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The cardiac pacemaker was actually created by a Canadian engineer. NASA's contribution was programmable pacers.
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"Ya know what they say about angels... An angel is a supernatural being or spirit, usually humanoid in form, found in various religions and mythologies. Plus Roth fan boards..."- ZahZoo April 2013
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You caught me on a good day...
My personal interest in all this stems from the fact that all of the scientific advancement has occurred in my lifetime. From the X-15 rocket plane and Mercury programs to the ISS and these Mars robots. So I grew in school learning of Mercury, Gemini & Apollo programs as current events. Not grainy black & white pictures and film in a history lesson. As an 11 year old watching the moon landing live in school was an event that I can't ever forget...
People today take so much of what we have for granted... it's pathetic. But I guess you have to have been around before all this technology existed to appreciate it and truly understand how far we've come in such a short time period. Majority of it all comes from two sources... space exploration and Information Technology. I have been fortunate to have spent my career in the forefront of IT and also have worked on a few NASA related projects.
You can ask why waste the time and money to go to Mars... I'd ask why not. What are you going to do sit around watching reruns of Gillligans Island drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer every night or get off your lazy ass and explore the galaxy..?
Go read Carl Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot... if that doesn't inspire you... change the channel I'm sure Sponge Bob is on... Maybe you'll discover a Crabby Patty..."If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...”Comment
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That was less polite.
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Some nice pic's:
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Ok....I'm not a narrow minded, pigheaded moron so I took your advice, went to the library and took out Pale Blue Dot. Just starting to read it. Your coming from a vantage point of being an 11 yr old remembering the Moon landing. I'm coming from the vantage point of a 12 year old whose class was stopped by a weeping teacher who came in to tell us the Challenger had just blown up. There's always room to learn and be enlightened.....I'm not above that by any means. Not sure if there's any need for your smarmy jabs about Gilligans Island, Pabst and Sponge Bob, but no biggie.Comment
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More nerdery
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Hoth!!!!Comment
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apparently our tracking stations here had a hand in it too. tidbinbilla. now that's a uniquely indigenous name!
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Welp! Apparently the mysteries have started:
Space junkies try to explain mysterious image in photo from Mars rover
By Ron Recinto | The Lookout – 16 hrs ago
This handout image from NASA, one of the first images from the Curiosity rover which landed on Mars the evening …
A mysterious blotch that appeared along the horizon in a photo from the surface of Mars stirred speculation about what it might be, as two hours later it was gone.
One image from the Curiosity rover as it landed on the fourth planet from the sun showed a "faint but distinctive" image on the horizon, the Los Angeles Times reported. However, a subsequent batch of images sent from the unmanned rover two hours later showed no trace of the blotch.
One theory put forth by space enthusiasts in the L.A. Times story is that Curiosity had somehow snapped a photo of part of the spacecraft that escorted the rover through the Martian atmosphere crash-landing a distance away.
But to capture that image "would be an insane coincidence," one engineer told the newspaper.
Others say more feasible possibilities would be simply dirt on the lens, or maybe a dust devil twisting far in the distance.
But as more images start to pour into NASA, more is being learned about the rover's pinpoint landing.
In what some are dubbing the "crime scene" photo of the landing zone taken by another satellite, Curiosity is seen on the ground along with pieces of the spacecraft that broke apart as planned on the way to the surface. The photo reveals the heat shield that protected the rover as it entered the atmosphere and the parachute that helped ease the vehicle onto Mars. Also seen are parts of the "sky crane," the spacecraft that carried the rover to the planet, the article noted.
Could the sky crane crashing be the blotch? From another L.A. Times story:
The crime scene photo showed that the sky crane had crash-landed, as designed, about 2,000 feet away—and in the same direction that Curiosity's camera was pointed when it snapped the first photo showing the blotch. The new satellite photo also showed that the sky crane, when it crash-landed, kicked up a violent wave of dirt that had scarred the surface of Mars.
Curiosity mission manager Michael Watkins told the Times if it were the case, "it would be incredibly cool. ... A crazy, serendipitous thing."
Images from Mars have always fueled curiosity.
Remember what folks thought was a huge face on Mars? An image from Viking 1 in 1976 that appeared to show a rock formation with eyes, a nose and a mouth? Later high-resolution imaging and side-by-side analysis proved the "face" to be a mesa, like the flat-topped natural formations found in the southwestern U.S.
As the Curiosity rover readies to begin the scientific discovery part of the mission, maybe more interesting things will be revealed.
Yahoo.com
Photo GalleryLast edited by Nickdfresh; 08-09-2012, 07:57 AM.Comment
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i'll settle for a lizard lookin thing. and some weird insects for it to feed on.Comment
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Apparently in time we'll start to get much more high res pictures.
All this from 150 million miles away and I still can't get my WiFi to work in my kitchen...Comment
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*meme*
imagine time travelling only ten years ago and showing them your smartphone...
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Or you could just take it to New Zealand...Comment
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