I’m going to miss the live reveal, but here’s a thread to talk about it or anything else on your mind.
LESS. THAN. ONE. HOUR. AWAY.
Tune in starting at 2pm ET to see us unveil video of a rover recording itself while landing on another planet: https://t.co/mzKW5uV4hS. You don't want to miss what @NASAPersevere captured during its #CountdownToMars. pic.twitter.com/W84TdaIZKD
— NASA (@NASA) February 22, 2021
Open thread
LuciaMia
Why exactly did CPAC ask Trump to speak? If its anything more than a rehashed “I wuz ROBBED!” Id be shocked.
mrmoshpotato
? Wascally wabbit, wascally wabbit, wascally wabbit
mrmoshpotato
@LuciaMia: To announce he’s fleeing to Mars?
Major Major Major Major
Go NASA!
@LuciaMia: because he’ll sell tickets and is the vanguard of the party
dmsilev
I fully expect that the rover, like most selfie-takers, will have recorded the video in portrait orientation.
cope
Just biding my time here until 2:00 and then a comfy seat in the living room to watch the presser. Video from the back shell looking down on Perseverance as it was sky craned down to the surface should be pretty nifty.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Hater.
Ken
@cope: I for one will be analyzing that video frame-by-frame to find PhotoShop artifacts. Do they really expect us to believe we can land a nuclear-powered SUV on Mars when we can’t even keep the Texas natural gas pipelines from freezing?
Brachiator
I am really enjoying reading how the NASA/JPL team has approached developing Mars exploration devices. We’ve got Percy and they are charging the batteries of the Ingenuity helicopter. They keep coming up with new tricks. Makes me think that one day a human mission to Mars might actually be doable.
It will also be interesting to see what happens with the Chinese Mars explorer scheduled to land pretty soon (May I think).
Major Major Major Major
@Ken: To be fair, its “nuclear power” is in the form of a hot rock in a box.
MattF
@LuciaMia: T**** wanted to, so he was ‘invited’. He’ll tease the attending media by almost saying something almost newsworthy. And the cult will be energized, which is the point of the exercise.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: Pretty sure they outerspacerized the rover. Even If it cost a few more bucks. :)
Patricia Kayden
retiredeng
…ring… …ring…
“Hello”
“Hello may I speak to the person in charge of the elec…..”
…click!…
retiredeng
@Major Major Major Major: Indeed! Go NASA!
Seems like we can still have nice things.
cope
@Ken: NASA gets exclusive use of all the retro engineered alien technology from crashed UFOs. Sorry, government rules.
As for my first reply, the landing video would have been taken from the lander, not the back shell which was already jettisoned by this point. Surprised 14 different posters didn’t catch me on that one. And…it’s 2:00 and I’m off.
germy
@Patricia Kayden:
And then police returned to that area to take “funny” photos of each other.
Ken
@Major Major Major Major: One of these, you mean?
I have always been obscurely disappointed that nuclear power plants here on Earth take that fantastic source of energy and… boil water to turn steam turbines. Which, google tells me, were invented in 1884.
Major Major Major Major
@Ken: I mean do you have a better idea? Haha
Baud
@dmsilev:
And in slow mo.
Benw
Get on with the video, Space guys!
Kent
Mars Perseverance is run by scientists
Texas is run by Republicans
That is all you need to know.
Gin & Tonic
@Ken: I’m so old I can remember when nuclear-generated electricity was going to be “too cheap to meter.”
dmsilev
In all seriousness, one of the big upgrades to the rover itself (as opposed to the scientific instrumentation) between Curiosity and Perseverance were the cameras used for driving and monitoring the descent and so forth. They went from 2 megapixel grayscale to 20 megapixel full color. So, even the “see if we’re about to hit a rock” cameras will be capable of some pretty great photography.
cope
@cope: That was spectacular.
Elizabelle
Wow. And the dust blowing up as vessel approached. Stunning.
