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Eight Years.
ElkGroveDan
post Jan 3 2012, 09:14 PM
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Eight years. I mean seriously -- eight years!


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vikingmars
post Jan 3 2012, 09:31 PM
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QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Jan 3 2012, 10:14 PM) *
Eight years. I mean seriously -- eight years!

8 years ?!?! As Mars veterans, we used to measure the life of a lander until its last transmission from Mars... Unfortunately, no more.
So : Spirit lived until its mission Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010), and no communication has been received from Spirit since.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your enthusiasm : it warms us a lot smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif
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Astro0
post Jan 3 2012, 09:42 PM
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While they are separate vehicles, I tend to think of Spirit and Opportunity as one mission.
We can honor Spirit's anniversary and journey while at the same time Opportunity continues the mission to explore Mars.
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Stu
post Jan 3 2012, 09:57 PM
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Eight years... unbelievable...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWk-umZm86U

Never dared hope - not even in my most optimistic, most misty-eyed moods - that eight years after they landed, one of the rovers would still be roving. Make no mistake, downstream, in the deep future, the achievements of the rovers, and the men and women behind them, will be marvelled at. And historians will trawl the posts and threads of UMSF, and wish that they'd been here to live through these magical days with us.


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climber
post Jan 3 2012, 10:49 PM
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Still very emotional watching this video. This has been a Life changing day for quite some people including myself.


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Astro0
post Jan 3 2012, 11:49 PM
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As a tribute to Spirit and honoring Opportunity's continuing adventure, 'poet dude' extraordinaire Stuart Atkinson has written some beautiful words which I have incorporated into a new 'poemster' (poem-poster).

Full resolution and wallpaper versions are on my blog.

Attached Image


NB: Before anybody goes blink.gif the figure '8' of the rover tracks is not real, just added for effect wink.gif

Here's Stu poem:

FIGURE EIGHT
Hard to believe the Homeworld has circled Sol eight times
Since the first MER bounced and boinged to a historic halt on Mars,
Spirit followed faithfully soon after by her sister, Opportunity,
Just as Clark had followed Lewis two centuries before.
Babies born bloodied and bawling on that day chase girls
In busy schoolyards now; wide-eyed, Star Trek t-shirt-wearing
Interns who stumbled along the deer-stalked paths of JPL
Now have interns of their own, and peer at screens painted
Picasso-shades by real data beamed from the true Final Frontier...

In a thousand years, when Mars has oceans of retina-burning blue,
And honeymooning couples crump across the snow-capped summit
of Olympus, the names 'Spirit' and "Opportunity' will still be
Spoken wistfully; and tourists from Titan, explorers from Europa
And Hyperion's most respected historians will stand before
The rovers, displayed in all their restored glory in the Great
Museum of Mars and envy us, this generation which saw Gusev's
Rugged Rocks and Meridiani's misty mountains for the first time,
In 2004, the year Earth finally conquered Mars.

© Stuart Atkinson
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Decepticon
post Jan 4 2012, 12:04 AM
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Stu that link was great! Thanks.
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ElkGroveDan
post Jan 4 2012, 12:15 AM
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Brilliant image to go with it. You guys are a perfect team.


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nprev
post Jan 4 2012, 12:27 AM
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Inspired...and brilliant as per your usual, gentlemen. Thank you! smile.gif

Spirit & Oppy alone provide ample justification to establish a Nobel Prize in Space Systems Engineering. Stockholm, are you listening???


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A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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brellis
post Jan 4 2012, 01:19 AM
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Great trip down memory lane! thanks
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Matt Lenda
post Jan 4 2012, 05:12 AM
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Indeed.

Today, I was on shift with Squyres as SOWG chair. At the end of the day, he pointed out that it's tonight that she landed, 8 years ago. As we did after the Columbia accident, we have named some targets on Cape York after some lost colleagues of ours... Watch out for the Greeley Pancam set and Morris Hill. Real beauts.

-m
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Bill Harris
post Jan 4 2012, 06:35 AM
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I've enjoyed seeing where we've been but I'm looking forward to figuring out how it got there. And I'm really inspired to see where we are going.

--Bill


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Eutectic
post Jan 4 2012, 07:35 AM
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To put eight years in perspective, consider that it's the same amount of time that 2020 is ahead of us. In hardware terms, how many of us are using the same computer we had in 2004? The one I used back then no longer works. Early on I remember reading that rover lifespan would be limited to a year or so by loss of battery recharge capacity -- glad that didn't turn out to be true.

Many thanks to the rover designers and builders, without whose work we wouldn't be peering at a planetary surface as real as the one under our feet, and many thanks to this community -- fellow travelers on this exploration largely overlooked by the general public.
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Stu
post Jan 4 2012, 09:12 AM
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HUGE thanks to Astro0 for the beautiful picture, which is a very fitting tribute to the mission. He had to work very quickly there because I was late with my part of the project, and it looks **beautiful**!


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remcook
post Jan 4 2012, 09:22 AM
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pfff crazy! It seems like yesterday. Amazing achievement.
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