

The story behind Curiosity's self-portraits on Mars - sohkamyung
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/08191059-curiosity-self-portrait-history-belly-pan.html

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wmeredith
I find the mental image of this happening on the Martian surface quite
amusing. Imagine an alien ship landing in your backyard, slowly extending an
ominous robotic appendage and then... taking a 50 selfies.

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drzaiusapelord
I find it amusing that we would see an advanced alien race as being borderline
idiotic and socially blind. They would instantly grasp what was going on. They
have PR in their world too, not to mention the engineers would know that a
'selfie' would be good to diagnose any external damage.

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wmeredith
The patent absurdity of the scenario is what makes it funny. Of course it's
totally unrealistic. Lighten up.

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mkesper
All that work for a selfie - what a hack!

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robbrown451
Is this easier than having a camera with a self timer, that can be set on the
ground, and then go pick it up? At least it would get a realistic perspective.

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bigiain
Come on - that's kinda missing the point.

It's not like they were gonna go buy some mil-spec or space-rated GoPro, then
lift it right out of earth's gravity well and schlep it 150 odd million miles
to Mars just so they could get some selfies.

This is a _brilliant_ hack using all existing equipment in ways it wasn't
designed for, but turns out it's quite good at given the constraints.

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netrus
While I agree with what you say, you might under-appreciate the value of cool
pictures. Yeah, they are doing cool science stuff up there, but a good part of
the value of these missions is to get people excited about space, kids
interested in technology, and to give humans some perspective of their place
in the universe. A high-resolution selfie of this kind-of-cute robot is as
important as the results of their drilling experiments, IMHO.

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bluepostitnote
This is one of the aspects that gets me excited for airborne drones which can
operate in the Martian atmosphere. Not only for the potential offered by
longer range, but also the possibility for some great photos of any ground
based vehicles whose mission zone overlaps.

Great photos can inspire and help fund great science.

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IneffablePigeon
How much would Mars's thin atmosphere interfere with that plan? Would you be
able to lift any significant amount of weight?

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bluepostitnote
Impacts it a lot, but there are teams working on it:
[http://www.space.com/30155-nasa-drones-on-mars-
video.html](http://www.space.com/30155-nasa-drones-on-mars-video.html)

