Are you sure about this? I know it takes 20+ minutes to send a
command to the rovers, but I also was sure they just sat there till
they got those commands. Computers aren't at all bright. I wouldn't
trust a multi-million dollar space rover to Windows? I wouldn't even
trust it to a Mac. From what I understood, every command had to be
sent from Earth. No commands received and they just sat there.
I do follow them from the NASA website. I'm a space junkie. Where's
my booster pipe? I also have the NASA channel playing most every day.
That is until it goes into reruns and I move over to the History
channels.
Jeff Miles
jmile...@charter.net
Join my Mafia
http://apps.facebook.com/inthemafia/status_invite.php?from=550968726
On Sep 10, 2009, at 9:00 PM, b_s-wilk wrote:
Wow, when did Spirit and Opportunity learn to work on their own? I
wonder if the people who get paid to drive them know this. If they
are working on there own, what do you think they're thinking?
"There's a rock, let's flip it over." Or maybe, "damn it's dusty
today." Or maybe, "Hey Opportunity, find anything interesting yet?"
"Nope, I got stuck in a crater for a bit though." "Speaking of
that, hows the foot?" "Oh, what a drag."
Yes, Jeff, the Mars rovers have been programmed to do simple
analyses of
their situation and environment. Since it takes something like 20
minutes for a command to be sent from the Earth to Mars, the rovers
could fall off a cliff if they weren't programmed to recognize local
conditions and proceed with caution.
One or both of them got stuck in sand and had to maneuver in order to
get out. Opportunity is now at the edge of a huge crater, descending
to
take samples. Could be more treacherous if it couldn't maneuver
without
direct orders from JPL.
NASA channel has videos from Mars fairly often. So cool. Almost like
being there.
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/video/spirit01.html
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/video/opportunity01.html
Betty
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