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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Spirit _ The Press and the Man on Mars
Posted by: SteveM Jan 23 2008, 04:35 AM
I was just about to turn in, when I saw CNN displaying a photo of a rock formation that looked like a man. I checked here and no one had discussed it, which is a sign of real good sense. On GOOGLE news it was only in http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3232035.ece (London) and the Sun.
I apologize for offending this group's sanity by bringing it up but if anyone knows where the image is from, could we get an estimate of the size of the "manlike" rock formation. My guess is about 10-30 cm high.
Steve M
Posted by: elakdawalla Jan 23 2008, 05:27 AM
See http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/01/21/speaking-of-dumb-mars-claims/
--Emily
Posted by: Astro0 Jan 23 2008, 05:32 AM
This is a maddening story and typical of poor journalism.
Here's the real story http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20080103a.html
Anyone with reasonable eyesight can see that this is two separate rocks. The 'head' a small dark rock in the background and a larger foreground rock, the shadows appearing as the underside of the 'arm' and 'body'. The gap between the small 'head' rock and the top of the 'body' rock gives the appearance of the top of the 'arm'.
This is all much more obvious in the 3D version of this same image.
As for size, I'd say that the rocks are little more than 3-5cm.
Sorry, even though I just replied, let's say no more about this, it is not worthy of UMSF time.
I'm angry about seeing these stories in the 'Times of London', 'The Sun' and now 'The Daily Mail'. I've already had a media query about it today 
Astro0
Posted by: elakdawalla Jan 23 2008, 05:53 AM
It's kind of like that whole "Chang'e image is fake" story. It's annoying that this story is getting press attention, but you can try to turn it to good by using it as an opportunity to do some education. Bet you most people don't know about the 3D versions of the images being available. Or that time elapses between the different color-filter images required to make the color version of the image. For that little man not to have color fringes around him, he must have been standing stock-still. These kinds of arguments won't convince conspiracy theorists, of course, but they will be educational to people who just hear about the story and come to you to ask you about it.
--Emily
Posted by: alan Jan 23 2008, 06:01 AM
Previous sighting of the man
http://z.about.com/d/paranormal/1/0/s/A/patterson_bigfoot_lg.jpg
Posted by: angel1801 Jan 23 2008, 06:21 AM
Goes to show that the reporting standards of the mass media cannot always be trusted. Remember the mass media reports on such stories to sell papers and to get you watching their news broadcasts or visiting their websites.
Good people ask questions about every report delivered by the mass media.
But I fear it is already too late. I bet R1chard H0ag|and has already jumped upon this and will declare that feature is "artifical" and will blurb on about on it on his internet site.
Posted by: Shaka Jan 23 2008, 06:22 AM
Whooops! Where did you get that?
That was one of my bad hair days. 
Sorry. Totally OT for Mars.
Posted by: nprev Jan 23 2008, 07:33 AM
Humph--typical meatbag vanity.
These guys all wish they could find a human made out of minerals, even if he was a shrimp; they'd be one step closer thereby in their squishy minds to achieving my manifest metallic perfection, further enhanced by extensive dolomite content...
Posted by: djellison Jan 23 2008, 08:52 AM
We were reluctant to let this topic happen at UMSF - but over my morning tea ( Dan - what were you thinking! ) I figure we can so the same for this as we did for the 'puddles' with Burns Cliff.
Lets rip it apart.
Let's identify the location, the size, and give the media some facts.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p1367.html ( top row )
Left http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720343EFFAWCCP2415L7M1.HTML
Right http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720343EFFAWCCP2415R1M1.HTML
Where's that parallax-to-range calculating webpage?
347 px in the left frame, 215 px in the right frame, and approx 13 x 28 pixels in total
Damn - http://copperas.com/merpx/ is broken
Doug
Posted by: akuo Jan 23 2008, 09:45 AM
Are there pancam frames of the rock from different angles? It's small and far away, so this could be difficult to find.
If images from two different places could be co-registered into a 3D animation and this put on the youtube, it would be really good for the public.
Posted by: ustrax Jan 23 2008, 09:46 AM
Bah...seen http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1078&view=findpost&p=14964 in Spirit's good old climbing days... 
