Gee, sorry, I guess you are eligible for this contest.

Now now children

Some Suggestions:

Powell
AresLab
Barsoom
Mars Mobilab
Schiparelli
Labrover 1

Elvis. Just to hear the NASA Public Affairs person say at launch, "Elvis has left the building."

Hmmmm...given the power of the MSL

What about "Predator"?

What a great idea...

- James Bradbury (no relation)

Prospector's been used; "Seeker"? seems a little... banal? And "pilgrim" has unfortunate religious connotations I suspect. ("Predator" definitely has overly-controversial associations IMO. Oh dear, looks like Doctor Negativity is paying a house call... sorry )

"Lewis and Clark" works for me, but apart from the objection Stu mentioned - a couple of old friends who worked on the post-production SFX for "Event Horizon" might jump to the wrong conclusion. (Random coincidence: they shared a flat with a guy who did a lot of the CGI for that BBC "The Planets" series.)

Having finally got around to reading some of his books, "Feynman" appeals to me; but his field was at the other end of the magnitudes scale. There's an asteroid, "7495 Feynman", but no surface features or spacecraft, AFAIK?

It's my ONLY hope at immortality: Nuclear-Powered Roving Exploration Vehicle...


Just to throw in a long-shot, how about "Heinlein"? Red Planet surely inspired a lot of kids & teens in the 50s ("Willis" has a nice ring too, but it'd never fly...would have been more appropriate for the bouncy MERs or PF.)

OMG! I can only hope it will be something like Goofy, rather than My Little Mermaid. If I had to choose from among the suggestions posted here that are ineligible for the contest, I'd vote for Gort or NPREV.

What about the female explorer.... Alexandrine Tinne (1835-1869)

""But none rises higher in my estimation than the Dutch lady, Miss Tinne, who after the severest domestic afflictions, nobly persevered in the teeth of every difficulty." - Dr. Livingstone, explorer and missionary."

Since it's powered by a RTG, why not use the name Curie

Marie Curie is already the name of a Rover. Sadly, it's the Sojourner spare that was taken off the '01 lander design for PHX.

Doug

My suggestion is "Goliath".

I've been saying those wheels are the size of small beer kegs. Maybe they should name it after Charlie Mops.

(...and as far as I can tell he's not a living person Mike)

Along the beer keg line, we could use the following ditty as a mission theme:

"Ninety-nine samples of rock on the ground,
Ninety-nine samples of rock!
Shoot one down,
Sniff all around,
Ninety-eight samples of rock on the ground..."



-the other Doug

I missread that badly at first glance!
Aelita would get my vote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita

BIS Spaceflight magazine has time sequence photos of the MSL wheels drop test and names the vehicle "Scarecrow"

Scarecrow is the name of that mobility test vehicle - as it has no brain (like the scarecrow in wizard of oz)

The names "Lewis" and "Clark" were used for two ill-fated Earth observation missions.

Yeah, those were proposed by a huge percentage of the entrants in to the MER name the rover contest, and disqualified for that reason. Two names from the same exploration mission -- Sacagawea and York -- survived into the final round. I kind of like "Sacagawea". One can sort of see the RTG as her papoose...though I can say from experience that a papoose is more likely to steal energy than it is to provide it!

--Emily

Tsk, Emily - didn't you tell us not to refer to that portion of her anatomy?

Phil

*sigh* it's really kind of hard to ignore!

I think we have to try and reaquire some 9 year old imagination to get a good name 4 the rover. I do hope they chose a simple name, greek names are wearing me out! How about Strider (from lord of the rings); majestic, kingly, untiring, it fits!

Actually 9-year-olds can be quite serious. It's the 13- to 15-year-olds who come up with the silly stuff. Including my hands-down favorite pair of proposed names for the Mars Exploration Rovers: "Taco" and "Chalupa." Even better than the names themselves was the proposer's essay:An obvious corollary to the essay's thesis is that "Chalupa" means "goodbye."

More silly stuff from the MER naming contest here.

--Emily

...yep, the brain chemistry definitely does change during adolescence, doesn't it?

It doesn't change - it just goes AWOL for 5 years

It also tends to vaporize in middle age for males, but the usual effect is buying a sports car, not generating goofy names for Mars rovers...oh, wait...

I bet someone else already thought of this one "Rover 3.0" It will get the geek vote.

I really like Ramble-On Rover. It indicates rover continuity like Rover 3.0, and hints at greater distances provided by the power pak. It's a Rover that's always ON.

Not that I intend to submit either of them.

Jack

LOL! That would make for an interesting personality on the twitter feed too!

Wall-E grew up and became Wall-TER. (Wheeled all-Terrain Exploratory Rover)

Click to view attachment
Original MSL image: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/?p=131

I rather like insect names, considering the RTG appearance. Dragonfly or (better) Firefly would be good, except for its being flightless. Perhaps a write-in campaign from the Josh Whedon fans would make a difference

Devil's coach horse.
Click to view attachment

I'm all for calling it Buffy the Rock Slayer.

Wow, that looks a LOT like MSL!

Maybe if SkyCrane ™ doesn't work.

Call me boring, but.... "Explorer" sounds fine to me.

I still like "MSL"

If Mike Griffin *really* wants to keep in with the oncoming president, he should name it "Obama", or "Barack, the Rock Crusher".
Not so sure about "Hussein" though..
(ducks)

Well, seeing as the ************ thing is everywhere and there's no escape from it, I guess there's only one name to go with...

Click to view attachment

I've always been fond of Vespucci as an explorer.

Ok, so far on this thread we have:-

Eureka!, Innovation, Leviathan, Invincible, MUV, Sir, Monster, Lulu, Marvin, Machismo, Mayflower, Muscle, Missile, Hope, Canyonero, Lewis&Clark, Prospector, Seeker, Pilgrim, Sagan, Lowell, Schiaparelli, Burroughs, Wells, Intimidator, Goofy, Bradbury, Gort, ChuckNorris, Powell, AresLab, Barsoom, Mobilab, Schiparelli, Labrover1, Elvis, Predator, Feynman, Nprev, Tinne, Curie, Goliath, Mops, Aelita, Scarecrow, Sacagawea, York, Strider, Taco, Chalupa, Rover3.0, Wall-TER, Dragonfly, Firefly, Devil's coach horse, Buffy, Explorer, MSL, Obama, Barack, MammaMia, Vespucci.

I will chuck in Endeavor, Dauntless, Enterprise, Mettle, Resolve, Venture, Holst, and for fun, Trogdor.

Perhaps we should run a sweepstake?

I'll find a polite way to predict what Doug will say: Ummmmm.........no.

Seconded.

Just call it Tim.

I keep telling you guys: Nuclear-Powered Roving Exploration Vehicle is the only choice!

Or (looking at your icon) Binary Electronic Nuclear-Device Exploration Rover!

You can bite my shiny metal..

PS - I would seriously nominate Holst, to commemorate the finest piece of music composed for Mars.

I'm just waiting for someone to target a rover mission to one of the Martian caves that's been discovered in orbital imagery. Then it can be the Off-Track Heat Engine Rover Doing Observations Under Ground...

-the other Doug

Too long for a good acronym, and as MSL will explore relatively flat terrains, I would propose Martian Plains Surveyor (or Mars Plains Surveyor).
Seriously, I think I will always prefer the original name - MSL.

Calimero. Because Mars is big and MSL is small and that's not fair...

Is it not called Bruce, then?
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That's going to be a bit confusing.