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6 April 2009
Spirit and Opportunity: Good Old Girls
Know what’s awesome? This video, put together by Steven Hammond, is awesome: That’s the song, “Good Old Girl”, by Marian Call. And the pictures, of course, are from Spirit and Opportunity. The song is actually about a somewhat larger, somewhat more fictional spacecraft, but it sure is fitting for the rovers.
4 April 2009
Yuri's Night and 100 Hours of Astronomy
Are you going to a Yuri’s Night party this year? I am! In about five minutes! In case you’ve never heard of it, Yuri’s night is a worldwide series of parties held on April 4-12 to commemorate Yuri Gagarin’s first spaceflight! It is the brainchild of Loretta Hidalgo-Whitesides, a fellow NASA Academy alum and all around cool person. This year there are 171 parties in 41 countries on six continents …
8 March 2009
MER Calendar!
Check it out! NASA has just released a new calendar with images from the Rovers. It is a 2009-2010 calendar, and spans one mars year (~2 earth years). It is best printed on 11″x17″ paper.
4 March 2009
Help Name the Space Station
Apparently NASA is looking for a name for the next node of the International Space Station, and they have a website where you can cast your vote! Currently “Serenity” is far ahead of the rest of the options, which, I must say, as a fan of the sci-fi show Firefly, is pretty shiny. Whether you’re a sci-fi fan or not, go check out the site and cast your vote!
Free Books!
Random House is making a bunch of science fiction and fantasy books available to download – for free! I just downloaded Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Red Mars”! Enjoy!
22 February 2009
First Look at NASA Video Game
Remember when I posted a while ago about NASA’s plans to develop its own Massively Multiplayer Online video game (MMO)? Well, the first glimpses of the game have been made public, and it sounds promising. Some quotes from the article over at Big Download: the goal is to allow gamers to create their own content, including missions and spacecraft, and then share that with others online. “We have access to …
3 February 2009
Mars Rover Poetry by John Updike
I wish every day could start out like today: I get my coffee, fire up the laptop, and only have one email waiting for me. And it contains a poem I’ve never read. By John Updike. About Spirit and Opportunity: Duet on Mars by John Updike Said Spirit to Opportunity, “I’m feeling rather frail, With too much in my memory, Plus barrels of e-mail.” Responded Opportunity, “My bounce was not so …
2 February 2009
New Google Mars
Google Earth’s latest edition was just released and guess what? It has a Mars setting! There was a way to overlay Mars data on the Earth globe in previous versions, but now that’s no longer necessary: just click a button and you’re on Mars. You can choose from a variety of global maps including topography, Viking images, Day and nighttime infrared, and visible color. It also has footprints for high …
30 January 2009
Rover Cake!
Today the rover team got an email from Michelle Nichols at the Adler Planetarium showing off the awesome cake that they had for their celebration of the rovers’ 5th anniversary on Mars. It’s absolutely amazing. I can’t believe they ate such a masterpiece! Here’s the description of the cake from the email: The body of the rover and the high gain antenna were all made of toffee buttercrunch cake with …
