Originally posted by jupiter869
Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is finally coming!! I finally saw the trailer for it in the theater last weekend.

Hmmmm. No doubt influenced by the War of The Worlds Homage that the ATS staff produced last Holloween. I wonder if we can get producer credits?

[edit on 22-12-2004 by jupiter869]

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Howdy SHOTS,

I DO think it is important to know what is causing this, maybe it can be designed into the craft somehow, if we know the nature of this.

I'm also glad Opportunity is heading over to take a look at the heatshield hardware. Might learn something there too...
SPACE

Howdy back at ya SPACE. I agree it is important too. One would think that NASA might look into putting a windshield wiper type device on the vehicles.

Do not know if that would work or not because perhaps the dust would scratch the panels who knows. Just a thought on my part.

it can be a life worm which not being seen in day light and comes out when its dark and starts feeding on the warmt emitted from the rovers solar panels. on which they then are going to sit onto ... and when its getting to light for them they are going back underground.
they might not like light just like some lifeforms on earth.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by MarkLuitzen]

Originally posted by Murcielago
allright The Vagabond, stop right there, before you start having people think the rover landings are a hoax, and they (like the moon) were all staged inside a large hangar.

I never said that- especially not the part about moon landings taking place in a large hangar.
I -asked- at what point the unexpected life of the probe would cease to be realistic, not only for the solar pannels but for the wheel that was amping out.
If this went too long- say for over another year, despite more minor technical problems which just "go away"- at what point might those of you who are more technically familiar with the probe suspect that the probe had already ceased to operate but that its life was being falsely extended (perhaps for PR reasons)?

If I were an organization that REALLY needed a PR boost after losing a really expensive craft with several highly trained people aboard, I would take a probe with a relatively short lifespan and under-task it for its expected lifespan, allowing me time to do a lot of unscheduled extra work. One way in which I could do this is giving the probe a battery life that let it work through the night so that travel time between objectives could be covered when the probe was supposed to be down.
When the probe finally died, I could keep feeding out that "extra" work and claim that the probe had outlived its projected lifespan. If I had 2 probes I could do even better with this effect by making one of them "die" when in fact it had not, so that the other could be credited with not twice as much life, but four times as much life or more.

Again, I'm not saying this happened. I'm sure NASA has -really- good engineers, even though for some reason they couldn't develop a solar-pannel cleaner (or if they did, it's so incredibly good that it's classified).
So I'm sure these guys who are so brilliant that even their solar-pannel wipers are classified could have made a probe last this long with no foul play. That is definately a STRONG possibility in my humble opinion.
However, since it is only my humble opinion and I have little technical knowledge about this mission, I was curious what doubts, if any, might be raised by in the minds of more informed members if this probe survived for a year or two more. Is their any equipment on the rover which is easily given to wearing out which could be used as a fairly solid expiration date?

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
it can be a life worm which not being seen in day light and comes out when its dark and starts feeding on the warmt emitted from the rovers solar panels. on which they then are going to sit onto ... and when its getting to light for them they are going back underground.
they might not like light just like some lifeforms on earth.

What earth lifeforms come out when its dark and hide when the sun comes up? The closest thing I can currently think of is bats, but they are in sunlight sometimes. BUT, your theory is possible, Your theory will either be proven or broken in 2009 when we land our nuclear powered rover, then we can keep looking around at night.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
I wonder at what angles and what kind of vibration occurs on the rovers. I was wondering if the rover was at a high angle and vibrated...

Wouldn't be possible, they have very srict rules to how steep slopes they drive it, also rover itself has system which stops it if it's starting to tilt too much.
And driving speed is so slow that it wouldn't vibrate enough in any terrain.

And there's photos taken from Mars showing signs which fit well for dust devils.

E_T,

I've actually been looking for active dust devils in the surface photos.
So far I haven't noticed any. But there are SO MANY photos.
The person who theorized about, then discovered them on Mars, was my wife's geology teacher a couple of years ago. His LIFE, is based on researching them (Earth based, and Marian Varieties), really, it is!

I'll bet, If a few of us looked through the Opp, and Spirit photos, we might be able to find a photo or two, with an active whirlwind..What do you think?

this is very intresting!!!....perhaps theres some guy up there stood next to the rover with a bucket and cloth waiting for his £1.00 tip?...for sure all is not being revealed on this one.

i guess we landed our nuclear powered rover [or 2] allready,
most green groups would have afit, as well i would if you knew
for certon that any nuke power thing went in to space.
even with all the consp-stuff on that subject, it would most
likely make most of the world ask why we even bother ot go to space,
while risking an nuking and spreading rad all over the globe.
the us wanted to make mini- nuke weapons , would make sence that
they could make a mini- nuke power sorces. after all the movies i have
seen everyone know they would fake these mars probes just to
pokit the $, how hard would it be to fake somthing? i seen ufo's,
and i've seenalot of fake ufo's so , i just want to know how long i have to wait to find out the truth
i hope we here at ATS, aren't the only people who want to know the truth of this .
that's my bit, commits?