Posted by: helvick Jan 23 2008, 10:35 AM
Using Algorimancer's rangefinder utility ( http://www.clarkandersen.com/RangeFinder.htm ). I get a range of about 4.7m +-3cm to various points on the shape and a maximum extent (from the top left of the "head" to the bottom right of the "foot") of approximately 5.7cm.
The thread that prompted Algorimancer to step up and write this exceptionally brilliant utility http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1768.
Posted by: Juramike Jan 23 2008, 12:12 PM
Perhaps instead of discrediting it we can sell it on eBay? 
Posted by: Juramike Jan 23 2008, 12:19 PM
ARRRGH!
Just as I was typing the response above on my laptop with CNN blaring in the background and thinking "nahhh, the media won't beat this to death" I heard John Roberts of CNN repeat the story and show the picture. (7:12 AM EDT)
*sigh*
[EDIT: Repeated 3 times on CNN in the last 30 min.]
Posted by: ustrax Jan 23 2008, 12:35 PM
At least we won't to take one of this when we name that colony New Copenhagen...
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Posted by: djellison Jan 23 2008, 12:43 PM
I've done a post to Phil's BA page
With some good work from a couple of people, we can say with a high degree of confidence that this 'feature' is 4.7 +/- 0.03 metres from the rover, and is approx 5.7cm tall.
It was taken on sol 1367
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p1367.html
It is in every image from the top row
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720343EFFAWCCP2415L7M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720343EFFAWCCP2415R1M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720392EFFAWCCP2415L2M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1367/2P247720425EFFAWCCP2415L5M1.HTML
Visible at the bottom of those images. The range and size were calculated by comparing the left and right eye images.
It is also in these images
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_n1364.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/1364/2N247451690EFFAWCCP0715L0M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/1364/2N247451690EFFAWCCP0715R0M1.HTML
Those are Navcam frames, so a lower resolution than the Pancam frames.
It is also available here
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/false_color28.html
as a JPG
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/images/False/Sol1367A_P2415_1_False_L257_pos_1.jpg
and a TIF
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/images/False/Sol1367A_P2415_1_False_L257_pos_1.tif
There are images of the same area taken from elsewhere - but only from some distance away, and to be honest I don't think I've found exactly the same rock in the other images - That region is in these iamges from 5 days earlier.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p1362.html
Specifically
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1362/2P247283556EFFAW71P2411L7M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1362/2P247283556EFFAW71P2411L7M1.HTML
And a colour sequence imaged on Sol 1363
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p1363.html
Specifically http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1363/2P247365400EFFAW71P2545L7M1.HTML
I've added an image of the rover location on Sol 1364-7 as seen by the rover on Sol 1362-3 to the bottom of the thread listed at the top of this post.
That's just about every bit of information of that site. The nut-jobs will not be moved in their stance, I'm sure, but hopefully the rest of us can enjoy the imagery for what it is.
Attached, the Screenshot in question, and my guess of where it is in the imagery from a fair few metres away.
Update - I think the same region is imaged in these :
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_n1350.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n/1350/2N246218261EFFAVMAP0736L0M1.HTML
Doug
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Posted by: PhilCo126 Jan 23 2008, 01:02 PM
Reminds me of the letter "B" seen on one of the rocks near Viking 1
(The Martians call their planet Barsoom) 
Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 23 2008, 03:19 PM
This whole episode reminded me that I hadn't finished doing the West Valley pan - not much need as there is an official one now, but it was nearly done anyway.
Here it is, including our little friend, along with lots of other funny shaped rocks. 
http://www.canvin.streamlinenettrial.co.uk/mer/index.html#A1366
James
Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jan 23 2008, 04:29 PM
How Amero-centric of me
I hang my head in shame. I should probably walk over to the http://www.foxandgoose.com/ near my office for lunch today and order the bangers and mash with a few pints of Fullers for a cultural refresher lesson. In fact I probably ought to spend the entire afternoon there.
Posted by: nprev Jan 23 2008, 04:36 PM
Anybody ready for some worse news? 
