Happy 10th Birthday, Opportunity, Mars rover!! Was expected to run for 3 months, still going strong!

[Major Hogwash]

On the 10th anniversary of its launch, NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars is also celebrating reaching the halfway point in its drive from one crater-rim segment to another.

The Opportunity rover, which is still going strong on the Red Planet long after its official mission was slated to end, is journeying 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) from the spot it studied for the past 22 months, on the edge of Mars' Endeavour crater, to another area where it will begin a new phase in its research.

Sunday (July 7) marks the 10th anniversary of Opportunity's launch from Earth with its sister rover Spirit, which shut down on Mars in 2010. The rovers lifted off in 2003, and arrived at the Red Planet in January 2004. They were originally expected to operate for three months

Rest of the story here --
http://news.yahoo.com/mars-rover-opportunity-hits-driving-milestone-10th-birthday-131651683.html

Yeah, we did that!!
Big government and all that!
The engineering crew that designed this rover really outdid themselves.
Congratulations, to NASA, and especially the Opportunity Mars rover team!!

So much for all that bs Republican talk about how lazy and stupid our federal government workers are!

[JimDandy]

1. Woo hoo! Amazing.

Wish NASA's budget hadn't been cut so much. We need to fund the NASA, not the NSA.

[canonfodder]

2. This is silly

So much for all that bs Republican talk about how lazy and stupid our federal government workers are!

Do you really want to go there?
Those people were all private contractors, hired by the government.
NASA personell were in the minority.
The greatest majority, no doubt, union workers.

[JimDandy]

3. It sounds like you

overshot the board you were aiming for and landed on an underground forum that encourages democratic ideas you seem to be hostile to. Hmmm...and you haven't found a single post on our board that was even worth recommending? Enjoy your stay.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Gotta love the username, though

[JimDandy]

14. Very apt indeed.

[sibelian]

7. .

Well, hi there.

Have fun.

[Cha]

4. thanks for the news, Major!

[pinboy3niner]

6. We're now putting him in for LTC, Cha

[Cha]

9. Leadership Training Course?

Yes, pinboy, I googled.

[pinboy3niner]

10. Bad google! Bad, bad google!

LTC is the next rank above Major--Lieutenant Colonel.

[Cha]

11. Ah, I didn't see that choice. And, I thought Leadership Training Course

sounded more like the context than Long Term Care.

Lt Colonel it is!

[pinboy3niner]

12. In the case of Major Hogwash...

...the Long Term Care thing may not be so out of context, after all.

(I keed, I keed--and I'm now endorsing him for full Colonel just in case he sees this. )

[Cha]

13. LOL.. I say Full Colonel too!

And, a long healthy life to us all!

[Major Hogwash]

16. You realize, of course, that means a lot coming from you.

When they found water on Mars, that meant that the Earth was not unique.

When I took an Astronomy class back in college the professor said that the Earth was unique, if nothing else, simply for the fact that it was the only planet that had any water.
And the fact that the Earth had water was what gave us our environment, which allowed life to form on this planet.
When one of the students brought up the idea that Mars had polar ice caps that were probably formed from frozen water, he scoffed at the idea.
Instead, he said that those caps likely didn't contain any form of water, but were composed of some chemical compound that we hadn't discerned yet as to what it was.

Now that the Opportunity and her sister rover has found water on Mars, that pretty much means that all religions are based on false premises . . . because they all relied on the uniqueness of Earth to be created by their perspective Gods.

[eridani]

8. Follow Sarcastic Rover on Twiitter

Some examples here--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12288901

[animato]

15. thanks!

n/t