
Nasa makes final attempt to communicate with Mars rover - dcminter
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/13/nasa-makes-final-attempt-to-communicate-with-mars-rover-opportunity
======
ISL
Congratulations to everyone who helped to make such a successful mission
possible.

As an undergraduate, I remember friends working on the Pancam. One of our
treasured instrument-makers at UW built the sundials. Science is a very human
endeavor -- real people built, tested, launched, landed, operated, navigated,
investigated, and interpreted. Some of the people who will use the
measurements made by Opportunity have yet to be born.

Thank you for doing something incredible.

------
dsfyu404ed
Young people tend to take the presence of rovers on Mars for granted thanks in
large part to Spirit and Opportunity and the amazing job they did of exceeding
even the most optimistic expectations for their longevity. Kids who are in
high-school today don't remember a time when there wasn't a rover exploring
mars. The people responsible for that success of Spirit and Opportunity have
enabled a generation of scientists and engineers to grow up knowing that
something built by humans is driving around on another planet. Prior to Spirit
and Opportunity n rover on the surface of mars was the exception. Since Spirit
and Opportunity it has been the rule.

The Mars Exploration Rovers have been truly groundbreaking in terms of how we
think about the feasibility of exploring other planets. The idea that we would
send a rover to another planet and it would drive around studying for more
than a decade would have been laughable in 2004. Now it is something that we
think of as being perfectly reasonable. That is an amazing accomplishment.

~~~
daveslash
Completely agree. I'd like to add: people talk about colonizing Mars as a
future event that will take place. I assert that we are currently in the early
stages of colonizing Mars. We have [had?] multiple rovers driving around, and
multiple science labs on the surface and a global satellite network in orbit.
When we first landed a probe on Mars, someone asked Ray Bradbury "So, where
are the martians?", to which he replied "We are the Martians!"

------
umvi
Well, if we ever do send humans to Mars just have them visit the site and fix
'er up and she'll be good for another decade.

~~~
Tepix
Don't forget to also fix Beagle 2!

~~~
setquk
I think all chances of that being fixed ended with a loud THUD noise :)

~~~
UncleSlacky
It landed fine, it just didn't unfurl completely.

~~~
setquk
I didn't know that. Good to hear it was at least a partial success!

~~~
Tepix
Here's an image in this article: [https://www.space.com/32691-europe-
beagle-2-mars-lander-phot...](https://www.space.com/32691-europe-
beagle-2-mars-lander-photos.html)

------
tunap
I was rooting for this little guy to continue it's long legacy. Back around
2010 I happened upon Squyres' book on bringing the MER(s) to reality & I've
been hooked ever since.

Def'y a good read:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/832170.Roving_Mars](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/832170.Roving_Mars)

------
ltc5505
My battery is low and it’s getting dark.

\- Opportunity

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer t

~~~
rzzzt
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand, a collaborative recreation of the IBM 7094
singing: [https://youtu.be/Gz4OTFeE5JY](https://youtu.be/Gz4OTFeE5JY)

------
pvaldes
Could start sending again if eventually undigged by another dust storm or was
just crashed?

~~~
plopz
I don't think so. From what I understand the problem is temperature, if it
runs out of power its unable to keep the important parts warm and won't be
able to turn back on.

~~~
trothamel
From my understanding, that's basically right. The Rovers rely on the heat
from their electronics to keep the electronics warm. While it could recover,
when out of power the electronics will drop below their design temperature,
making it more likely something will break (or already has).

------
bregma
So it goes.

We thank the MERs for their service to our kind.

------
kibwen
The relevant XKCDs: [https://xkcd.com/695/](https://xkcd.com/695/) &
[https://xkcd.com/1504/](https://xkcd.com/1504/)

~~~
ddoolin
I haven't laughed so much at an XKCD strip in awhile as I did when I read the
second one. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
lisper
The first one made me cry!

------
sam6954
hope it will wake up

------
parker55
Mike Seibert, who was also part of the team, paid tribute to the rover, dubbed
“Oppy”, saying “Goodbye old friend” and noting that the rover was the longest
lasting surface mission yet

------
ProAm
NASA, not Nasa.

~~~
a-priori
It's a style difference. The Guardian is a British paper. In British English,
acronyms are usually written in title case, rather than all-caps as they are
in American English.

~~~
garg
Exactly. They are using the BBC News style guide here:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/news-style-
guid...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/news-style-guide)

And here are articles that address NASA vs Nasa:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133530)

"our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you
would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta,
Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec)."

~~~
milesward
Cool, then they can call it the Bbc. Oops, they never do that.
#consistencyisrad

~~~
Rebelgecko
They still capitalize each letter for initialisms (acronyms where each letter
is pronounced such as B-B-C)

~~~
philipov
I just realized that the reason we fully capitalize acronyms in the US is
because we don't know the difference between acronyms and initialisms.

~~~
magduf
No, it's because we see them as mostly the same thing. It's only when we no
longer really care about what it stands for, and that it's become an actual
_word_ (rather than a name), where we stop capitalizing it, and then we don't
even use titlecase. Examples are "laser" and "snafu".

NASA isn't a word, it's a proper name, and the agency itself uses all-caps
when referring to itself. The proper spelling is therefore "NASA". It's just
like this for any proper name: there's a correct way to spell and capitalize
it, and any other way is wrong. An example here would be any company which
uses CamelCase in their name, and officially spells their company name that
way. If you decide you don't like camelcase and only use titlecase, then
you're spelling their name wrong; you don't get to decide how to spell someone
else's name.

This is just another example of British English being wrong-headed, just as
they do with referring to corporate entities with plural. American English
isn't perfect by any means, but modern-day British English seems to go to
great lengths to be different for no good reason.

------
magduf
It's dead, Jim.

