Spirit Dies?
 

One Martian Rover got stuck in sand many months ago. Ongoing has been a rescue mission. But nothing has worked.

Some of the most successful American science missions - that was designed only for months and has lasted years - may be in a death watch.

Engineers may be running out of options. See the story at Spirit.

The Martian Rovers were a last 'hail Mary' attempt by JPL to save science. A program created in the 1990s. Pioneered in Cornell University for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in CA. Most useful science from NASA only comes from unmanned operations. Martian Rovers are two spectacular examples of what makes science work. Because Mars is so harsh, these Rovers have done what only robots can due with a few hundred watts of energy. Loss of Spirit would be a tragedy - loss of a real hero.

Master Yoda?

I keep telling you that we are getting too close to things that the Martians don't want us to see. That's why all these Mars missions are failing left and right. It has nothing to do with misplaced decimals by lowest bid contractors!

No, no, no. It's management, Wolf. Management.

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. But would NASA listen?

Nooooooooooooooooo. We like our paradigm just as it is, thank you very little.

It's nature's way of telling you

Not to use passive voice?

No, that you gotta go.

ARTIST: Spirit
TITLE: Nature's Way
Lyrics and Chords


It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you in a song

/ Asus2 - G#sus4 G# / /

{Refrain}
It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong

/ C#m AB / / E B / A - /

It's nature's way of telling you, soon we'll freeze
It's nature's way of telling you, dying trees

{Refrain}

It's nature's way, it's nature's way
It's nature's way, it's nature's way

/ AB BA / /

It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
In a song, oh-h

It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong

... / A B A B A B C#m - /

It was bound to happen. After crashing so many probes into Mars, eventually we were going to get Mars pregnant.

Chortle.

I know it is silly, but I feel attached to those two robot explorers. It is easy to anthropomorphise them.

Even if spirit is completely bogged, it can still do a little useful work, helping us make super-accurate measurements of Mars' orbit.

It will be a sad day when both finally shut down for good.

So, Spirit and Opportunity will lay dormant for decades. Centuries, even. Then some day, they will be visited by... people. Astronauts will bring them back to Terra, back to the Air and Space Museum, back to life!

They will be studied and photographed, perhaps they will have a ticker-tape parade.
:celebrat:

They'll probably be humiliated, tortured, and sold for scrap, by Martian hobos.

:lol2::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Very well done!:thumb:

Not mine, and quite old -- I think it dates back to 1997 when the Pathfinder mission landed. It had its own rover, Sojourner.

You still get credit for bringing it here, sort of a finders fee, if you will.
As a reward, your membership in the Cellar for the next year, is absolutely free. :D

Nice find Pie!

Things are getting grim on Mars. A rover that cannot move can no longer perform science its instruments were designed to perform. It just does not have enough horsepower to get out of a place called Troy.

Dude, stop being so negative. This thing lived how many years longer than it was expected to? It should be celebrated. It was a huge success. But every mission must end.

When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that's the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
Goin' up to the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best.

Thats like telling Rush not to be an asshole. :headshake
Not sure thats ever gonna happen.

Its only negative if you are. Stated was a prediction based in facts. Nothing more.

Now to see negative, classicman just posted another cheap shot attack on Obama and other honest people. He even takes every oppurtunity to brag about the size of his penis - because he can put it in his mouth. See. That is what a negative post looks like - when it is also accurate.

Of the two Rovers, Spirit has been a hard luck story - even when it was in development. Spirit has been operating with a defective front right wheel. Failure of its rear right wheel may be its demise. Nothing but facts.

I brag about the size of my penis because I can put it in my mouth? :eek:
AND thats accurate?

Tom, you gotta lay off the sauce - seriously.

All the bold indicate negatives - glatt is 100% correct.

Cheapshots and wackoman. Synonymous. Another reality with no emotion connotations. It just is.

Its really quite funny - you've said you attempt to post without emotion, but is seethes out of every sentence you write.

Note: my post has no emotion in it either - just fact, yet your response . . .

More cheap shots. And not one useful contribution on the topic: the Martian Rovers. Instead you again attack others.

What criteria do you use to decide who to attack today? How many sided are your 'attack dice'?

There was no attack Tom - chill out. Sheesh.

Morethanpretty asked for a technical solution in the Technology group (Choosing an adaptor). How many times did you post without even one word to help Morethanpretty? You even got your cheap shot Ruch Limbaugh comments in there. And nothing to assist morethanpretty. Why are you everywhere posting your political agenda and cheapshots?

As usual, you are posting without contributing anything. Wacko extremism must make discussion nasty. And that is what you promote constantly.

When should we expect then next cheapshot on Obama? Maybe you could schedule these replies? Rush has a schedule. Why not you?

Nope, again I posted nothing about him - just you and you buddy.
wrong again - I made a simple joke - you and your cronie didn't like it and went off on your own attacks - try for accuracy next time.

When was the last?
I too have a schedule, just not the same as his I would assume. Since I don't know him, nonr listen to him I wouldn't know though.

After being struck in the sand for ten months, the last Spirit attempt to get out caused a third wheel failure. Ground controllers may have changed tactics. Winter is coming. Mars even on its equator is extremely harsh in the summer. In the winter, and without being able reposition, controllers are now speculating about Spirit's ability to survive this winter. So all efforts are being rechanneled into fortifying Spirit for Winter.

Spirit was always the hard luck child. Opportunity, even in development, was devoid of so many problems that plagued Spirit. Fortunately, at the highest levels of NASA, a program that was only supposed to build one risky Rover, instead charged JPL to build two in only two years. To load existing science tools (from a previous program - Athena) onto a mobile platform.

Well five years later, both Rovers that were so risky, were still doing science. Like anything that gets old, Spirit is approaching death. Caps a victory that naysayers have disparaged.

