Next on NOVA: "Welcome to Mars"

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odysseus145

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"Welcome to Mars"<br /><br />http://www.pbs.org/nova/mars/<br /><br />Broadcast: January 4, 2005<br />(NOVA airs Tuesdays on PBS at 8 p.m. Check your local listings as<br />dates and times may vary.)<br /><br />On January 3, 2004, a rover named Spirit, cushioned inside a pyramid<br />of balloons, hurtled through the martian atmosphere and crash-landed<br />on the dusty surface of Mars. Minutes later, Spirit sent its first<br />message home. NOVA captured the elation of the assembled scientists,<br />along with the much more involved engineering story leading up to<br />the landing, in the award-winning documentary "MARS Dead or Alive,"<br />which aired one year ago. That elation is the starting point for the<br />highly anticipated sequel, "Welcome to Mars." In this mission update<br />NOVA follows the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity from the second<br />they crash-land on the planet to many months into their ongoing<br />mission. The story unfolds from inside NASA's Jet Propulsion<br />Laboratory, providing a unique, behind-the-scenes take on this<br />voyage of discovery, whose primary goal has been to find evidence<br />that liquid water once existed on Mars. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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yurkin

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Does anyone one know when the JPL features shown downed are going to be replayed? Or where they can be downloaded?
 
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arobie

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Thank You for the notification. I really enjoyed watching that last night. What did you all think?<br /><br />I also really enjoyed the first documentary, Mars: Dead or Alive. I did not know about it when it first aired, so I watched it yesterday also. This is where I found it.<br /><br />With the success of this mission, now I can't wait for MSL!
 
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elguapoguano

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ah man, I missed it last night. What were they thinking running the Mars special at the same time as the College Football National Championship game..... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>
 
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arobie

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Also at the same time as the MER documentary was Rebel Billionaire. Its a reality show, and I don't like reality so I haven't been keeping up with it, but just on a whim yesterday, I checked the summary. The host of the show is Sir Richard Branson, the same Sir Richard Branson that has started Virgin Galactic and is going to by 5 SpaceShipTwos. <br /><br />For some reason, Sir Richard is giving away the position of president of Virgin on this show...maby because he wants to put more time into another resently founded hobby. Well in that episode yesterday he had the remaining contestants create advertisements for "commercial space tourism". I was planning on switching back and forth during the commercials of the documentary to see what Sir Richard would say about space tourism, but the documentary had no commercials, and I couldn't turn away from it.
 
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elguapoguano

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Got to watch about half of it last night. They showed it on my pbs hd 3 channel... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>
 
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newtonian

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This episode will air in 25 minutes, 1:00 AM CST, on PBS channel 12, WYES, New Orleans.<br /><br />I will post comments after I watch it.
 
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newtonian

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A few notes and comments.<br /><br />Nova Welcome to Mars episode, PBS channel 12 WYES New Orleans, 1:00 AM, 1/9/05.<br /><br />Documentary concerning the Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.<br /><br />Overview: Ice cream and blue berries. <br /><br />The former needed because of Martian rotation speed, the latter favors water origin.<br /><br />A few notes:<br /><br />Interesting the problems and how some of them were overcome. <br /><br />Spirit's flash memory malfunctioning, similar to a hard drive on a computer. However, Spirit survived by going to a safe mode, called: asleep.<br /><br />Solved hours before Opportunity descends to Mars. successfully -whew! Rover is safely on Mars.<br /><br />Lakebeds, once bathed in liquid water? <br /><br />Recently life has been found in unlikely places on Earth, wherever there is water. Even life forms under Antarctic ice and life using sulfur instead of light.<br /><br />Gusev crater (once a lake)?<br /><br />Meridiani Plateau with deposits of hematite which can be formed in the presence of water.<br /><br />Desire to explore an outcrop of bedrock to determine the geological evidence along the crater wall on the Meridiani plateau.<br /><br />Layered - sedimentary??? Or hardened layers of volcanic ash since most martian rocks are volcanic.<br /><br />Rover has a toolkit that will answer this....<br /><br />Tiny spheres (size of BB?s) litter the ground, close-ups show them eroding out of the rock.- what are they?<br /><br />Spirit's flash memory - too many files. Delete old files and cure problem! <br /><br />However, Spirit's landing site shows no evidence of water. Rocks are basalt, solidified lave. Not in harmony with hypothesis that this is a lake bed. Could the evidence be buried. Head for Bonneville crater, which will take weeks.<br /><br />Opportunity again. OK, just realized Opportunity is the name of a rover!<br /><br />Missing blueberries! Uh oh!<br /><br />Martian day 24 hours 40 minutes. The scientists go into Martian jet lag. Solution: i
 
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