The Mars rover Spirit has made a full recovery !

[frogfromthenorth2]

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2004
2245 GMT (5:45 p.m. EST)
The Mars rover Spirit has made a full recovery from the computer illness that sidelined the craft more than a week ago, officials report.

"We have confirmed that Spirit is booting up normally. Tomorrow we'll be doing some preventive maintenance," mission manager Mark Adler said today.

"To be safe, we want to reformat the flash and start again with a clean slate," Adler said. That reformatting is planned for Monday. It will erase everything stored in the flash file system and install a clean version of the flight software.

Spirit will finish the study of its first rock, nicknamed Adirondack, before moving on later this week.

[aquart]

1. I'm so happy.

[mn9driver]

2. I wonder if they could do that for my computer, too? nt.

[proud patriot]

3. YES ! !

Cool

[theHandpuppet]

4. Great news!

Thanks for the update. :)

[frogfromthenorth2]

6. Updates on the rovers are my mission.... I love that stuff.....

:-)

[Heyo]

8. Im with ya there, frog!

:toast:

Heyo

[tridim]

5. Awesome news!

Now they can finally drive on over to the "magic carpet" area and check it out. ;)

[yowzayowzayowza]

7. Link?

n/t

[Heyo]

9. A GREAT place for updates is..

www.spaceflightnow.com

That's where I keep up to date, also there's a new conference weekdays at noon eastern on NASA TV, which can be accessed from www.nasa.gov/home

Heyo

[yowzayowzayowza]

10. Kule!!

thx.

[chasqui]

11. I hate to be Sour Grapes

But this is a PR stunt by NASA to keep the interest up in this thing. They depend on us, the taxpayer, for political will to fund the boondoggles that keeps them afloat, and with a purpose.
So keep celebrating.

[Shadder]

12. I'm sorry

But you are just so bloody wrong.

[chasqui]

17. Care to tell me WHY I am wrong?

[Shadder]

36. Why bother?

I truly doubt that it would make any difference with you.

[UCLA02]

16. I'm sorry but...

You are so bloody right.

Ask the guy on the street I gave 50 cents to today in downtown LA if he gives a shit that the hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on a Mars rover(on edit--sorry...TWO Mars Rovers) with shaky software to get a few pictures.

Money well spent while trillions of dollars in debt and millions of homeless and hungry? I don't think so.

Someone convince me otherwise, please.

[frogfromthenorth2]

19. That is such a narrow minded way to look at the world... I pity you...

[UCLA02]

21. NARROW?!

Because I think of how our misguided spending deprives others of basic human essentials?

Sheesh, maybe you're right. I need to reconsider how it is I am able to look at myself in the mirror every morning.

But at least we've got some cool pictures of some red sand.

[frogfromthenorth2]

22. You really think that money spent on science and technology would

be given to the poor if we were to stop spending it? You are dreaming and you have a simplistic view of the world.

[UCLA02]

26. You prove my point so well...

You're right. It most likely would be used to fund more bomns for more wars, more government intrusions on our freedoms and more government grants for oil exploration in Alaska.

I had no dreams that any money diverted from NASA would go where it is most needed. It would certainly be silly to think that.

[Throckmorton]

40. So, because I am well fed and sheltered

I drafted a response, but it is pointless.

[bif]

38. Better to spend the money there than on the Iraq Invasion

$87 billion my ass.

[frogfromthenorth2]

18. Hello Mr. Party Pooper!!!

Forgot to take your pills this morning?!?!

[chasqui]

20. A $200 million party NEEDS to be pooped on.

We are mostly nerds here, IMHO, and things like these tend to get the juices going. Go ahead, celebrate the fact that the gurus at NASA pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL and rebooted the Rover. But do not let the idea slip by that, as we spend insane amounts of money on this thing, we have some pretty pressing concerns back at home that could benefit from all this money. Like that homeless man that UCLA02 mentioned.
And, perhaps I ought to mention the fact that there are only 2 pragmatic benefits to exploring Mars in this way:
(a) Political capital for whomever is on top.
(b) Resources. This is the kicker, because Exxon is a huge presence in Mining, worldwide.
We might very well be financing a future source of profit for these corporations.

