Starship Asterisk*

henk21cm wrote:We loose one fifth of the earth mass in this scheme.

Unfortunately this method will not move the remaining earth further away from the sun, since it is at a position (1 AU) and its speed is too low. It will fall towards the sun...

OH NO!!! what have you done Henk??? My torment is intolerable ... now you've given terrorists a blueprint to destroy the earth!!!

Better get to Mars quick!!!

emc wrote:

henk21cm wrote:We loose one fifth of the earth mass in this scheme.

Unfortunately this method will not move the remaining earth further away from the sun, since it is at a position (1 AU) and its speed is too low. It will fall towards the sun...

OH NO!!! what have you done Henk??? My torment is intolerable ... now you've given terrorists a blueprint to destroy the earth!!!

Better get to Mars quick!!!

I don't believe we can terraform Mars or the moon for that mater; (not enough gravity to hold an atmosphere); but we could probably build domed shelters there. Or go underground; but the terrorists would probably go there also.
Orin

helios102 wrote:Something you all seemed to have missed . . .

Not only was this very picture featured on APOD 2004 Aug 3 - with the very same captions - but if you look closely (newest picture is best) at the bottom centre of the image , between the tracks there appears to be a size 10 Astronauts boot print!

Any comments?

I'm ashamed to confess I actually didn't notice this. Normally I've got a pretty good handle on what those robots are up to, but I didn't even notice it was the wrong crater for current events.

Here's a newer version for you in the right crater. More of those messy footprints!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... f1563.html



By the way, expect yet another spectacular panorama from Opportunity in the coming weeks. They've been pulling down around a 100 pancam images per day of the Cape Verde outcrop lately while they plot their next driving moves. There's also a few funny features I've noticed in the raw images that should get Richard Hoagland pretty excited, assuming he's still paying attention. Not quite as good as bigfoot, but it doesn't take much to get that guy on a roll.

I do believe those are the rover's thread marks.
Orin

orin stepanek wrote:I do believe those are the rover's thread marks.
Orin

Of course, but the way it's backtracked and turned, and crossed back and forth over it's own tracks the last couple of weeks makes them look pretty convincingly like footprints at a first glance.

Someone needs to put a Nike sole on some piece of future rover test equipment that needs a good grip on the ground anyway, just to get things stirring back here.

-Noel