Ken
@Major Major Major Major: I’m pretty sure Perseverance doesn’t have a steam turbine, so there are certainly other solutions. I would guess, however, that they’re all less efficient, or at least less cost-efficient, especially in an environment where you can suck water out of the nearest river and dump steam and excess heat into the atmosphere.
trollhattan
@Ken:
Check the kerning on the “rover” labels. That’s usually a giveaway. Also, look for sponsor decals. “Mars Rover by Arby’s”
dmsilev
@cope: Not the back shell, but the sky crane. The rover has some cameras looking up at the crane, and the crane has cameras looking down at the rover (JPL released at least one look-down photo on Friday, showing the rover dangling from the cables). Also at least one camera looking up from the top of the stack, for monitoring the parachute phase of the descent.
Ken
@trollhattan: The real tell is at frames 37:50.23-37:51.07, where there’s a momentary glimpse of the film crew in a reflection.
I think you can even make out Stanley Kubrick next to the camera. I’m running some “Zoom… and Enhance!” software, as seen on the CSI shows, to clean up that frame.
trollhattan
Auto-caption fun: “Chauffeur shoot it.”
Violence on Mars from the help.
germy
If Texas Republicans ran the country, Earth would eventually resemble Mars. A cold, dead planet incapable of supporting life.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: “Just print the damn thing!”
Benw
@Elizabelle: Really cool play-by-play of the landing!
Pudentilla
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=181&issue=5&page=15
trollhattan
@Ken:
“Enhance” button is still best button. Surprised nobody offers it as a Lightroom plug-in.
Brachiator
@Ken:
I wonder how the flat-Earth crackpots reconcile the Mars craft orbiting the planet and sending the probe to the surface?
smedley the uncertain
@LuciaMia: Did CPAC ask, or was it a demand?
Ken
@Brachiator: “Nah-nah-nah-nah! I can’t hear you!
Or maybe they’re OK with Mars being a sphere, orbiting a flat Earth.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Easy peasy. They’re not flat Mars crackpots.
;)
Elizabelle
@Benw: It’s exciting.
I love the phrase “firehose of data.”
I hope we get a firehose of data out of Individual One’s tax returns too. And the superb Merrick Garland finally getting a hearing. Historic day.
Elizabelle
I love that Perseverance is a “her.” Because a sailing/spacecraft, I guess.
Percy Rover.
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:LOL. I hate that! I think there should be a national “landscape mode” education program for everything that is not selfie-specific, i.e., some idjit sitting/standing in front of their camera and not moving or gesticulating much. Action stuff—landscape, please!
NotMax
@LuciaMia
Hm. Being held in Orlando. Gonna incite a mob invasion of Disney World?
//
JoyceH
@germy:
As bad as the situation in Texas is, it at least has supplied a proving ground for Republican orthodoxy. This morning I heard Joe Scarborough say, in reference to Texas, “Sometimes government IS the solution.”
Could it possibly be that Saint Ronny of Blessed Memory was… gasp! – wrong?!
Major Major Major Major
@Ken: RTGs generate electricity by using the temperature gradient between the inside and outside to power thermocouples. They’re unsafe, very inefficient, and very very dirty.
Benw
@Elizabelle: these still photos are amazing; they’re eating BillinGlendaleCA’s lunch! :)
germy
@JoyceH:
Next you’ll tell me that Supply-Side Economics won’t benefit the majority of working Americans.
NotMax
Obligatory soundtrack?
Benw
I have now heard Mars wind! Holy shit
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Ha! That’s so twisted it almost makes sense!
Ken
@Benw: I thought it sounded a lot like Earth wind, except the whispers are higher-pitched.
Elizabelle
And we know people all over the world — including young space geeks in all the timezones, some of whom had to beg to stay up for the unveiling — are marveling at this at the same time.
Outer space as a way of bringing us together, on the green planet.
Gin & Tonic
@Benw: They could be making that up, you know.