[Yupster]

25. $ 200 million

That's less than a dollar a person in America. Money well spent.

[frogfromthenorth2]

28. You have no

vision and understanding of the world and universe that surround us. Because if now is not the good time to see what's out there, it will never be the "right" time. Because there will always be something that will look more important down here.

We are bound to explore and leave this rock. We should never put that idea on the back burner because we will forget it. It's not in the human nature to stop exploring. It's who and what we are. Kill space exploration, kill the very essence of mankind.

Also, space exploration brings more benefit to this world that you can start to imagine. Technological progress is due to the race for the stars: festers smaller computers chips, robotics, composite materials.... all things that benefit us down here.

Go, pick up a book about space exploration and what it brought us and what it will bring. You'll learn something...

[Yupster]

23. Booo hisss

Exploring the universe is money well spent to me. It's where our future lies as a species.

[chasqui]

24. Keep fiddling as it all falls apart around you.

You might as well re-read 'Animal Farm' while you are at it.

[arwalden]

31. Boo hoo! Whaah!

Ricky-y-y-y-yyy!

:hi:

-- Allen

[Dogmudgeon]

27. Just a few things

My grandmother's cardiac stent.

LEDs (light-emitting diodes).

Doppler ultrasound for medical applications (Cardiology, Obstetrics).

Major advances in optics.

Major advances in meteorology.

Major advances in metallurgy.

Major advances in energy technology.

And you'd better turn the computer off, because a lot of NASA money went into semiconductor research.

The problem isn't NASA. The problem isn't even bad budgeting priorities. The problem is an economic system that is dedicated to high-tech neo-feudalism. You can de-fund NASA, but the poor won't see so much as an extra penny. But with an economic system guided by social justice, we will have a far wealthier society (in the truest sense of wealth) with plenty of money for things like space exploration.

Space Exploration is a lot like Social Justice. It's a long-term dream of Humanity and it should be encouraged.

--bkl

[frogfromthenorth2]

29. Bravo!!! Well said!

[chasqui]

30. Sooner or later those things would have been invented.

Need creates the invention. Necessity is the mother of invention. Not government agencies.
Keep that in mind.

[Ediacara]

34. Without space, those things would be invented in the 23rd century

[Shadder]

37. Your exactly right

Need does create the invemtion and without nthe space program there would have been no need at all for these things to have been invented. So, uh I guess your still wrong huh?

[Ripley]

41. Heh...yes he is still wrong.

It is so funny to hear these yokels talk about how the government really doesn't have anything to do with innovation and technological leaps. In fact, he must mean that it all comes from the private sector. I'd like to see some statistics on how much useful technology has come out of the private sector when there was no government funding involved.

In fact, I bet it is zero. Do they really think any of these corporations would spend their hard-earned (cough, cough) profits on a purely scientific endeavor just for the hell of it?

Gawd.

[Shadder]

35. I could not have said it better myself!

Thank you!

[Nlighten1]

13. Anyone know what OS they are using?

Probably one custom made at NASA?

[Shadder]

14. VxWorks

http://www.windriver.com/

[tridim]

15. It's a custom embedded OS that runs Java

^^ What impeachbushnow said..

[Heyo]

32. I really feel bad for the...

.. 'why are we spending this money when we could feed the poor' crowd..

It sucks to think of how much I'd be missing out on if I had that view...it's a shame, but hey, to each his own.

If it were up to me, I would drastically cut funding for the drug war and use the money to maybe triple or quadruple the NASA budget.

Heyo

[Zero Gravitas]

39. No

The Rover software is written in C/C++

[Bill McBlueState]

33. great news!

While our "leaders" do everything they can to take us back to the nineteenth century, a couple of little robots on another planet continue our mission to explore the cosmos. At least in a small part of the solar system, things are looking up.