SpikedRocker

Well landing was succesful. A few minutes ago around 9:55 PM EST the first images came in. The pictures showed a healthy craft and on a pretty level ground. The pictures of the surface looks different that pictures from the other rovers because this lander is on the northern pole of the planet. Very few rocks of decent size are seen. Right now just black and white photos but I do believe colors are coming. So all is well with this lander and hopefully scientist will learn much and possibly find a few water molecules in the ground. Congrats to NASA, JPL, and Arizona University!

I remember some of these. Solar sails was a pretty good idea but just like normal wind its kinda unreliable for travel. Anti-matter engines...in therory it would be a great source of power, but we have to find anti-matter and contain it longer than a a few billionths of a nano-second. And my all-time fail favorite idea, the space elevator. I would be a good idea because it cuts the cost of escaping Earths gravity which comprises 85% of fuel consumption for the space shuttle. But you won't find material strong enough to make it and there are very little in fail-safe measures, so if it breaks either the load plumets to Earth like a meteor or is lost out in space with no control and possibly take out a satelite or two. We need some new ideas in general for this stuff and I don't have any:001_tongue:. On another note, for those that might be interested, Science Channel is airing the live broadcast of the landing sunday night starting at 7:00 PM EST. Lander is expected to land at 7:53 and will take 7-12 minutes for us on Earth to know if it survived. So if you want to know if it survived but not all the backstory on it...tune in at 8.

Yes yes..and I am also looking forward for better quality images from the planet. Better than what I can get on my telescope from here!

Yes. Ion engines are one of the newest forms. They have one on the probe heading to pluto and its 'flying' in terms of predessors like Huygens-Cassini and Voyagers. From Earth it will reach Pluto in 13 years. I think for Voyager 1 it took nearly 20. Ion propulsion is awesome but it takes a huge amount of fuel to send a payload needed for a manned mission, it would almost need a nuclear reactor to make it feesable now. I love that channel and that series. Pretty much if you wanted to learn about missions to Mars, that is the show to watch. I think one idea proposed on that show was instead of landing on Mars is to land on one of its moons, Deamos and Phobos. Reasoning being the dust storms, huge radiation and temperature extremes. Basically when it would be the safest a lander would be sent down to the planet and then sent back up to the safety of the moon. Alot of interesting therorys are out there and the one used in the book/movie 2001: A Space Odessey is still one of the leading ones, using nuclear engine and have a centrifugal capsule for artificial gravity. Its still to difficult to work those details out.

With the up-coming Mars lander about to land http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/23/mars.lander/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080522.html Alot of discussion is around the space and aeronautical people whether a manned mission to Mars is even worth it. With 55% of all Mars missions being sucessful there is a good chance something will go wrong. I feel right now that manned missions to Mars are not needed now. We need to get back to the moon and get labs put up so we can possibly improve the success rate to Mars. Most people beleive either of those missions are not worth it because people are on Earth cannot extract resources from them. So what are your thoughts?

I'd like to try that, nice find senior!:thumbup:

Saxe has kickass kitty bitting hand avatar!:thumbup:

I agree. Balance is the key and is a neverending battle. Hopefully I will succeed in this arena when the time comes. Exposing them to real world things must be done at a time where he/she is mature enough to handle it and then somethings the world forces them to learn when they might not be ready. I think its how the world works itself out. Nice conversation Lux!:thumbup:

My big thing about this is that if my daughter starts cursing at 9 years old, I've failed as a parent to prevent this to happen. Right now she's barely a year old so I got some time. Parents overall need to be active in their kids lives, do what they like to do. If that means playing CS or GTA online they should be involved. When kids have structure and parental involvement in their lives they tend to be better off in the real world. The empty insults used on the internet can be misunderstood by them and then tried to be used at school or other places that would take offence to them and be acted upon. Kids tend to imitate every thing, hell I still imitate alot of comedic things I see on tv, and using the internet insults on someone that isn't internet savy could be a bad thing. In my honest opinion, alot of the insults used today on the internet shouldn't even get the chance to be heard. It isn't productive and in my mind doesn't agree with the standards that our community is built on.

We ran a story along these lines, but the kids are using foul language...they got one that sounded about 9ish dropping the "f" bomb. Story sucked but its something to check out. http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/live_video_games_and_terrible_language/11071

Happy Birthday!!!!

They should..I missed the live broadcast. http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/live_video_games_and_terrible_language/11071/ Theres the link to the story with video. Turns out they ran with the obsene language used by kids. They got one kid that sounded pretty young going at it...overall..this story actually sucked, he's done better.

Thats freakin awesome!!!!

You know its crazy when a tv news station is doing a story on online gaming. My station tonight is running a story on the affects of online gaming and teens. I haven't seen the story yet but from what they are teasing its focusing on the verbal attacks some players make on others. Most likely the guy doing the report got the idea from his kids who probably got attacked and he found an oppertunity for a story. Anyway, if you are in the Roanoke, VA area give a watch tonight at 6 or 11 pm for the story, if not, I'm sure it will be placed on the internet on our website http://www.wsls.com around 8 PM EST. I'll post a link of the story when I see it get put up.

That is a good incentive for people to donate. Nice thinkin' blank!:thumbup: If our collections do rise pretty well then I wouldn't see a problem maybe giving one of those winners something of monatary value that is a small percentage of total donation collected, gives more incentive for more donations. Just an idea!

Happy Birthday! Have a nice drink today...or I'll have one for ya!:tongue_smilie:

I guess a nomination would have to do. Keep the nominations secret. Have a select panel of people review the nominations and decide on which cause is worthy.

Definatly MPEG-2 it, should cut down filesize and make it run smoother when playing. Maybe letter box the demo video before editing to cut out the in-game kills. Otherwise, very good. Music was perfect for it! P.S. What program do you use to convert the demo files to usable .mpg or avi files for video editing?

And this week the GTA series topped 500 million. Congrats to GTA and its makers!