I vaguely recall a regular commenter here a while back who was getting all bent out of shape about false color in Hubble photos – that what NASA was showing is not what it “really” looks like, and that somehow that was cheating.
Or my memory is playing tricks on me.
bluefoot
Sounds on Mars! That is so freaking cool. Wind on another planet! Question: will sounds be quieter on Mars since it has a thinner atmosphere than Earth? Will sounds propagate less far?
Benw
@Gin & Tonic: the stills are clearly taken in Death Valley. It’s like they’re not even trying! LOL
Elizabelle
“Science in action.” Suggests incorporating Mars sounds into a piece of music; who will first do that?
Jerzy Russian
@Gin & Tonic: I think that was the dude whom Cole had commissioned to paint some portraits of the members of the Grateful Dead. He (the dude) was full of poop regarding the color images.
dmsilev
@Elizabelle:
https://xkcd.com/2427/
(From Friday)
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: I remember that. The combination of dogmatic insistence and blind ignorance was positively Republican.
TaMara (HFG)
I’m back, what’d I miss? Here’s a 360 view from Perseverance.
Benw
@TaMara (HFG): not much. Landing on Mars. Hearing Mars wind. Excited space nerds. You know, the usual
Ken
The usual nonsense. Oh, and the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s latest whine, so New York gets his tax returns. Which I’m sure will accurately match the information he provided to his lenders.
NotMax
@TaMara (HFG)
Cries out to have mittens Sanders inserted, don’t it?
:)
Baud
@TaMara (HFG):
OMG. I’ve never done that on my phone before. Too cool.
LurkerNoLonger
@TaMara (HFG): that was really cool. I liked the part where Matt Damon came out and yelled at it to get off his lawn.
MomSense
I volunteer to go to Mars on the next flight. It’s been a day.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Test. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet …
This bug doesn’t even fail reliably.
Wolvesvalley
This is a test comment in text mode.
Mike in NC
@NotMax: Yes, Trump is going to incite the mob again and they’ll descend on EPCOT with torches and pitchforks.
NotMax
@MomSense
Even with the 20+ minute wait for round trip signal to have B-J refresh?
;)
Wolvesvalley
This is test in visual mode with Firefox 85.0.2 in Windows 10.
bluehill
@Brachiator: The mind will find a way. Apparently the conspiracy du jour is that the snowstorm in Texas was created by the government and the snow is fake. TikTok videos showing people unable to melt snow with hairdryers and lighters. Of course if the government could do that, then a Mars rover is not so far-fetched.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
Tiki torches and forest rakes?
Wolvesvalley
This is another test in visual mode. I didn’t get a cursor until I hit refresh.
MattF
@NotMax: Ha. ‘Flat-Mars crackpot’ is inspired.
Wolvesvalley
This another test comment in text mode.
Ken
@MomSense: I think I heard that one of the insane billionaires – Elon Musk, maybe? – was seeking volunteers for a Mars mission. It was going to be a one-way trip, though.
trollhattan
So, now that they’re run by a competent person CNN has decided WH press briefings are not worthy of carrying live, for the first time in four years.
So wrong in so many ways.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
And (inevitably) singing in unison “It’s a Wall World After All.”
;)
Jay
Mai Naem mobile
@NotMax: guess he wants Disney and Dominion to both sue him. In addition to NY State, Jawjah, Chicago, West Palm Beach, the IRS and all the various banks.
Benw
As someone who works in a pure research field who often gets similar questions, the long pause after the “why spend money to explore space?” question was so awesome. (The answers were pretty good, too.)
trollhattan
@Ken:
Orbit of the Falcon Heavy carrying Elon’s roadster crosses Mars’ orbit, so at least he has demonstrated the capacity for that one-way trip. Hasn’t managed to land on Mars, so there’s that hurdle along with about a million others, such as keeping people alive and fed for the trip and years after arrival.
“Uh, Mr. Musk, do you think you’ll be in business in ten years?”
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: Love it. They’re ready to sample.