The bloody pic is the current headline story (as of 1634 GMT 23 Jan 08) on the Fox News website. Imagesmiths and analysts, to arms, to arms!!!
Thank God I worked a double yesterday & I'm off today...gonna start drinking now.
Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 23 2008, 04:49 PM
Obviously the papers were just having a bit of fun. I didn't see any serious
suggestions that the form was anything but rock. The Fox News item even
referred to the Bad Astronomer debunking of the story. I would be
more concerened with the factual error made by Fox News:
"...panoramic photograph snapped on the edge of Mars' Gusev crater...."
Posted by: nprev Jan 23 2008, 05:49 PM
Problem is, though, that this sort of "fun" royally messes up the general public's perceptions and expectations of space exploration, at least here in the US. I'm off today, but I'm expecting a LOT of e-mails & questions about this when I go in tomorrow, to say nothing of the smug assertations of our resident consipracy theorists, who will view the article itself (if they even read it) as spin control.
All in all, this is just putting a lot of gas in somebody named Richard's tank...to the great detriment of education & outreach. It's irresponsible sensationalism, and certainly does not meet the intent of journalism, which is to report facts.
Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 23 2008, 06:53 PM
At least the "Mars Rock Man" story will wake a lot of people up to the
fact that there are still operating rovers on Mars. I'm sure the great
majority of people will say "neat rock - looks like a man" just as they
do for similar interesting rocks on Earth. Unfortunately it takes a fun,
quirky, irreverent story like this to perk most peoples' interest in Mars
exploration. Not a bad thing, I just wish the articles had included more
on what the rovers' actual accomplishments in addition are.
Posted by: nprev Jan 23 2008, 07:36 PM
Maybe I do worry too much, $0.02. Maybe I'm not giving people enough credit to see beyond the hype; hope so. Tell ya how it goes tomorrow... 
Posted by: Ian R Jan 23 2008, 07:46 PM
I'm disappointed in the BBC's report on this story; it gives the nutcases a certain amount of credence they really don't deserve:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205004.stm
Posted by: Juramike Jan 23 2008, 08:16 PM
...and a buddy of mine sent me this today. Claims it's photographic evidence of water on Mars:
Photo_evidence_of_water_on_Mars.bmp ( 792.24K )
: 1160
(original source believed to be www.diaporamas-a-la-con.com)
Posted by: nprev Jan 23 2008, 08:32 PM
FINALLY, after all these years...I can die a happy man now, thanks, Mike!
Posted by: PDP8E Jan 23 2008, 09:28 PM
This ruckus of nutty speculations reminds me of the old saying:
"A lie will have sprinted half way around the world
Before the truth can get its shoes on"
keep the pressure on!
Posted by: fredk Jan 23 2008, 10:00 PM
And don't forget to tie your laces.
Posted by: vmcgregor Jan 23 2008, 10:14 PM
You're all so wonderful to take on this topic. I'll be referring media calls (plenty coming in) to these pages for a dose of reality. Thanks again.
Veronica
Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jan 23 2008, 10:52 PM
I wouldn't want to have your job today Veronica. We'd be happy to pick up those inquiries. Go right ahead and send them here. Or if you need an easy quick quote, "It's just a rock for Pete's sake! " Dan Brennan, Amateur Mars Rover Enthusiast, Elk Grove, CA
Posted by: nprev Jan 24 2008, 12:21 AM
Good quote, Dan, and my complements on a carefully-chosen expletive phrase...
Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy taught me a new word today; also worth the attention of any media people you refer here, Veronica:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Posted by: Eric Hartwell Jan 24 2008, 01:31 AM
Stop the presses! If you take a closer look at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10214: Spirit's West Valley Panorama (False Color), you can find more of Bigfoot's buddies. The polar bear and duck are neat, but my favorite is the high-speed turtle zooming through the dust ...
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Posted by: Greg Hullender Jan 24 2008, 01:36 AM
I think the one labeled "Gonzo" is really a tree stump, proving Mars once had trees AND lumberjacks.
--Greg :-)
Posted by: Astro0 Jan 24 2008, 02:04 AM
Eric - that's brilliant!
