Mars Rover Controlled By Java

[Robert C. Martin]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:24:19 -0800, Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate. spam.net>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>NASA is renowned for its antenna failures - the Hubble space
>telescope, Ulysses at Jupiter, and now their little radio-controlled
>go-cart on Mars.[/color]

I only know of one antennae failure. Gallileo's antenna failed to
open correctly. As I recall there was speculation that some of the
grease in the struts degraded (or something) during the long years of
storage following the Challenger explosion.

NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
doing things that nobody has ever done before.

[Uncle Al]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

"Jan C. Vorbrüggen" wrote:[color=blue]
>[color=green]
> > NASA is renowned for its antenna failures - the Hubble space
> > telescope,[/color]
>
> HST didn't and doesn't have antenna problems.[/color]

It sure as Hell did. When they got it up there NASA discovered that
the high gain antenna feed cable intersected space swept out by the
high gain antenna. The technical term for this is "pookie pookie."
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Ulysses at Jupiter[/color]
>
> That one is going 'round the sun, and has had no problems of the sort.[/color]

The Jupiter orbiter could never deploy its high gain antenna. While
NASA spurted all over the Media for years, data was being received at
a rate recalling Radio Shack computers and their modems. Only a very
small fraction of the collected data was ever relayed. What a
successful mission.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > and now their little radio-controlled go-cart on Mars.[/color]
>
> ...which isn't having an antenna problem, either.[/color]

No. It turns out $240 million won't custom-build a NASA FlashRAM card
as good as one can purchase at Radio Shack. That's no surprise. $1
billion could not grind and polish a NASA version of a Keyhole spy
satellite main optic available off the shelf. In pure NASA Korporate
Kulture tradition, the old fart optician who screamed about the
Hubble's mirrror blank being rough ground to the wrong spec was fired
very early on. It cost another $billion to fix it in orbit.

FOR THE EMPIRICALPRICE OF FINALLY DOING HUBBLE CORRECTLY, NASA COULD
HAVE BUILT AND ORBITED NEARLY THREE OF THEM USING KEYHOLE SATELLITE
OFF THE SHELF PLANS AND PARTS.
[snip]

Taking a picture of Martian dirt is not a major triumph. We already
have surface meterological and chemical data. Unless a nice block of
limestone turns up, with included fossils, this has been a huge and
hugely expensive bullshit party. How many Enron ex-executives are
working at NASA?

--
Uncle Al

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/

(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

[Uncle Al]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

"Jan C. Vorbrüggen" wrote:[color=blue]
>[color=green]
> > NASA is renowned for its antenna failures - the Hubble space
> > telescope,[/color]
>
> HST didn't and doesn't have antenna problems.[/color]

It sure as Hell did. When they got it up there NASA discovered that
the high gain antenna feed cable intersected space swept out by the
high gain antenna. The technical term for this is "pookie pookie."
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Ulysses at Jupiter[/color]
>
> That one is going 'round the sun, and has had no problems of the sort.[/color]

The Jupiter orbiter could never deploy its high gain antenna. While
NASA spurted all over the Media for years, data was being received at
a rate recalling Radio Shack computers and their modems. Only a very
small fraction of the collected data was ever relayed. What a
successful mission.
[color=blue][color=green]
> > and now their little radio-controlled go-cart on Mars.[/color]
>
> ...which isn't having an antenna problem, either.[/color]

No. It turns out $240 million won't custom-build a NASA FlashRAM card
as good as one can purchase at Radio Shack. That's no surprise. $1
billion could not grind and polish a NASA version of a Keyhole spy
satellite main optic available off the shelf. In pure NASA Korporate
Kulture tradition, the old fart optician who screamed about the
Hubble's mirrror blank being rough ground to the wrong spec was fired
very early on. It cost another $billion to fix it in orbit.

FOR THE EMPIRICALPRICE OF FINALLY DOING HUBBLE CORRECTLY, NASA COULD
HAVE BUILT AND ORBITED NEARLY THREE OF THEM USING KEYHOLE SATELLITE
OFF THE SHELF PLANS AND PARTS.
[snip]

Taking a picture of Martian dirt is not a major triumph. We already
have surface meterological and chemical data. Unless a nice block of
limestone turns up, with included fossils, this has been a huge and
hugely expensive bullshit party. How many Enron ex-executives are
working at NASA?

--
Uncle Al

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/

(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

[Randy Howard]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

In article <o0ha1098h3s18t 6k1b15v1l3furkd tmi8n@4ax.com>,
unclebob@object mentor.com says...[color=blue]
> NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
> doing things that nobody has ever done before.[/color]

A very good point, and I am a bit surprised it hasn't been said
previously in this thread. The public seems to have convinced
themselves that space travel is no more difficult than going down
to the corner store for a loaf of bread. It's not even remotely
true, with or without a passenger on board.

