Comment summary... (Score 2, Informative) 144
The hardware is bad. The keyboard doubly so.
Submission + - New Mars rover named 'Curiosity' (space.com)
sveard writes: space.com reports that NASA's next Mars rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, has been named 'Curiosity.
The name comes courtesy of Clara Ma, a 12-year-old sixth-grade student at Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa, Kan. As her prize, Ma wins a trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where she will be invited to sign her name directly onto the rover as it is being assembled.
Curiosity will be larger and more capable than any craft previously sent to land on the red planet. It will check to see whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of life. The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several chemical building blocks of life.
The rover is expected to launch in 2011.
The name comes courtesy of Clara Ma, a 12-year-old sixth-grade student at Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa, Kan. As her prize, Ma wins a trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where she will be invited to sign her name directly onto the rover as it is being assembled.
Curiosity will be larger and more capable than any craft previously sent to land on the red planet. It will check to see whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of life. The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for several chemical building blocks of life.
The rover is expected to launch in 2011.
Comment Re:Slashcode's lack of characterset support (Score 1) 194
slashdot just embargoed scotland!
Comment Re:How about Relative Speed? (Score 3, Funny) 132
we can even land on asteroids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbFVPDhlIBQ
(use footage from nasa's archives, not movies!)
Comment Re:Michael Bolton.... (Score 5, Funny) 323
aka Richard Pryor Art
Comment Re:TFA says "18 microseconds", not "18 seconds" (Score 1) 127
That it got zapped into some parallel universe where only theoretical particles can survive.
Comment Re:Ten thousand year waranty (Score 1) 307
Come on, tell us how it ends!
Comment Re:Facebook are a bit too much talk, not enough wa (Score -1, Redundant) 124
Kind of like John Lennon, and then he died
Comment advisors (Score 3, Insightful) 82
Shows that consultants win, as they so often (always?) do
Comment Re:As much as I love space (Score 1) 62
But who are we to say what risk is acceptable and what not? Let NASA and other space faring agencies/companies/industries calculate the risk and present it to the would be astronauts. Let them accept - or not - it
Comment Re:Google - someone CREATE (Score 1) 407
whatever medication you are using, you are not using enough or too many of it
Comment Re:Even Google (Score 4, Funny) 407
It's a good thing I took lots of pictures for the "pics or it didn't happen" crowd
Comment Re:First? (Score 1) 717
Proof that the Slashdot editors really are journalists!
They have always known...
Comment Re:conspiracy theories (Score 2, Funny) 234
Because in south-east Asia, only old people use Google
Comment Re:Desktop??? (Score 1) 180
I've been ionice'ing my backups
Ionizing? That can't be good for magnetic storage!
