Comments on: Phoenix Lander, live

By: Johnathan Pearce

Johnathan Pearce — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:25:35 +0000

A fine achievement indeed. Well done. Enjoy the conference, Dale.

By: Frederick Davies

Frederick Davies — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:36:13 +0000

Is it just me or are we congratulating NASA for doing something they did twice in the 1970′s?

I mean, soft landing, digging some dirt, analysing it, weather sensing, etc were all done by the Viking landers in 1976. The only “breakthrough” of the Phoenix mission is that their lander weighs a tenth of what the Viking ones did (350 Kg against 3520 Kg), which is not much of a breakthrough considering the 30 years of miniaturisation advances in between.

If they were preparing for some manned landing or doing something they had not done before, maybe it would be worth all the excitement, but for repeating what they did 30 years ago…

By: Mitch

Mitch — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:52:25 +0000

Oh, come on! Are you the last people on this planet – or Mars, for that matter – to realize that this whole thing was done on Hollywood back lots and CGI studios? Ask any reputable imam or 9-11 Truther for clarification.

By: BigFire

BigFire — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:33:22 +0000

Martian Planetary Defense(tm) failed again. They’re good at shooting down ESA’s probe. They even managed to hexed 2 or American’s probe, but on this one, they completely blew it.

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:16:04 +0000

Quite so Mr Jennings:

Congratulations to the United States – and well done to the people who worked on the project.

A fine thing for this Memorial Day.

By: Michael Jennings

Michael Jennings — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:39:00 +0000

I’ll just add another comment of “Well Done” for the guys who put this together.

By: Dale Amon

Dale Amon — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:34:51 +0000

Signing off for tonight… I have an AMTRAK to catch from NY to DC in the morning and will be at the International Space Development Conference (isdc.nss.org) all week. I should be rather busy since I chair the committee that oversees NSS conferences, site selection etc, am running for the NSS board this year… and have much schmoozing to do for my New Space company.

I’ll try to blog a bit from there but I am so busy being inside the thing that I may have little time to do so. I’m also sure we’ll be hearing a lot about Phoenix there as we have quite s significant NASA contingent coming by.

So Ad Astra all and see you at the ISDC if you happen to be there.

By: nick g.

nick g. — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:58:42 +0000

I’ll bite- who’s holding the camera?

By: jbeekman

jbeekman — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:18:37 +0000

I wish I had a pub/bar around here that would be showing this on their TVs! As is, they’re showing NASCAR. This was (is) ALMOST as exciting as any sporting event I could imagine watching on TV. AND IT WAS REAL STUFF!

I like sports as much as the next guy, but this crap was cool!

By: Gib

Gib — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:58:21 +0000

It made it down

The Martians didn’t swat this one out of the sky to eat. Mustn’t be hungry this time. Or maybe it’s just too cold for them up near the north pole.

By: Gib

Gib — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:37:44 +0000

Cheers, I am.

Has anyone got that page to work on a PS3 though? I want to use my PC for something else while I watch…

The PS3 shows the page OK, but I get the video window just displaying a static picture…