Hint for you - radio dishes work when it's daytime That dish will have radio visibility for probably a good 10 hours a day I would have thought.

Doug

A little piece of Burt Rutan / Scaled Composite's Space Ship 1, that won the X-Prize.

It also won a place in my heart as the coolest looking aircraft ever built, and a mental place of solace so I can go "Yeah, it's 2008 and I don't have my flying car yet...but we do have THAT"

Doug

http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/76250/10_200...it-for-you.html

Bits of my anim in there (wooot!) and video of the spacecraft before LV integration.

Doug

From what I've been able to hunt around and find...

Sample of CT's ashes (1)
Two state quarters (2, 3)
SS1 piece (4)
CD of Names (5)
Pluto Not Explored Stamp (6)
Design idea of a stamp to replace it (7)
CD of personal photos from team members (8)

I'm stuck on number 9. I thought of some fluffy 'the spirit of exploration' type answers, perhaps something Columbia or Challenger related like the HGA's on MER, or even WTC related like their RAT cable covers.

But after considerable thought, I've decided that it must be the MSL budget onboard, thus explaining how it's gone thru the roof.

Gale Crater dem up
http://www.dougellison.com/?p=44#content

Doug

And Antarctica

Hmm - anyone know why those wget bat's I wrote previously would no longer work?

Doug

Steve's Pan Position C is not out of the question yet.

Wahayyy

http://www.astronomynow.com/081016UKcamera...eyetheMoon.html

I'll be going to the live launch event at RAL near Oxford on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning next week

Doug

Some months ago, Andy got in touch to tell me that he had just finished a new book about Mars, and that the UMSF membership might enjoy it. We managed to meet up at his home in Vermont during my US vacation this summer, and get a half-hour interview onto tape. Now the book is released - I've uploaded the interview for all to enjoy!

http://dougellison.com/dougstuff/chaikin.mp3 - 25mb, 27 minutes.

In preparation for the interview, Andy sent me a pre-print of the book, and I can honestly say it's a superb piece of work. It does for the Mars program exactly what 'A Man on the Moon' did for Apollo. String the story together, be a riveting read, and yet remain a reference tool. It should be on the bookshelf of any UMSFer inbetween Roving Mars and Sojourner.

Amazon US link - http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Mars-Intrepi...t/dp/0810972743
Amazon UK link - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Passion-Mars-Intre...t/dp/0810972743

Enjoy!

Doug

That's the point Mike was making. It was probably the best stab we could have without knowing the exact properties of the soil in advance.

Doug

It's more complex than that - it has several instruments, each of which will have one or more CCD's of their own.

For ACS, for example, there are a swath of different specs - http://adcam.pha.jhu.edu/instrument/overview/

Totally agree. It's as far off now as it was when first thought of.

Doug

I was fortunate enough to read a preview copy. It's bloody amazing. And for those who are interested - I actually did a short interview with Andy a few months back ( after the final draft - but before it hit the printers ) that I'll be putting online this weekend!

Doug

Loads. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what they're actually for.


Doug

I think this one might be more centred on Endeavour itself, rather than the route. They'll arrive soon enough.

It was only taken a week or so ago. I'm hoping the HiWeb guys manage to maybe get it into next weeks release.

It's not out yet - they were in Squyres' DPS presentation on Tuesday evening.

With five wheel drive?

It's not 8 bits/sample

(you said please)

If it's roughly the same as the '98 one, the ADC is 12bit.

Prepare to be unamazed by the quality. http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects...microphone.html

Cone Crater probably isn't a good example, given that they couldn't really find it and never made it

Put it this way - if I had to make a choice between stop 'C' - and Explorer crater - I would say 'C'. You have to draw a line somewhere, really.

Doug

If we stop every time someone says 'that's interesting' between here and Endeavour - it'll take 2,000 years, not 2.

In his DPS presentation yesterday, Steve suggested there would be one stop after this one - (C on the attached image) and then we're gone.

Do we think the Exploratorium is definitely a bit broken? I have people I can tell, but I'm only telling them if I can specify what the problem is.