Starship Asterisk*

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070217.html

Has there been anymore attempts to contact Near-Shoemaker, the lander ?

Unless it hasn't been publicized, it doesn't look like any attempts have been made since 2003. I found an update from then on the NEAR project site. Note that at the top the article is dated Feb 23, 2001, but the probe "landed" on Feb 10, 2001 and the article explicitly says NEAR had been on the surface for 22 months when the contact attempt was made. I presume the article is misdated.

The main page also has an animated sequence of images from the descent. Pretty cool.

For 3D views in APOD, I would like to request stereo pairs over two-color stereo anaglyphics, and I'd like to know what others think. The stereo anaglyphic red/blue pictures give some sense of the third dimension, but they are monochrome, and they never seem to look right to me through the colored glasses. They seem more appropriate for comic books than for real pictures. On the other hand, stereo pairs can be in either monochrome or color, and they can show more detail. Your visual cortex isn't always fighting the red/blue preference. Of course, unless you are nearsighted, they also require special glasses to view.

A long time ago, NASA published a wonderful book of the Mars landscape (The Martian Landscape, by the Viking Lander Imaging Team, 1978) that included 3D visuals, all in stereo pairs. If you've ever studied geology, you know that stereo images showing topography are always in stereo pairs. I've thankfully never seen geological representations of topography as red/blue anaglyphic images.

I'd like to petition the editors of APOD that all future 3D views in APOD be given as stereo pairs. Comments?

My personal curiosity just might be enough to drive to to write a letter to the above mentioned institutions..Contemporary reports indicate nothing was damaged hile settling on the planeoid. .Pass the beer

ta152h0 wrote:My personal curiosity just might be enough to drive to to write a letter to the above mentioned institutions..Contemporary reports indicate nothing was damaged hile settling on the planeoid. .Pass the beer

I actually wrote to John Hopkins University believe it or not.
It was shortly after the landing in February 2001 although my memory is hazy.
Never did hear back though it was "hand delivered" by my brother who was attending the University of Maryland at the time Sonofagun probably never delivered it!
I never did follow up, and now sitting here 7 years later maybe it's time.