Celebrating MER rovers in France !, Spirit & Opportunity : "Nous voilà !" Options

[vikingmars]

Dear UnmannedSpaceflight Forum friends,
MER's success is being celebrated in France !
A special issue of "Espace Magazine" was introduced yesterday on newsstands.

It features exclusive interviews of Steve Squyres ("Roving Mars" book) and of George Butler ("Roving Mars" IMAX film) !

==> Here is the link :
http://www.espace-magazine.net/kiosque/spe...mars/index.html

Order form for those who read French and want to order it (works for International orders) :
http://www.espace-magazine.net/boutique/pd...lletin_mars.pdf

==> Also the French chapter of the Planetary Society is celebrating the event :
http://www.planete-mars.com/

...with 19 NEW free Mars desktop wallpapers on 2 webpages (each one offered with 2 sizes : 1280x1024 and 1440x900 pixels) :
http://www.planete-mars.com/goursac/2006/vision.html
http://www.planete-mars.com/goursac/2006/vision2.html

...AND for those who want to compare the Mars sunset of the Espace Magazine cover with its counterpart in Paris, here are the Paris wallpapers (pics taken yesterday evening)

Enjoy !

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[vikingmars]

Yes no autostich.
Spirit & Opportunity falled in love with Paris : their landing went good...
They went analysing the stones of houses and monuments through the streets, found iron at the Eiffel Tower, water in Seine river and a lot of life (especially at night) !
Mission success !!!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[ljk4-1]

I know this connection is stretching it a bit, but as the French say, Ce la vie and kay sera sera!

In Chapter 12 of Carl Sagan's novel Contact, two of the main characters see a poster
of images from two rovers exploring Mars - while walking in Paris!

Le Quote:

"They approached L’Orangerie, in the annex of which was a special exhibition, so the poster proclaimed, “Images Martiennes.” The joint American-French-Sovict robot roving vehicles on Mars had produced a spectacular windfall of color photographs, some—like the Voyager images of the outer solar system around 1980—soaring beyond their mere scientific purpose and becoming art. The poster featured a landscape photographed on the vast Elysium Plateau. In the foreground was a three-sided pyramid, smooth, highly eroded, with an impact crater near the base. It had been produced by millions of years of high-speed sandblasting by the fierce Martian winds, the planetary geologists had said. A second rover—assigned to Cydonia, on the other side of Mars—had become mired in a drifting dune, and its controllers in Pasadena had been so far unable to respond to its forlorn cries for help."