Mars Rover Spirit Falls Silent ...

[Gatekeeper]

... apparently scientists have been getting only bits and pieces of gibberish from the probe for a day or so now. It was initially attributed to weather factors over Australia, but apparently that's no longer the case. Scientists aren't sure what the cause(s) might be, but are maintaining hope that the issue(s) can be solved.

Personally, if the rover is lost, it only reaffirms the fact that if we want to truly explore what lies beyond Earth, we have to send ourselves there. Robotic probes certainly have their place but, in the end, we need to have humans out there.

As for a Mars mission ... why not use crews that have experience with life aboard submarines? "The Silent Service," IMO, would be an excellent source of people acclimated to months of living in tight quarters w/o going insane.

Gatekeeper

[Japher]

Martians took the Rover!!!

Well, that's what they get for letting it just sit there for a month.

[The diplomat]

Maybe the martians killed the probe because it was about to discover their secret hiding place?

just kidding!

[shmily_dana]

Check out what they say about what is on Mars. I'm sure they'll comment on the probe malfunction soon.

http://www.enterprisemission.com/

[DanS]

This is a shame. Hope they get it to work again.

[MrFun]

So which copycat thread will be locked -- Gatekeeper's, or GePap's??

Stay tuned for the next episode to find out.

[Winston]

I suspected there might be trouble for the Rover. This last weekend, there were'nt any updates to the official press releases between the 16th and 19th, while prior to that, a new release went up daily for almost two weeks.

Let's hope they'll be able to get it going again.

[alva]

people acclimated to months of living in tight quarters w/o going insane.

I doubt that's the biggest problem with manned mars missions, Zero gravity is much harder to deal with I would think.
-

Sad news, sure hope they can fix it.

[Brundlefly]

NASA officials work around the clock to get this problem fixed, costing taxpayers $$$ in overtime.

In a related story, old person freezes to death in a rundown innercity dwelling without heat in the Northeast because of insufficient funding of social programs to reach her and give assistance.

[Winston]

Not only weightlessness, the radiation levels one would be exposed to going to Mars are twice of those experienced in LEO.

Anyway, we need robots - and lots of them - to pave the way and establish a basic "infrastructure" at a possible landing site for the first humans, before we can even start the planning of a manned mission.

[Japher]

don't try and skirt this very important issue bfg9000

[Japher]

I just found this image on NASAs web site. Appears the problem is that a couple of computer geeks have hacked their computers and have done so in the past. Why? The ultimate Robot War on Mars!!!

Beagle vs. Spirit, who will win?!!!

[MrFun]

@ Japher's joke

[Agathon]

In other news... Microsoft today declined to comment on rumours that the Spirit Rover was using Windows XP Professional...

[Japher]

... did they get a memory error when trying to start a DOS program?