ARRRGH! O'Keefe needs to right the ship over there. Are NASA just not hiring the same caliber of people they got 40 years ago? I bet part of the problem is the "Better, Cheaper, Faster" mantra. Pick two, 'cause you'll never get all three. Sh!+, hire me. I do enough research software that big defense contractors are stunned at the amount of research we complete with what little budget my gov't lab has. Other labs around here do 1/4th as many studies with twice as many people (and probably three times our budget, too).
I was just cracking up a couple of days ago listening to NPR and hearing that the scientists had named the rock "Adirondack". Naming rocks, these guys really need to get out more... Bummer if after only a couple of days, the thing goes caput though.
Worse! But that's because I can afford to sacrifice that in exchange for speed - since the software never leaves the lab, I'm in complete control of the environment it runs in. OS, clock speed, which inputs are active when, all of it. Essentially, when you map all possible input combinations most of them end up being "don't care". There is a good chance that if you were to supply a condition that fell in my "don't care" category you'd actually crash my systems with some kind of pointer error. I don't waste time protecting the systems from a condition they will never ever see. Obviously, you can't do that for Spirit's hardware and software systems. Or somebody at NASA did just that, and we've hit one of those "don't care" conditions. Which is a VeryBadThing when you can't physically hit the reset button.
I'd say that's mostly it. In the 60s we were in a space race that had the nation's attention captured...today, who the hell is interested in space travel?? The space program is dominated by robots, and the only manned missions have little apparent value to the general public other than "Hey look, we're in space!". We haven't had true manned space exploration in decades. Just about every kid wants to be an astronaut when they're little, but when they get older they realize that the uninspired, over-cautious bureaucrats at NASA have turned the space program into the equivalent of the guy who has been skiing for 20 years and never advances past the beginner slopes or the guy you see in the gym who lifts the same weight he did a year ago. NASA needs to capture the imagination of the American people the way it did in the 60s or it'll never accomplish shit.
Damn dirty robots! Um, what value do they actually have to science? We can simulate 0-G conditions here - why send me up there? Its dangerous and really expensive. The advantage of sending un-manned objects is that we don't need to worry about the greatest expense - how to get them back. The family of the Mars rover isn't pining for its return. So why do people need to go up? To float along while we do readings on bugs? While I don't mind man going to space, never forget - In Rod We Trust. You know, kids growing up today don't want to be knights, either. Perhaps that's more due to the lack of need for knights rather than knights being bad at PR and being viewed as pussies.
Somewhat ironically, Lockheed Martin offered me (ie, an electrical engineer) a job at Goddard Space Center building embedded systems on satellites (ie, robots) right out of college. However, they also didn't want to pony up the money to help me relocate to DC from Ohio. What broke-ass college kid has the money to fly out to DC, find an apartment, and move all his crap without help? Man, I went to Space Camp, wanted to be an astronaut, and was so super-hyped about doing kickass embedded EE stuff on space systems that I was totally willing to take the less raw dollars in salary, not even taking into account cost-of-living. But they wouldn't help me move. They flat-out forced me to chose a software job in Ohio instead. Now, it's not NASA, but... it's virtually the same thing. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Again, we're into space...towards WHAT end or ends? Just remind me, then I'll decide whether or not to engage this so-called news.
Isn't NASA supposed to land another rover on the other side of Mars in the next month or so? May be they can change the plan and land it next to this malfunctioned one. It will be awesome to see pictures of this multi-million dollar broken toy!!
Bush is looking for WMD... NASA is looking for water on mars... Dean gives his "I have a scream speech"... Is this decade the 60's turned on its head?
Kindly stay on topic. Thanks. Today's rover news: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040123/ap_on_sc/mars_rover&cid=624&ncid=716
No, it lands tomorrow night (just after midnight EST), so I don't think they'll be changing the landing site.
"Our technician will be at your planet sometime between 2020 and 2035. Please be at home during those years."
Back in the saddle again! Rover resurrects: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/23/spirit.contact/index.html
NASA seems to have zoomed in on the problem, and has established some control over the rover again. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20040124a.html