I'm going to use that sets of images in my talks over the weekend.
Astro0
Posted by: nprev Jan 24 2008, 05:19 AM
My complements on what should be called the "Rorschach Montage" of Home Plate, Eric!
It is indeed weird how much we seem to recognize (or form) familiar patterns from chaos; probably an artifact of the predator/prey dynamic when we were still in the wild state, not that long ago in evolutionary time. In that light, this is yet another adolescent crisis to get over. We'll stop seeing faces when we really see the faces (if any) of things someday that aren't of Earth...and they damn sure ain't on Mars.
BTW, thinking of frying up some pancakes this weekend with "life"-sized images of Marsminibigfoot...$200 (cheap!) each for any takers...(That was so cynical that I'm near tears, because I'm certain that I'd get a few offers.)
Posted by: vmcgregor Jan 24 2008, 06:44 AM
Thanks again for all the support! Eric, the montage is fantastic. If we get any more calls on the rock tomorrow, I can ask whether they mean the duck, the polar bear or the turtle. 
And I'll be sure to credit you and umsf.
Posted by: helvick Jan 24 2008, 07:37 AM
Eric that's absolutely fantastic. I may need a new laptop now though as I spat my morning coffee all over the keyboard.
Brilliant.
Posted by: Tesheiner Jan 24 2008, 09:09 AM
Great job Eric!
Emily, I think you should add that one to your blog.
Posted by: Doc Jan 24 2008, 10:28 AM
Ive gotta hand it to you Eric. That Big foot sure looks ready to pounce!
I think he is the reason for that skull:-)
Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 24 2008, 10:53 AM
I think the reason for the skull is the monster poking it's head out of the bank just to the left...
Hey this is fun, has anyone noticed the nice model of Concorde on the far right just above Oppy's solar panel.
Nice work finding these 'artifacts' Eric. - I never thought I'd say that on this forum!
Posted by: Doc Jan 24 2008, 11:12 AM
May I present the best psychlological test for a corrupted head.
Based on Paraidolia.
Works every time, guarenteed.
Here is what u do; If you see dolphins inside a bottle then ur head is OK! If you see two people......no need to panic (it got a lot people in my family in an uncomfortable position).
Test ur head now (before its too late:-)---> http://www.alundgren.se/files/bottle.jpg
Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2008, 11:52 AM
Emily has done the full smackdown on this at her blog, which Phil's picked up and reposted at badastronomy.org - There was one comment asking about the shutter speed of Pancam and how it wouldn't show motion. Just to mirror here what I've clarified there - it's not the duration of the exposure that's the problem, it's the time taken between the three filtered images. Plus, the Navcam images taken a few sols before. I had a look at some typical Pancam images, and exposures of 256ms are fairly normal.
Doug
Posted by: climber Jan 24 2008, 12:05 PM
The message in french says "Love message from dolphins".
I know it. I've been told that young children can only see dolphins because their mind cannot process what they don't know about (my son is now 13 and he didn't see the dolphins
).This make me wonder : since we're on Mars, we're supposed to see Little Green men" instead of "Little men" and it's may be because we do NOT know how they look like that we do NOT see them.
Keep looking friends, they MUST be somewhere in the nearly 200.000 pictures (easier if they were standing near the Sundial actualy!)
Posted by: climber Jan 24 2008, 12:17 PM
I agree !!!
Can you bring it closer to the solar panel so they can pickup some wind ?
jamescanvin : Nice work finding these 'artifacts' Eric. - I never thought I'd say that on this forum!
When it's said there's work worth a one generation scientists to decipher all MER data, I gess there's also worth one generation UMSFers to follow Eric's exemple.
Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2008, 12:40 PM
high speed turtle is my favorite by miles - love it
Doug
Posted by: MichaelT Jan 24 2008, 03:51 PM
The German tabloid "Bild" also picked up the story... How unexpected...
http://www.bild.t-online.de/BILD/news/vermischtes/2008/01/24/mars/gruene-maennchen,geo=3564088.html
"Experts argue - who or what is there on Mars?"
