Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mars Curiosity's first images

mars.jpl.nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 176 posts

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#71

Post by mturmon »

haeikou wrote: post #11

I had the impression that the whole "control" room was nothing but show. Estimating the travelling times of a radio wave, nobody on earth could have had any control about the spacecraft, and none of the engineers in the control room could have done anything other than watch. So if anybody is more involved into the mission than I am ... is my impression correct, or were there actual fallback mechanisms that these peop…

EDL is scripted, but there has been activity before tonight, and as another poster said, there is activity after landing. As the cruise phase comes to an end, there have been more and more tweaks to get the landing ellipse as tight as possible. In addition, there are system checkouts, and coordination of the orbiters that relay telemetry, in advance of the landing. It was not at all certain that the images could be produced right away.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#72

Post by owyn »

haeikou wrote: post #11

I had the impression that the whole "control" room was nothing but show. Estimating the travelling times of a radio wave, nobody on earth could have had any control about the spacecraft, and none of the engineers in the control room could have done anything other than watch. So if anybody is more involved into the mission than I am ... is my impression correct, or were there actual fallback mechanisms that these peop…

Ugh. If you've ever worked on a project with more than 1 person, you'd understand why... it's about the team and the work they'd done over the last few years. Even if they had no direct "joystick" control over the procedure, there was plenty of work happening immediately after the landing. I'm sure most of those people didn't have to actually be there for that work, but anybody working on the project wants to be there...

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#73

Post by pinaceae »

joshontheweb wrote: post #20

What innovations from this vehicle can we expect to see trickle down into the consumer space?

the realization that none of the people involved in making this happen will ever be getting 1b dollars by facebook in a buyout for their work.

the realization that none of the people involved in making this happen will ever be on a Forbes 500 list.

and still they did it. because they love it, it is progress, science, exploration. and not a way to ruin pics with a filter.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#75

Post by mikeleeorg »

jlgreco wrote: post #66
andrewfelix wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So glad I watched. Anyone else hear the F bomb and 'Holy Shit' ?

I liked that bit. Drove home the humanity of the people who had just accomplished something that only a few thousand years ago was thought to be in the domain of gods. That we as a species have come so far but still retain our sense of self is fantastic.

I loved the humor from the MarsCuriosity Twitter account too.

http://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity

You could totally they were having a great time there.

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#76

Post by rhplus »

andrewfelix wrote: post #56
patdennis wrote: post #2

My god, the energy in that room was amazing. Just watching how happy they were was worth staying up late for.

So glad I watched. Anyone else hear the F bomb and 'Holy Shit' ?

There must've been some cathartic cursing in NASA mission control in 1969, right? They just didn't stream it live...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/july-21-1969,10515/

Re: Mars Curiosity's first images

#77

Post by lightcatcher »

artursapek wrote: post #5

From a screen recording I took: http://i.imgur.com/C5Y6P.jpg I actually shed a tear. That was beautiful. Edit: Raw images being put on Twitter by NASA: http://p.twimg.com/Azl6LRUCMAAU1GK.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl9hyXCEAE5_Hw.jpg:large http://p.twimg.com/Azl7LXOCUAAJT5z.jpg:large

After loving the emotional response from the team, I actually opened one of these images in my browser and it hit me: there are bits in the memory of my computer right now that are a function of bits on Mars.
Post reply on HN