Comments on: Free at last, free at last, thank Mars almighty, Opportunity is free at last

Free at last, free at last, thank Mars almighty, Opportunity is free at last

mk1gti — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:11:37 -0800

Free at last, free at last, thank Mars almighty Opportunity is free at last. After a several week long struggle, the Mars Opportunity Rover is free from the sand trap many across the world had predicted would bring it to an end.

By: Cyrano

Cyrano — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:27:43 -0800

This is just the first step on the way to the colonization of Mars, then Io, then we meet the aliens with the bones on their heads and kill them by accident even though they have our souls, then I think the Romanesque aliens sell us some weapons, and then we build a big-ass space station and eventually we end up with John Sheridan. So that's cool (And I always cry when they blow up the station in the end.) good news, mk1gti.

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:46:20 -0800

Since the rover began making its way out of the sand trap last month, it has driven enough to have moved 177.2 meters (581 feet) if there were no slippage, and has made actual forward progress of 93 centimeters (3 feet).

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:48:47 -0800

Still, much faster than out of a quagmire.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 00:03:03 -0800

Huzzah!! Go JPL!

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 01:07:19 -0800

I have to say, Spirit and Opportunity are some of the coolest and most awesome robot dudes of all time. They just kick it on another planet, getting in and out of trouble, and we hear about it half an hour later. And they're way past their expiration dates.

By: ginbiafra

ginbiafra — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 03:28:42 -0800

Cyrano: This is just the first step on the way to the colonization of Mars, then Io, then we meet the aliens with the bones on their heads... hopefully, when we evolve into energy-based beings like the vorlons, the soul hunters will not mistake our evolution for death and come over to trap our souls for a million years. ;)

By: fairmettle

fairmettle — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 04:20:01 -0800

I agree with BlackLeotardFront (despite his/her username) - can anyone name a more successful robot than these two?!?

By: pandaharma

pandaharma — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 04:34:31 -0800

Cyrano, I think you're onto something. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. Though, I've started worrying that Opportunity didn't get stuck in a sand trap but rather got a wheel caught on a strange shadowy black outcropping. For some reason, oddly prescient individuals at NASA decided to hide this information from us. Perhaps in the future, they'll belatedly realize the robot's struggle to get free disturbed the long sleeping lurker beneath, which activated the distress signal and thus everyone is eventually in a world of hurt. Oh well. At least NASA and the gov't can mark this spot so that they can dig it up later.

By: steef

steef — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:29:27 -0800

Finally! But at least the sand trap made for amusing animated .gifs. (Plus, JPL's got tiny movies of Spirit's robotic arm, and a big Gusev Crater dust devil.)

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 06:24:52 -0800

Wow. I just watched a dust devil on Mars. Spirit and Opportunity are some of the coolest and most awesome robot dudes of all time. Amen to that.

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 09:12:40 -0800

Mars Pathfinder was pretty cool while it lasted, but it never ventured very far from it's lander. There was a great book written about it called Sojourner: An Insider's View of the Mars Pathfinder Mission".

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 12:34:00 -0800

The work that went in to getting the thing out was pretty cool.

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 13:31:27 -0800

Yeah, I agree re the cool work on getting it out, I've always been amazed at the resourcefullness of the people at JPL when it comes to solving seemingly unsolvable problems.

By: Freen

Freen — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:33:25 -0800

Seemingly unsolvable problems, on another planet, mind you. This whole thing has rocked, and rocked hard for a long time. My hat is off to those wonderful wizards at JPL.

By: marvin

marvin — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:09:03 -0800

I've monitored this for a couple of weeks and the whole mission has been awesome but where can it go now? How many other invisble sandtraps are there on that featureless plain?

By: muppetboy

muppetboy — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:12:19 -0800

yay!!!

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:52:44 -0800

For better or worse, The NASA spin is that they haven't been "stuck" so much as deliberately working a very slow extraction process, and that the aforementioned wheel-spinning at a 200:1 progress ratio was simply the result of a progress method tested on Earth in similar, sandy soil. As for Pathfinder, it's worth remembering that it was a technology demonstration mission in which science objectives were practically secondary. Opportunity and Spirit are ten times the size of the Sojourner rover. Meanwhile, the Phoenix lander (with no rover component) has been green-lighted for the 2007 Mars approach window. The 2005 window is already filled by the near launch-ready Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which includes the highest-resolution camera ever sent to another planet, and a low-orbit mission profile that will combine to give the MRO photography with 1m resolution (compared with 40m for Mars Global Surveyor, and 100m, non-visible, for Odyssey). At last, we'll be able to see the moles on the Face of Mars! marvin: > "If Opportunity gets free, its next task will be examining the site to give the rover team a better understanding of how this ripple differs from dozens Opportunity easily crossed," said Jim Erickson. He is project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Beyond that, they're probably going to look for more (geologically recent?) microcraters like the ones Opportunity found nearby.

By: jon_kill

jon_kill — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 04:47:52 -0800

I can't believe people fall for this.

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:23:20 -0800

Yeah. "Mars." Right.

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:25:15 -0800

jon_kil Fall for what? Perhaps you could clarify your statement so the rest of us know what you're talking about.

By: hackly_fracture

hackly_fracture — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:34:22 -0800

there is no Mars and there never was. fools.

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:49:24 -0800

Well, at least I can dream about a magical place called Mars with mountains that reach into space, canyons as long as the U.S., craters deep enough to swallow whole continents, and two little rovers zipping along like mechanical turtles. At least I can dream . . .