Well, ok, they don't seem to take it entirely seriously as they speculate whether or not it could be a Marti**, the Yet* or, quite tasteless, missing Steve Fossett. Anyway, they also asked their "experts" who think the first thing could be true.
Thanks Eric! The turtle is my favorite, too And the ??!!!??? immediately reminded me of the Dark Angel from Arches NP!
Michael
Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 24 2008, 04:08 PM
Really? I thought it was obviously an Easter Island head.
edit: After googling Dark Angel, I'll have to change my "Really?" to "Really!"
http://www.moab-utah.com/archesgallery/
Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2008, 05:33 PM
Eric's image has just got us FARK'd. Currently >6k views on the image, and the largest bandwidth spike UMSF's ever seen.
Doug
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Posted by: ugordan Jan 24 2008, 06:01 PM
Too bad that feat is all thanks to a subject like this.
Posted by: volcanopele Jan 24 2008, 06:12 PM
Perform four years of great geology on Mars, and people will still remember, "Didn't they find Bigfoot there?"
That's it! All future image captions of Titan will refer to the Bigfoot footprint-shaped lake, the lava flow that's shaped like a giant letter Y, the spade-shaped lake, the W-shaped dark smooth area, the Palm-tree shaped dune-y area, the Spaghetti monster, the giant duck, the lion-shaped sea, and the multitude of large dragons (yes, Titan is where dragons come from...)
Posted by: ugordan Jan 24 2008, 06:15 PM
... and don't forget Halloween cats!
Posted by: jasedm Jan 24 2008, 09:01 PM
Wow!
Can't help commenting that the title of this thread (I'm presuming) has drawn 185 visitors to UMSF (having just looked at the portal stats) This is more than double the visitors during the recent first Mercury flyby by Messenger.
The power of the popular press never ceases to amaze me - several tabloids here in the UK have carried this story today.
It reminds me of an article about the in cyd**ia that appeared in a tabloid newspaper here 6 years after the image was actually taken.
Posted by: climber Jan 24 2008, 09:22 PM
Can't help commenting that the title of this thread (I'm presuming) has drawn 185 visitors to UMSF (having just looked at the portal stats) This is more than double the visitors during the recent first Mercury flyby by Messenger.
As soon as they hit the "paypal" button, that' ok
Doug, you know what we have to do now regarding "UMSF @ 4 years old and 100,000 posts, Milestones and futures".
Well, seriously, this is amazing how much we are absolutely out of the purpose of this Forum with this but as Emily could say "this is educational" and I fully agree on this.
Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2008, 09:30 PM
We peaked at >350 guests earlier today, probably higher as I didn't check till after the peak on the bandwidth graph.
This is why we need a dedicated server before Phoenix
Doug
Posted by: helvick Jan 24 2008, 09:36 PM
It was at 366 users on line earlier just as I was discussing server capacity with Doug, that was at around 5PM GMT, just after it hit Fark. I didn't notice any slowdown in performance - did anyone else?
Posted by: jasedm Jan 24 2008, 10:52 PM
511 visitors as of a few minutes back- that's quite something.
Doug - Why do you think Phoenix is going to elicit such a response? Messenger has been very much in the news of late , and the MER's/Cassini are quite high-profile even now...
Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jan 24 2008, 11:02 PM
Even if just our membership alone spends 30% more time here that would be an increased load on the server. And Phoenix of course is "Mars" and it's a "lander" and it's "Searching for life" ... all way more interesting for the POL and the popular media than a Mercury flyby.
Posted by: djellison Jan 24 2008, 11:09 PM
I've deleted a few posts. If you're going to identify other funny objects within the same pan, the sarcasm has to be obvious - or quite simply we can be copy and pasted and seem exactly the same as the people and places that spread the nonsense this thread explicitly exists to dispel.
Meanwhile - Phoenix is the first Mars lander since this place was formed. It would be naive to imagine we're not going to attract a lot of attention and thus traffic during that time. It would thus be irresponsible to not ensure the forum is on a platform that can handle that load. We're currently on a hosting package that if we become too busy, the host can simply turn us off. That's not a good place to be with potential heavy traffic.
