The 18th sounds like a good day to me, as it's my 7th Wedding Anniversary . woot !

Hey its the holidays.....people are on vacation, besides as noted "rest" for the RF wheel is good.

I doubt changes can be made to hardware as the MSL was designed years ago, maybe software wise, some changes can be incorporated.

Also it's just plain bad luck if you drive into an unforseeable dust trap. They were were lucky both rovers landed in pretty good driving terain, both rovers could have landed stuck halfway up a large cliff.........

Ah in my unfamiliarity with that website I did not notice the + sign.

Think positive...the RF digs in, grabs a nice rock, pulls Spirit out. Then we go mountain climbing again with all SIX wheels .

That link does not seem to be about Kepler and 28 papers......

Keep gunning it !!!!

A new website has gone online for Hershel images.

http://oshi.esa.int/

The latest blog entry on the Free Spirit website is Dec 12.....someone invented a time machine ?.....it's the 9th Dec as I type this.....

The 5 1/2 hour trip would make for a cool evening's entertainment.

"is required to place the spacecraft in the science-defined initial orbit about MESSENGER." How does the spacecraft called Messenger orbit around it'self called Messenger. Surly he meant Mercury ?

The explanation is way beyond what Joe Public would understand.

So basically it's overall safer to go in fast and at the low point, is that what he's trying to say ?

My 15 year old stepson had it, no real problems.
I once had the regular flu and literally could not get out of bed for about 18 hours.

Get well soon.

The IDD is not a shovel........so NO.

Sounds like good news. The 2013 option not so good though.

"Progress ?" was there any forward progress, or did the wheels just spin ?

I got the impression it was 1 degree from where they were at, they already said she was at a small of degree roll on the edge of the crater didn't they ?

BTW, what was the normal tilt and roll limit, and the ultimate limits which would make it fall over ?

Patience fellows.....the next drive will be huge...like 2 seconds......

"humans may soon be solar-sailing".
Who on Earth can create such a stupid misleading comment for an artists impression ?

If no engines work, can it get home ?

NO. nearly all missions cost more than origianlly budgetted. Also if MSL is stored, something could happen down the line to cancel other missions, and in hindsight we could say "Should have launched MSL ".
Besides it's got a freaking laser !

I think there is a mistake in the article, it says Earth's twin would have a one year orbit, but from what I see it could be longer or shorter depending on the heat of the star and/or distance.
Is my thinking correct ?

Also I find it interesting that they say the stars are not as variable as they orginally thought.

I signed up.

Ahh crap, how unlucky, lets hope things turn out ok.

The camera's imaged the crater right ? but so far it's only a few pixels on the whole field of view. I was under the impression we would see a crater of many many pixels, like we see from LRO, or was that my misconception ?