NotMax
@Mai Naem mobile
Soon will have to install one of these at the entrance to M-a-L.
:)
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: @Ken: I’m so old I can remember when nuclear-generated electricity was going to be “too cheap to meter.”
So old that you misremember that – along with most everyone else. In fact electricity “too cheap to meter” was going to be generated once we perfected fusion power. Which has been twenty years in the future for, oh, the last sixty years or so. Most people who “remember” that statement misremember it as referring to the the fission plants that were just starting to come on line in the latter 1950s.
Elizabelle
@Benw: I’d stepped away for about 25 minutes. Will have to catch that one later. Would love to hear their answer to “why spend money to explore space?”
No one ever seems to ask that question about sports, except when stadium funding comes up.
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: You also misremember. Apparently Thuglicans aren’t the only ones who only remember what fits their ideology.
Gin & Tonic
@Uncle Cosmo: When Lewis Strauss coined that phrase in 1954, there is no indication he was referring to fusion as opposed to fission. From an NRC blog post on the topic:
ETA: In 1954, I believe fusion reactions were still highly classified, so he would not have been referring to that. On that I could be mis-remembering.
Gin & Tonic
@Uncle Cosmo: The “dogmatic insistence” was in reference to an erstwhile commenter on this board, not my repetition of Lewis Strauss’ comment.
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Subject to some elasticity on that.
dmsilev
@Uncle Cosmo:
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter ).
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Tired of confirmation of the obvious
MomSense
@NotMax:
ha!
@Ken:
To just make this day even better I just got a weather/travel alert on my phone about rain/freezing rain and low visibility for my commute home.
dmsilev
@Uncle Cosmo: My “ideology” about Hubble telescope images and astronomical imagery in general? Do tell. Please.
rikyrah
@Jay:
Rotten, no-good muthaphuckas.
Elizabelle
Another question about why we explore other planets; how to deal with the cynics. From the Times of London, I believe.
catclub
@Ken: Mars when we can’t even keep the Texas natural gas pipelines from freezing?
who this ‘we’ kemo sabe?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@bluefoot: Yes. There was a Mars audio page which I was looking at a couple days ago which I have now lost. It had simulated what earth sounds would sound like on Mars. It was basically loss of the high frequencies and much softer sounds in general.
Ah, here it is.
OldDave
I’m sure somebody must have linked to this YouTube video before, but I didn’t notice it. Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown on Mars (Official NASA Video).
catclub
@Mike in NC:
The texas power grid?
Redshift
@catclub:
Redshift
@NotMax:
Sigh…
Ken
Well if you’re going to start adding extra conditions, we’ll never get there.
Van Buren
TIL that you can melt plastic inside a dishwasher, if said plastic falls down onto the heating coil. Because of the resulting stench, I had my windows open while it was snowing.
Redshift
There’s going to be an unending stream of cool Mars stuff. I’ll take that as a positive amidst pandemic isolation. Also, I ordered my rover ampersand t-shirt to add to my space shirt collection.
https://www.marsrovermerch.com/products/ampersand-tee-unisex
trollhattan
@Ken:
These goalposts rest on perfectly lubricated casters.
Next thing you know those Marsies are going to want sunscreen. Takers.
Jay
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: Strauss (who FTR pronounced his name “straws”) was an imbecile who should never have been trusted anywhere near atomic energy. No doubt he was only repeating something one of his underlings (who actually knew something about the field) had said regarding fusion power, and was too stupid to understand the difference.
(Also FTR, the reporter’s reference to “atomic piles” also betrayed blatant ignorance. “Piles” referred to the earliest experiments, which involved the stacking of blocks of uranium among blocks of graphite moderators. The commercial power plants that eventually came on line were light-water reactors with plumbing and fuel rods evolved from the units developed by the Navy to propel submarines – nothing “pilish” about them at all.)