Doug
Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jan 25 2008, 12:16 AM
Is it just the image being grabbed or are they actually visiting the page?
Posted by: Captain-S Jan 25 2008, 08:06 AM
http://www.bild.t-online.de/BILD/news/vermischtes/2008/01/24/mars/gruene-maennchen,geo=3564088.html
"Experts argue - who or what is there on Mars?"
Well, ok, they don't seem to take it entirely seriously as they speculate whether or not it could be a Marti**, the Yet* or, quite tasteless, missing Steve Fossett. Anyway, they also asked their "experts" who think the first thing could be true.
Thanks Eric! The turtle is my favorite, too
And the ??!!!??? immediately reminded me of the Dark Angel from Arches NP!Michael
Yes, and the Mars-Rover is named "Messenger"
Sorry Spirit...
Posted by: MichaelT Jan 25 2008, 09:27 AM
Sorry Spirit...Oh, yeah! I completely missed that mistake.
Michael
Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 25 2008, 09:57 AM
The FARK link point to the thread, not directly to the image.
Posted by: imipak Jan 25 2008, 07:01 PM
...or the http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=127... goodness, if that's the size of their handsets, I'd hate to see the table it sits on.
Posted by: vmcgregor Jan 26 2008, 02:29 AM
I thought you might like to see this story, from today's El Mercurio newspaper in Santiago, Chile.
The headline is: Vacas, patos y hasta Jabba the Hutt aparecen en foto de Marte
Or in English: Cows, ducks and even Jabba the Hutt appear in photo of Mars
The reporter called me about sasquatch, but I was able to direct her to this thread and Eric's montage. She loved it. Eric, I hope you approve.
She refers to you by name in the story.
El "astrónomo aficionado" canadiense Eric Hartwell, revisó la misma imagen y encontró variados especímenes en la misma imagen, encontrando un pato, un oso polar y una tortuga, entre otras cosas.
Unfortunately, she didn't give the correct credit on the image. I'm emailing a correction (and she placed me in D.C. instead of Pasadena).
The rest of the story is here : http://www.emol.com/noticias/internacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=290132
I lived in Chile (way back when) so I was thrilled this reporter was interested in the real story.
(If people need a translation, I'll try to do it later tonight)
V
Posted by: volcanopele Jan 26 2008, 02:52 AM
Apparently Mercurians are 15 years behind us in cell phone technology.
Posted by: climber Jan 26 2008, 08:05 AM
The headline is: Vacas, patos y hasta Jabba the Hutt aparecen en foto de Marte
Or in English: Cows, ducks and even Jabba the Hutt appear in photo of Mars
V
Thanks ...Ve...
Nice to see the press can get it right. This article could go in the topic "bad reporting,..." as an counter exemple
Eric's picture is a real break through. I hope it'll be used broadly.
Posted by: nprev Jan 30 2008, 02:12 AM
Well, looks like it didn't even get to be a nine-day wonder. For awhile there, even the local news was running it here in Los Angeles but to their credit they also clearly stated that it was just a rather small rock, and treated it as a fun story.
The challenge is clear. We need to find minibigfeet on all present & future planetary missions to get decent press coverage!!!
EDIT: Had another look at Eric's now-famous montage, and the high-speed turtle has utterly convinced me that resistance is futile.
I knew this day would come; I knew that we would someday meet our aerodynamically superior reptilian sucessors, with minimal O2 requirements. All hail the HST!!!
Hell, I bet he can even roll over with minimal difficulty, unlike some over-rated terrestrial mammals...
Posted by: chrislintott Jan 31 2008, 07:17 PM
Hell, I bet he can even roll over with minimal difficulty, unlike some over-rated terrestrial mammals...
Most of his gyroscopes are out of action until the next servicing mission, so we're safe until then.
Posted by: djellison Jan 31 2008, 07:43 PM
I've ordered mine.
http://www.cafepress.com/chrislintott
The imagination to come up with the phrase ' high speed turtle ' is superb. I'm really looking forward to giving talks in a few months where I can use these as a great lesson in para...paradoil - peradoil..err...screw it - that 'seeing faces in stuff' effect.
Doug
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