Spirit has maybe one more experiment. Using its radio and stationary location, science hopes to measure Mars expansion and contraction. Hoping to learn about Mars core. For example, why does Mars not have a protective magnetic core so necessary for human survival?

A Spirit death watch has started. Every watt that Spirit can generate will be necessary to save it from winter's chill. Mars is that inhospitable to manned exploration. Which is why programs such as Martian Rovers are where most of our science budget should be directed - and away from political agendas that get almost all NASA's budgets.

Link
Let us hope for what may be after the martian winter, revel in what was 24x its expected lifespan, and look forward to its twin Opportunity which was so aptly named.
No matter how one looks at this, it was and continues to be a HUGE success.

from http://xkcd.com/
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/spirit.png

Damn, glatt, you beat me to it!!

:sniff:

Tw, you have an allergy to the mature mindset -- one so severe that you yourself will never be an emotionally mature person in this life. It is the reason you are as repellent as you are. Without this problem you'd be a lot less so. An observation backed by many data points is not an attack; it is an assessment.

It wouldn't hurt if you actually had enough intelligence and wisdom to be a conservative -- but you can't get your mind around that idea either. No concept of it. It's an added deficiency.

UG - I already responded to that - let it go, seriously - let it go.

Which is exactly what my post said. More important - best science is not from a political agenda - Man to Mars.

Same questions will be asked soon about Ares 1 - a Saturn V on steroids that might need be canceled. A rocket that does what the French and Russians are already doing - for less money.

Due to political agendas and White House lawyers rewriting science, America will soon have no vehicles to get to the ISS. A political agenda almost cost us Hubble. Destroyed at least eight major space science experiments that we will not profit from years from now. The death of Spirit demonstrates why success best occurs when science is not rewritten by White House lawyers. And why such successes will be less than what could have happened. Why the best science comes from robots and unmanned vehicles.

The death of Spirit (like the death of George Washington) is a tribute to what does work - and why. After six years, Spirit is in a death watch. Opportunity continues. We need more science from such superior solutions – some that were canceled or delayed by decisions in the 2000s. Fundamental to many upcoming question about to be asked because after six years, Spirit may die.


BTW, how much power does all that productive work? At one point, Spirit ran all sol on energy consumed in 50 minutes by one 100 watt light bulb. Both Spirit and Opportunity operate all sol on maybe 12 watts of electricity. Survival on Mars is that difficult.

I believe my IBM PC that used the same processor is now asking the same question.

That cartoon is soooo sad. :mecry:

It occurred to me a month back - if the rovers had been fitted with vertical-axis wind turbines, they would easily survive the winter. Mars is the windiest place in the solar system, the energy generated could produce heat.
Hang in there Spirit. Good luck Opportunity. Stop anthropomorphising, Zengum.

From the Washington Post of 1 Feb 2010:

From the NY Times of 20 May 2010: Meanwhile the Martian Rover Spirit may be fighting for its life. Since it could not relocate is solar cells, and since the winter solstice has just occurred, Spirit has not been heard since 22 March.

Lowest temperature for the Rovers is -40 degrees. Spirit was below that temperature when it shutdown. Hope is that Spirit has gone into low power mode - to put all its power into keeping warm. So NASA's deep space network has been listening. Hoping that Spirit will wake up and transmit. If it can generate enough power to turn on the transmitter. And if it survived temperatures below what it was designed to withstand.

Spring is in the air. Spirit has been missing since 22 Mar. Hopefully attitude has sufficiently improved that it will talk again in a few weeks - sometime in November.

It’s been a half Martian year. And still nothing from Spirit. Only thing left is for an official word announcing the loss of Spirit. Of course, Opportunity continues to explore without the so many problems that plaqued Spirit. Whoever in Nasa upgraded the Rover program to two vehicles deserved a big bonus - if not praise. Opportunity existed only because of that decision.

Mars is so harsh that even machines have difficulty surviving. Solar cells - the best we can make - still create only a few hundred watts at best. Sometimes only enough power to light a bulb for a few hours. So cold that (suspected) even electronics fail.

Next year, the rover Curiosity should be launched. Because Mars is so inhospitable to man and machine, Curiosity will not use solar cells. Even the best cells do not make it on Mars. Curiosity will be using radioactive batteries.

radioactive batteries are good, but why not wind power? certainly no shortage of that on Mars, especially in winter. Install a vertical turbine that can retract if the storm is too powerful, and you're good to go.

What a great idea. It's almost as if any old drongo could work for nasa!

...He never calls, he never writes...

Once heard on a TV show called the Rover Brothers:
Mama liked Opportunity best.

Spirit's big brother is coming soon. Next week, the day after Thanksgiving, Curiosity is scheduled to launch for Mars. It's about twice the size of Spirit and has MORE POWER. Ten pounds of high grade plutonium, baby. Don't have to worry about dusty solar cells on this one. Let's hope it doesn't blow up on launch.

heh, I just remembered this:

With the world's best solar cells, a rover would only have maybe 100+ watts of electricity. Solar cell technology at its best is that inefficient. So Curiosity has nuclear batteries to increase power to hundreds of watts. Rovers live on that little power.

If power is that minimal for robots, then how will men (who need tens or hundreds of kilowatts) survive for a few months on Mars? They won't. Just another number that says why this world's best science is done by robots.

Unfortunately a replacement for Hubble (Webb) is in trouble. It should have already been launched in 2010. But may not launch until 2015 or 2018 due to technical problems. That assumes a Republican congress does not (after multiple attempts) successfully cut off all funds so as to protect tax cuts for the rich.

Oppurtunity is still alive and kicking up Martian dirt. The Rovers were a classic story of a good and evil twins. Everything that would go wrong happened to Spirit.