Mars Recon. Orbiter Alive!

[scmhogg]

I was watching the NASA live on the web. The Orbiter just appeared from behind Mars.

Steve

[drumpriest]

Sweet! Don't you wish that the general public were more interested in our space program??

[Ken Weaver]

They're saying we'll get at least 4 year's worth of data. It its anything like the rovers, should get a lot more.

[LCHIEN]

what's cool to me is that the two mars rovers, opportunity and spirit
are still running and functioning near 100%. OK, they've got a few stuck or cranky parts here and there but who among us dosn't (under 30 y.o. please don't answer) and they are so far past their expected lifetimes.
Each potential crisis has been answered with dogged engineering workarounds from millions of miles away. Way to go JPL/NASA/Cornell.

[just4funsies]

It's a cinch they werent made by HF...

[boblon]

It's a cinch they werent made by HF...

BobL.

[gsmittle]

It's a cinch they werent made by HF...

Probably made by Ryobi....

g.

[Russianwolf]

Probably made by Ryobi....

g.

nah, if Ryobi made them they would have cost half as much and still preformed like one for twice the price.

[DaveW]

On a somewhat related topic - Google unveiled http://www.google.com/mars/ over the weekend...

[scorrpio]

Space program was all the rage in 60's/70's, but after making some huge steps (man in space, landings on moon etc) it kinda lost steam. There are no orbital cities, we don't drill for oil on Mars, we haven't terraformed Venus and are yet to make any serious attempt to reach other stars. Guess most of population has taken the attitude ' wake me up when I can book a trip to Mars'. But so far, even the projects for passenger planes that travel above stratosphere - and thus can span the globe in about an hour - have been absent.

The space defense initiative no longer makes sense. I recall an article in Technology Review regarding this. Once a ballistic missile has launched and reached space, it deploys several warheads along with 30-50 decoys, and identifying and destroying the warheads among the cloud of decoys before they reach destination is near impossible. However, during Cold War, when missiles could be launched from anywhere in the expanses of USSR, getting them from space was about the only option. These days, when only a select few small countries (like North Korea) pose a missile threat, they can be monitored from nearby bases, and any launched missiles can be destroyed before they reach space and deploy.

So, in a nutshell, after the space craze of the 60/70s, and reading all the sci-fi novels and watching various Star Wars etc, people today go: "Huh? They are still only launching satellites and taking pictures? Where is my space car and summer house on Alpha Centauri?"

[430752]

summer home on alpha centari?

what about a skiing chalet on neptune?

As far as our fascination waning, I think a large part is due to been there done that. that is, give us the next big thing. Also, the space race was a de facto cold war stand off. Which one was better. Without thos epesky ruskies to push us along, what's the purpose? Maybe when panama vies for a moon colony, we'll get interested again.

I love the space thing, but must admit I'd rather have more useful things now. Like a real nice network of satellites, which if you believe what you read, are somewhat falling apart - or at least the weather/land map stuff. I'd really like a better bird, can't imagine we're travelling like we did in the 70's. The concorde is gone, and we get the mega airbus.

sign o the times I reckon.

curt j.

[Russianwolf]

The problem with the wane is that all space exploration for the last 50 years has been government led. Now that's changing with programs like spacecraft one (I think that was it's name) and other private programs pushing the envelope. I think we'll see a surge here in the next 25 years to break out and do something big on the moon and mars and the space between.

Unfortunately, unless we make some propulsion breakthroughs the closest stars are still way too far away to even think about exploring.