Furth and Fortune blog by Will Murray

Find the NASA channel or Science Channel in your local listings for live updates on the landing of the Phoenix Lander, on its way to touchdown on Mars right now!

More info:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/blogs/index.html
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)

Update #1: Confirmation was received at approximately 7:53pm Eastern (4:53pm Pacific) that the Phoenix touched down, apparently successfully, about 15 minutes prior. The delay in reporting is due to the length of time it takes for a signal traveling at the speed of light to reach Earth from Mars. Congratulations ASU, NASA, JPL, and everyone else involved. You folks make me truly proud! Well done.

Update #2: The lander’s parachute deployed approximately 8 seconds later than expected, resulting in the lander coming to rest 18-22km down range from where expected, but still close to the nominal landing site. In a press conference at 9:00pm PDT, this feat was compared with a golf game in which a person hits a golf ball from Washington D.C. and making a hole-in-one in Australia, when both the golfer and the hole are moving at different speeds. Quite an accomplishment.

While much of the media wanted quick assumptions and early predictions, it will actually take a few days before Phoenix will be sending back much “interesting” information. For the next few days, the investigation team will be monitoring the functions of the lander. They will be especially monitoring how the batteries perform, how quickly and completely the solar arrays recharge the batteries, and how much of the energy the heaters use at night to keep everything from freezing up. Once they figure out the energy requirements to keep everything running, they will be able to determine how much energy is available for running their experiments. So far, everything is looking quite good, and there might even be a slight surplus of energy. This could result in slightly more experiments being able to be completed than originally planned. After the original 90 Sols (Martian days), if the lander is still performing well, the mission may be extended an additional 60 Sols. That decision, however, mostly depends on weather and other conditions outside the control of the scientists.

So what can we expect over the next several days? More pictures for one. By tomorrow, we should receive more photos coming back, probably looking in the opposite direction from the photos above. They will probably attempt to save bandwidth and skip taking color photos, instead focusing on expanding the total viewing area to around 120°. Color photos are much larger, and there is only a limited transmission window each day in which they can send and receive information. The robotic arm and other systems are also being deployed, and once the scientists have assessed the status and located interesting surface features, they will being using the tools in the lander to start taking readings. That should lead to many interesting discoveries, though it may take months or even years before all the data can be fully processed and understood.

Will the Phoenix scientists find proof of past or current life on Mars? It is impossible to guess. The thing that is important to remember is that “life on Mars” does not mean “little green men” or anything even as advanced as a snail (though such evidence would be awesome). Evidence of life could simply mean that certain amino acids or other organic compounds could be found trapped in the ice. Anything ranging from the simple building blocks of life to full-blown fossils would all be fascinating and increase our knowledge of our Solar system and the Universe. It would also make a strong case for those of us who believe that life in some form probably is fairly common in the Universe—even if sentient (intelligent and self-aware) life is not. I can’t wait to see what else comes out of this.

Tags: Aerospace, Mars, Phoenix lander, science, space, space exploration, spacecraft, technology

Imagine you are a proud citizen of the glorious empire. Unfortunately, the Emperor was found guilty of war crimes (authorizing the torture of war detainees, launching preemptive strikes against other countries, toppling foreign heads of state, maintaining secret prisons holding unidentified persons of interest in countries with less strict human rights practices, etc.) and then knowingly giving false information to the empire’s citizens to justify his actions. Not being much of a muckraker, you try to avoid the organized peace march planned for the capital plaza. Sure, you don’t agree with the Emperor’s policies, but you’re no Jedi Knight–you’re not even a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a Rosa Parks. You’re just an ordinary person trying to make your way through the growing crowd to your car so you can attend your little niece’s birthday party.

