.

[JusticeForAll]

13. Oh goody!

Too bad millions of americans can't say the same thing. Back at work early next week!