What? No talk about the Mars Rover?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i'm voting it's little green men, just because.

[dogscoff]

Over this side of the pond, we are a bit gutted that our very own British Beagle 2, which landed (or was meant to) on Christmas Day, has disappeared off the face of the planet. They are going to try and contact it again over the next week, but if it does not get in contact by 14 Jan, all bets are off (apparently) - is it the intervention of little green men or just bloody bad luck??

Yeah I know, I would love to have seen it succeed if only to see the guy running the Beagle2 project catapulted to international fame. You know the one, he looks like he should be into organic gardening, real ale and steam engines rather than space-robotics. He's got utterly insane facial hair and a broad west country accent (alroight tharr moi luvvlies?) and I was really looking forward to the look on america's face when he suddenly appeared all over international news. I'm pretty sure that guy would need subtitles on US telly.

Seriously though, how is this rover so different from that one that landed a few years back? That sent back images very similar (to my eyes) to the ones we are seeing now.

EDIT: A Beagle2 press conference to announce the results of the latest contact attempt to be held in about 2 hours... http://www.beagle2.com/news/index.htm

[ January 07, 2004, 11:44: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[Loser]

This rover is much, much bigger. Much bigger.

It also does new and different things.

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by Cipher7071:
I missed the PBS show Last night, but I did see the one on Saturday. It's true that these rovers weigh 50% more the Last ones. The big problem that they had to overcome was that they had to fit them into the same sized capsules, which meant they had to figure out how to fold them up for transport, and unfold them on landing. They had to rework both the airbag and the parachute designs. So far, it looks as though it worked.

Don't worry - the Nova show on Saturday was the same as the one on Tuesday except they showed a single colour photograph.

[dogscoff]

OK, so it's bigger than the Last lander, but how is it better?

[Cipher7071]

The new rovers are better because:

1. It has a much wider suspension for better stability.

2. The robotic arm carries a grinder that is able to take specimens, plus instruments to test them.

3. There is a much larger solar array to power the extra equipment.

4. The computer hardware and software are better.

There are probably other things that I have forgotten, or that weren't mentioned in the show. I guess I'll have to wait for some of the results to be published to learn the rest, unless anyone else knows...

[Loser]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
OK, so it's bigger than the Last lander, but how is it better?

Only weighs 50% more, but is now the size of a golf cart, as opposed to a RC racer.

More room for more stuff. More stuff to do more things. More things doing to be find more things out.

[ January 07, 2004, 16:02: Message edited by: Loser ]

[David E. Gervais]

Anyone know of some good sites to follow the mars mission? The NASA site seems a bit 'lacking' and the photos are actually quite small.

Cheers!

[Narrew]

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Don't worry - the Nova show on Saturday was the same as the one on Tuesday except they showed a single colour photograph.

Yea, quite lame...hopefully things will be shown soon, probably Discovery or Learning Channel

[Cipher7071]

I missed the PBS show Last night, but I did see the one on Saturday. It's true that these rovers weigh 50% more the Last ones. The big problem that they had to overcome was that they had to fit them into the same sized capsules, which meant they had to figure out how to fold them up for transport, and unfold them on landing. They had to rework both the airbag and the parachute designs. So far, it looks as though it worked.