Endeavour Crater, And again shall we conquer the Remoteness Options

[Astro0]

Ithaca is just what we've been calling the big crater for many years (long-time UMSF'ers know who's responsible for that! ) It's also the homebase for Cornell University. Endeavour is the name that the Rover teams have put forward, with the hope that it might become official.

Astro0

[Astro0]

Stu, I hope you don't mind, but your latest prose stirred me to make up a few new posters using your words.
Enjoy
Astro0

[climber]

What will we be without these two ... (not talking about craters )

[Stu]

Stu, I hope you don't mind,

Mind? As always, I'm honoured!

[charborob]

Here are some very rough straight-line distance estimates to Endeavour (names are ustrax's):
- Banks and Solander: 18 km
- closest "rim" (more like a wide bulge): 13 km
- northern tip of western ridge: 15 km

Obviously, because of the weaving between the ripples that Oppy will have to accomplish, the actual roving distance will be greater. I hope she makes it!

[ustrax]

Astro0, the image in that second poster is simply spectacular!
Definitely one of my favourites so far!

Are we here yet?...

While Oppy is renitent is saying farewell to Victoria, while the guys in the room next door are looking for solutions for surfing the dunes, while the views towards Endeavour remain there, teasing us, before the long trek, I thought that this would be a good occasion to let myself navigate in history’s waves.

Since we are headed to, presumably, visit other craters on the way to our destiny (Mini-Endurance?...), I’ve been doing some research, based on the fact that these features are being named after scientific and exploration ships.
Fascinating stories, foggy adventures, an oceanographer king, legends and discoveries have made their appearance along the way and I’ve retained the name of few of these vessels who have all the conditions to figure aside the already existing flotilla in Meridiani’s Sea of Sand.
Here they are, waiting to sail once more...:

-HMS Porcupine
-HMS Lightning
-HMS Challenger
-Talisman
-Travailleur
-Hirondelle
-Princesse-Alice
-NRP Amélia

Who knows if we will hear about them in future sols?...

[Stu]

Rui... want to share these with you...

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity.

- Emily Dickinson


‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’

- Mark Twain

[ustrax]

Stu, impossible to imagine this mission without its lyrical side...some may disagree, or found curious all the poems, mottos and utopias but I believe that this is what makes of MER such a "human" adventure.

"Was it worth it? Everything is worth
If the soul is not small.
Who wants to go beyond the Bojador
Have to move beyond the pain.
To the Sea, God gave the danger and the abyss,
But it was there that He mirrored the sky."

Fernando Pessoa - Mar Portuguêz

I'll change some words...

"Was it worth it? Everything is worth
If the soul is not small.
Who wants to go beyond the Purgatory
Have to move beyond the pain.
To Mars, the Universe gave the danger and the abyss,
But it was there that He mirrored the will."

[Ant103]

This become a poetry room

Astro0 : great posters and great verse of Stu.

The idea of leaving Victoria Crater gives me nostalgic feelings. This is why I've made the picture, with name incrustation to the landscape of an end of a sol (bays and a fuzzy Endeavour beyond the horizon).

[Stu]

That's really nice, Ant... love the way you've put the name "Endeavour" actually beyond the horizon, I would NEVER have thought of doing that!

On the poetry thing... I sometimes worry about posting mine (or lines from other poems) here, because I am very aware that not everyone "gets it", and some people probably think this isn't actually the place for waxing lyrical about space exploration when it's such a Hard Engineering subject. But I like to think there's room for everyone here: the engineer who takes delight in learning and talking about gear ratios, thresholds and performance limits, etc... the geologist who sees a subtle but serene beauty in the cracks in and planes of a dust-coated rock sitting exposed on the surface... the meteorologist who smiles with understanding when they see cotton wool clouds drifting like Scooby Doo ghosts across the pink martian sky... the dreamer who refuses to accept that something is 'clearly impossible' and pushes the rovers on with the sheer force of their passion... the poet, like me, who can't create scientifically useful driving maps but can, occasionally, string a few words together to illustrate the drama and excitement of this amazing, thrilling time, and help people look beyond the rovers' polished metal to glimpse the very human hearts beating within them...

I know, I know, there I go again. I know they're just robots, lifeless shapes of metal being driven by remote control from far across the solar system, mindless automatons with no feelings, no emotions of their own, and maybe it is silly to write poetry about them, but it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I realise that we - mankind - dared to dream we could build such machines, then designed them, built them and flung them across the solar system to explore an alien world on our behalf, and are now seeing Mars through their eyes. I can't imagine how Paolo, Scott and Sharon feel as they sit down to actually drive Spirit and Oppy across Mars, but I do know that they won't just think of it as driving a robot; they're exploring, in the truest sense of the word, and, magically, we're looking over their shoulders as they go...

We might not reach Endeavour. But we might. We just might. But whatever happens, Oppy won't set off on her long drive alone; we'll all be walking alongside her, in spirit at least, keeping her company, trekking south across the great plain of Meridiani towards a new horizon and a new adventure. We'll all find something different to thrill and excite us along the way, making new pictures, writing new poems and creating new maps along the way. And in a hundred years time, when Oppy rests in the Museum of Exploration on Mars, and is seen every sol by hundreds of fascinated visitors, they'll look back on this time and envy us - us! - for accompanying her on her journey.

[Tesheiner]

I know, I know, there I go again. I know they're just robots, lifeless shapes of metal being driven by remote control from far across the solar system, mindless automatons with no feelings, no emotions of their own, <snip>

True, but they also are the eyes (and minds) of hundreds or thousands of people transported to mars, and this is what makes this journey so great!

[ustrax]

James, still sleeping?
There's work to be done!
(Pando, are you around my friend?)

Seems like we might be seing some new features in the most recent navcam images:

Or not...I'm a bit lost with the change of position...here's the original.
Is it possible that, from this point of view, the rightmost feature may be located in the rim closest to Victoria?

[Tesheiner]

Rui, that image is looking north so not related to Endeavour. Here's a polar projection of the latest navcam shots.

[ustrax]

Rui, that image is looking north so not related to Endeavour. Here's a polar projection of the latest navcam shots.

I knew I shouldn't have drink that extra cup of coffee...
So...What is it?!
Let's go and have a look?

[climber]

Stu,

You're so right. Just look at the posts before and after your's. There is technic, there are pictures, there is poetry. Even technic can be emotional. Perfect exemple in only a few posts.
What I love here is the alternance. What I love is: you never know which one you'll get before opening a post.