PSP, It's coming... Options

[tuvas]

I actually understand alot better than you'd think, beleive it or not. I was one of those who watched the launch of MRO, actually. Perhaps the reason I'm not quite as, well, obsessed by it was the fact that I was gone when they landed, I was in a place where I couldn't watch any of the updates until fairly recently. I got home from there actually August 12, 2005, the same day MRO was launched. And somehow watching things from that far in the mission just doesn't have the same effect. But you are probably right, I probably never will fully understand your devotion to these things, althought I think MSL might have a greater affect than you think, and there IS a very good chance that it will last some time.

Anyways, I did see a powerpoint on CTX targets, there are some interesting targets coming up. I haven't seen what HiRISE wants, but the TAG meeting was today. TAG meetings are the meetings where the difference science teams have a big telecon to decide where to target, where to do coordinated targets, etc. Today was the first MRO TAG meeting, that's exciting news!

[nprev]

As a side note in the name of peace, there may be a generational difference at work here as well.

Tuvas, I am assuming that you are relatively young in comparison to me (43) and some others in this forum. Many people of my age and maybe ten years older were utterly (and purposefully!) convinced during our childhoods that we would have the opportunity to at least visit the Moon--if not work and live there!--and just maybe Mars as well. We were ready, we were able, we wanted that future very badly.

The 70s and 80s were in most ways bitter disappointments to us; we saw our dreams fade away as the NASA budget was cut, Apollo virtually faded into an urban legend, and the national/global focus turned inward instead of outward. We've been waiting for tomorrow all of our lives, and it appeared that it would never come.

Spirit and Opportunity have provided us at least the vicarious gratification of seeing another world in semi-personal terms. This is a gift beyond price, for we can at last truly know a little bit of the realities that drove our imaginations wild as kids; for me it brings a little peace, a little closure, and a lot of satisfaction.

Not trying to put you down at all, Tuvas, hope you understand that, okay? Just thought you'd like to know what drives some of us more-rabid older Rover fans...we'll always want to see what's just beyond the horizon with the MERs, and only wish that we could be there ourselves.

[Shaka]

Yeah, you tell him, Stuey! Marsaholism is a treatable disease, and JPL has just what the doctor ordered. There's at least 1200 guys and gals out here that salivate for that next peek around the corner or over the rise - that close-up inspection that dreams are made of.
You don't know me, tuvas. I rarely venture out of the MER pages, but we're in conjunction now, and I've got withdrawal symptoms, so I'm increasingly restless. I find your HIRISE color swaths to be somehow mesmerizing and comforting to scan down slowly, murmering "Spirit's down there somewhere."

If it hasn't already been discussed somewhere, I'd like to suggest to JPL that a new screensaver should be produced that does just that: puts up new HIRISE images as they are produced, and slowly scans down them. The image could fill the screen except for a little data box in one corner that identifies the pic and its latitude/longitude, resolution etc. Knowing that the images are newly produced and publicized would offer the same kind of fascination for real-time exploration that we get from MER. The realization that, if something MER sized were down there, we would see it, could become as addictive as MER pancams. I wouldn't be surprised if some poor souls had to buy an extra computer, next to their work machine, just to run the screensaver 24/7.

Just an idea. I already run the MER screensaver, but only rarely does it show something new, so I can turn away from it at will. If a HIRISE screensaver were updated daily, I might finally become NASA's slave!
(Not such a bad effect at budget time. Send copies to everyone in Congress!)

[tuvas]

If it hasn't already been discussed somewhere, I'd like to suggest to JPL that a new screensaver should be produced that does just that: puts up new HIRISE images as they are produced, and slowly scans down them. The image could fill the screen except for a little data box in one corner that identifies the pic and its latitude/longitude, resolution etc. Knowing that the images are newly produced and publicized would offer the same kind of fascination for real-time exploration that we get from MER. The realization that, if something MER sized were down there, we would see it, could become as addictive as MER pancams. I wouldn't be surprised if some poor souls had to buy an extra computer, next to their work machine, just to run the screensaver 24/7.

It would be very cool, but there's a few problems with it.

1. HiRISE images are processed by HiROC, not JPL. The folks at JPL actually don't see them until we put them in a specialized system behind the JPL firewall, or the few of them that have access to our system.
2. If you've read my entry on the HiBlog, you'd know how much processing they require. One of the biggest problems for doing quick processing is the geometric projection, which takes on the order of 2 weeks, because the exact position of the spacecraft must be calculated.
3. Such a system would require constant comunication with the servers, which would considerably slow down the network traffic, delaying actually the finished product (Well, maybe...)

But, generally speaking, we will be releasing them ASAP. A real time system is imposible, we did the best that we could during transition imaging, we released a small part only a few hours after it was taken. However, to accomplish such a thing, it had to be done with a real person. Sometime, it can work, but not that often, and I sincerly doubt it'll happen again (Well, maybe for the first image from PSP, but that's as far as I'd dare to guess).

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Will the big black and white image of Victoria/Erebus be going up on the "zoomify" website too?

[tuvas]

Will the big black and white image of Victoria/Erebus be going up on the "zoomify" website too?

Don't know, we actually don't run that, JPL does. We're working on HiView, which will ultimately solve the problem.

[ustrax]

They matter to us, to our vision of the future, and it will be a tough day when the first one dies, and an even tougher one when its partner does.

Incredible how this two babies reveal the martian in all of us...

Great words Stu, great words...
Passion was, is, and will be the fuel feeding space exploration.
Taking us beyond.
Thinking that we know everything make some people miss all the glory that emotions provide and that's just...silly.

[tuvas]

FYI, HiRISE turned on this morning. I don't know about the other instruments, but I'm assuming that everything has or will be turned on today. At HiRISE, we marked the turning on of the camera to be the start of PSP, so, well, it's now official, at least for us. We expect to receive our first images late Tuesday/early Wednesday morning, so...

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Exciting stuff !!! Do you know what the first object/region on Mars to be imaged by HiRISE will be?

[tuvas]

Exciting stuff !!! Do you know what the first object/region on Mars to be imaged by HiRISE will be?

Yes, I do know, it will be ________. Well, I guess I can give a round ballpark, it will be mid-southern region, in the -30 to -60N 120-150W range, more specific than that I don't dare make...

[ustrax]

Yes, I do know, it will be ________. Well, I guess I can give a round ballpark, it will be mid-southern region, in the -30 to -60N 120-150W range, more specific than that I don't dare make...

Huumm... Viking 2 coordinates are 47.93N, 133.74E...

[djellison]

Yesterday evening would have been the UHF test with Spirit.....hopefully we'll hear how that went soon.

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Any idea what the test involved? Was it a simple communication session or did they intend to relay any data from Spirit?

[djellison]

If I were doing it, I'd have scheduled a pass that included forward commanding from MRO, and then uplink from Spirit at 32k, 128k and 256k within the pass period (if indeed that is possible) - and so yes, some data but probably nothing that wasn't going to get downloaded via Odyssey anyway. All pure speculation on my part though, so don't take it seriously.

Doug

[Phil Stooke]

Wipe that smile off your smily, ustrax! Those were negative north coordinates, or as we Earthlings say, south...

Phil