[X] My Assistant

[ustrax]

Opportunity is getting ready to embark on her most extraordinary journey, a true rover epic.
As information regarding how to win the distance are being collected here, and the emotional last views from Victoria Crater are being discussed here, I thought about creating a new thread that will surely become an obligatory stop as the tall peaks and other features of Endeavour start to rise in the horizon.
Here we will be able to discuss the location of features seen from the distance, references that will help us understanding better what we are seing and that will, fortunately, feed our spirit across the long sail across the Meridiani sandwaves.

Ultreya!


I give it a kick with this navcam image, comparing it with Astro0's original (beautiful...) image:

I'm sure James Canvin will correct me...



EDITED: I can't resist...I tried! I honestly tried, but it is stronger than me...so many features ahead and not a single name?!
Seriously, at Victoria we had features named after places visited by the vessel, and now for Endeavour? Assuming that Oppy will succeed on her quest will the mission keep the same policy, of naming places after Endeavour's tour? If so, there may be some names in common with Victoria...
While we are ready to leave the port once more I remembered that we could start naming, internally, (in order to have catchier landmark references... ) these features, as they loom in the horizon, after the ship's crew.
We could follow the order presented here.
Let me just edit the image up there...

[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.

[Greg Hullender]

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.

I think I can find at least one example of a deeply moving poem that's at least close to the subject:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--John Magee, "High Flight"

I don't know about anyone else, but "High Flight" always chokes me up, and I cannot read it aloud.

That said, I have to say none of the rover poems works for me. The style seems fine, the words seem to be well-chosen, the rhyme and meter are pleasing -- but something leaves me cold. I'd like to say something helpful about that, since I feel Spirit and Opportunity ought to be at least as inspiring as a Spitfire, so I'll say I think the reason the poems leave me unmoved is that they really are just about the two machines. I guess I'm not satisfied with them just being machines -- I want them to be symbols of something much greater. If a rover "feels" something, I don't want it to be an actual physical malfunction -- I want it to be something felt by all of us who want to reach for the stars. I wish I could be more precise.

Yes, I know it's unreasonable to expect something as good as "High Flight." :-) Yet sometimes it doesn't seem like you're that far away from it. Don't mean to offend -- just wanted to offer some feedback that might actually be useful.

--Greg

[djellison]

I don't know about anyone else, but "High Flight" always chokes me up, and I cannot read it aloud.

Channel 4 here in the UK had a WW2 veteran read it at the end of an episode of the archeology program 'Time Team' where they found and recovered a Spitfire. I was in floods of tears.