ETA: I only wish water was “too cheap to meter” – since the Feds directed the City of Baltimore to completely renovate its water system (which effort has been ripping the crap out of the streets for a number of years), I pay as much for H2O as I do for electricity.
germy
Redshift
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, that happened. Believed the only reason for the colors in NASA images was for PR because people like “pretty pictures,” and would not be dissuaded by any information about how scientists use the color coding. Very odd.
Beeblebrox
@Major Major Major Major: NASA RTG’s are inefficient, I agree. Unsafe and dirty, not so much. You may be thinking of the old Soviet ‘lighthouse‘ thermal radioisotope power sources. The NASA versions are carefully designed to be safe and almost indestructible (info here). The one on perseverance only puts out 110 watts, but it’ll crank out power for several years.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Benw: They’re probably got a full frame sensor, I’ve only got an APS-C on my cameras. ????
Fair Economist
@Uncle Cosmo:
The original reference was indeed to fission. It’s from a 1954 speech by AEC chairman Lewis Strauss, and at the time fusion power was not yet seriously under discussion.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: Dear God.
chopper
@Uncle Cosmo:
even if the old oft-cited quote was referring to fusion, which it wasn’t, the commenter said “nuclear-generated electricity”, of which fusion most fucking definitely is a form. you’re trying to correct someone who said something the way you wanted it said in the first place.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ken: They faked the Perseverance landing, but Kubrik (who’s not dead, he merely went into hiding to work on sekret guvment projects) is such an obsessive about authenticity that he insisted on filming the landing on location.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
Mars city.
Brought to you by Carl’s jr.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major: They also have the advantage of running forever. Like, 87 year half-life forever. And, being essentially a brick of plutonium, they are fairly compact and simple.
Very good for bot probes, but yeah. Those ‘do not tamper/not an access point’ labels? Might wanna take those seriously.
Subsole
@Elizabelle: Our last, best hope as a species is that we can look up at the majesty of space and all pull together, united by our common desire to go kill those fish-faced bastards living around Neptune.
@Mike in NC: As toxic as the Star Wars fandom can be these days, you might not be off by much…
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, 20 MP full-frame cameras. 16 of them. If you’re really bored and want all the technical details, you can wade through this paper. From the overview,
“Parachute Uplook Camera” sounds pretty kinky, I have to say.
Ken
@Subsole: Hmm, so if I were to collect enough space probes… Naw, I’ll stick to smoke detectors and lantern mantles.
Cermet
@trollhattan: While all those issues would matter if anyone had enough brain matter left to really care; the cosmic radiation will turn anyone’s brain into advanced dementia by the time they reach Mars. Shielding is everything and the one issue either Musk nor even NASA has solved in a manner that allows current rockets to deliever a crew to Mars with required equipment/water/air etc and a return.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t that all of our active nuclear power at this time, really?
I mean, there are complexities introduced to protect neighborhoods and increase output, but the essence is hot rocks in a [fancy reinforced] box — so far…
J R in WV
@NotMax:
We HAVE power too cheap to meter in AZ.
It comes from a bank of photo-voltaic cells, and supports a 24×48 2 bedroom home, heated by a tiny woodstove, because I’m not stupid enough to use my batteries to power an electric heater.
We only have to build a fire at night when it’s really cold out, most of the time just being in the house keeps it warm enough. We do have a propane cook stove, also, too.
But the electric [ for lights, the water pump, and all the computers ] is as free as the sunshine!!
dm
I liked the story at the beginning: “My daughter used her GoPro camera to do a backflip, and as I watched the video, I thought… whoa…. Let’s put some of those on Perseverence!”
J R in WV
@Cermet:
So… this is a moment when a metal foil hat will REALLY work, then? Right?!!!
I mean, you CAN get lead foil, can’t you? for science!?!!?
Gin & Tonic
@chopper: True, but it wasn’t worth my time to argue that point.
Kayla Rudbek
@J R in WV: I’ll take a helmet of this once it’s in production: EM shield
Sherparick
@Kent: Exactly