Someone from the crowd steps onto the edge of a fountain in the square. You try not to listen as the guy makes a few good points about the state of the Empire and the wrongdoings of the Emperor. You continue moving quickly through the crowd to where your car is parked. The crowd starts cheering, applauding, and even stamping their feet to signify their approval of what the speaker is saying. You reach your car, as a helicopter appears overhead. You fumble for your keys as a voice booming from overhead informs the crowd that their “unruly behavior is in violation of the Emperor’s emergency domestic terror prevention plan”. The voice is so loud you drop your keys as you clap your hands over your ears to protect your hearing. After the voice stops, a piercing noise louder than a jet engine replaces it. People scream (not that you can hear them) and start running from the square. An old man raises his cane, shaking it at the helicopter to express his anger. A moment later, he collapses. Then, you feel the air suddenly prickling like there is about to be a lightning storm nearby. Next thing you know, a 50,000-volt charge of electricity jolts you to the ground. All around you, people are stunned and in pain, though most are starting to pick themselves up to hobble away.

Amazingly, your keys are still on the ground beside your car. You open the door, slouch painfully into the seat, and turn the key in the ignition. Nothing. You try again, and again. Dead. Your less than a month old $32,000 car was completely disabled in the electrical blast. You grab your $200 cell phone with all the latest gadgets to call your sister and let her know you will not be able to attend your niece’s birthday. Unfortunately, the cell phone is fried, too. So is your watch, your PDA, your calculator, your iPod, and your laptop computer. Nearly $35,000 of loss from that one “nonlethal” weapon burst, and you were just innocent “collateral damage”.

Obviously sitting in the car is not going to help. Worst of all, you see an anti-terror squad goon walking your direction. You know you don’t want to be anywhere near him. He’s carrying one of those “nonlethal” microwave emitters. As you get out of the car, you notice the old man with the cane is still crumpled, unmoving on the ground where he fell–a surprised look frozen on his face. Poor guy probably had a pacemaker that got fried. Didn’t he know better than to be near a demonstration these days? You stared at the guy for too long. A searing pain rakes across your back and side. You scream in pain as it feels like your body is suddenly on fire. A second later, the pain is gone (but certainly not the memory or your still-screaming nerve endings). You look behind you. Yeah. It was the anti-terror squad goon with his “nonlethal” microwave. Somehow, the fact that the thing is “nonlethal” doesn’t make you feel any better. You quickly sneak away, trying to avoid the other goons in the area.

Several hours later (no car after all), you walk up to your front door. There is an official looking envelope stuck to it. You break into a cold sweat as you tear it open. Inside is a warrant demanding you to turn yourself in to any nearby Office of Empire Security for questioning and possible arrest within the next three days. Not only that, a closed circuit camera photo of you in the crowded square falls out. The photo also shows a positive biometric scan confirmation, which means that all your documents (driver’s license, passport, credit cards, transit pass, library card, and probably your work ID) are probably already flagged with your “violation.” What are you going to do? You don’t have enough money to hire an attorney–not the kind that actually has a chance to keep you from being questioned (a politically correct term for interrogation with more of the same type of “nonlethal” weapons you just faced). Moreover, once you’re questioned, it’s only a matter of time before you confess to whatever they want you to confess to, just to get them to stop the torture. You irrationally curse your niece for having a birthday so that you had to enter that square today. Then you curse yourself for having parked there in the first place. You decide to fix something to eat before you go turn yourself in. It might be the last good meal you get for a long, long time.

The story above is, fortunately, a work of fiction. If it sounds eerily familiar, though, it’s probably because that is the future many people around the world are sensing might be the future just around the corner if we continue down the path we are walking, no — running, toward.

The current Bush administration (or “Bush Regime” as the World Can’t Wait movement¹ calls it) is guilty of everything of which the evil Emperor in this story is guilty. As I have already blogged, “Benjamin Ferenccz, a chief war crimes… [Continue reading]

MSN has a feature titled “Top-10 tech we miss“, part of the celebration of CNET’s 10th anniversary. It got me thinking about the technology that I miss.

Tags: Apple Computers, Atari, BASIC, BBS, CNet.com, floppy disks, Internet culture, space, space exploration, spam, TRS-80, video games, website