NASA shouldn't be getting a "black eye" for such failures, people
should be saying "good try, when are you going to make another
attempt at solving such a difficult problem". Stop and think
for a minute about how effective you would be at debugging your
project if the link between your development machine and the
system under test was on another planet and the delay between
inputs commensurately slow. Have fun. How would you debug
hardware problems remotely if you could not have any physical
contact with the machine? EVER AGAIN?

--
Randy Howard
2reply remove FOOBAR

[Randy Howard]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

In article <o0ha1098h3s18t 6k1b15v1l3furkd tmi8n@4ax.com>,
unclebob@object mentor.com says...[color=blue]
> NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
> doing things that nobody has ever done before.[/color]

A very good point, and I am a bit surprised it hasn't been said
previously in this thread. The public seems to have convinced
themselves that space travel is no more difficult than going down
to the corner store for a loaf of bread. It's not even remotely
true, with or without a passenger on board.

NASA shouldn't be getting a "black eye" for such failures, people
should be saying "good try, when are you going to make another
attempt at solving such a difficult problem". Stop and think
for a minute about how effective you would be at debugging your
project if the link between your development machine and the
system under test was on another planet and the delay between
inputs commensurately slow. Have fun. How would you debug
hardware problems remotely if you could not have any physical
contact with the machine? EVER AGAIN?

--
Randy Howard
2reply remove FOOBAR

[Richard Heathfield]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

Robert C. Martin wrote:
[color=blue]
> NASA has had it's up's and downs.[/color]

Modulo the apostrophes, that's great tee-shirt material.

--
Richard Heathfield : binary@eton.pow ernet.co.uk
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
K&R answers, C books, etc: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton

[Richard Heathfield]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

Robert C. Martin wrote:
[color=blue]
> NASA has had it's up's and downs.[/color]

Modulo the apostrophes, that's great tee-shirt material.

--
Richard Heathfield : binary@eton.pow ernet.co.uk
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
K&R answers, C books, etc: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton

[Andrew Thompson]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

"Randy Howard"...,
| unclebob@object mentor.com says...
| > NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
| > doing things that nobody has ever done before.
|
| .... The public seems to have convinced
| themselves that space travel is no more difficult than going down
| to the corner store for a loaf of bread. It's not even remotely
| true, with or without a passenger on board.

Don't be silly, have you ever tried
to purchase bread on Mars?

Even if you can find a baker, it's
stale by the time you're Earthside. [ ;-) ]

| ..How would you debug
| hardware problems remotely if you could not have any physical
| contact with the machine? EVER AGAIN?

Assuming you can get it to obey _any_
commands.

a) Orient front of rover toward big rock.
b) Drive to 3 metres distant from rock, stop.
c) Drive forward 4 metres.
d) Back up 3 metres.
e) Repeat c), d) until problem fixed or rover destroyed.

Easy peasy.
You folks just do not think laterally. ;-)

--
Andrew Thompson
* http://www.PhySci.org/ PhySci software suite
* http://www.1point1C.org/ 1.1C - Superluminal!
* http://www.AThompson.info/andrew/ personal site

[Andrew Thompson]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

"Randy Howard"...,
| unclebob@object mentor.com says...
| > NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
| > doing things that nobody has ever done before.
|
| .... The public seems to have convinced
| themselves that space travel is no more difficult than going down
| to the corner store for a loaf of bread. It's not even remotely
| true, with or without a passenger on board.

Don't be silly, have you ever tried
to purchase bread on Mars?

Even if you can find a baker, it's
stale by the time you're Earthside. [ ;-) ]

| ..How would you debug
| hardware problems remotely if you could not have any physical
| contact with the machine? EVER AGAIN?

Assuming you can get it to obey _any_
commands.

a) Orient front of rover toward big rock.
b) Drive to 3 metres distant from rock, stop.
c) Drive forward 4 metres.
d) Back up 3 metres.
e) Repeat c), d) until problem fixed or rover destroyed.

Easy peasy.
You folks just do not think laterally. ;-)

--
Andrew Thompson
* http://www.PhySci.org/ PhySci software suite
* http://www.1point1C.org/ 1.1C - Superluminal!
* http://www.AThompson.info/andrew/ personal site

[David C DiNucci]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

Randy Howard wrote:[color=blue]
> NASA shouldn't be getting a "black eye" for such failures, people
> should be saying "good try, when are you going to make another
> attempt at solving such a difficult problem". Stop and think
> for a minute about how effective you would be at debugging your
> project if the link between your development machine and the
> system under test was on another planet and the delay between
> inputs commensurately slow. Have fun. How would you debug
> hardware problems remotely if you could not have any physical
> contact with the machine? EVER AGAIN?[/color]

While I hesitate to bash NASA (I do think they're doing very important
work, and I worked there myself for seven years), I regrettably prolong
a thread which has been OT from its inception with this excerpt from a
recent news article:

"[Mission manager Jennifer] Trosper said the problem appeared to be that
the rover's flash memory couldn't handle the number of files it was
storing. ... She pointed out that the scientists had thoroughly tested
the rover's systems on Earth, but that the longest trial for the file
system was nine days, half of the 18 days Spirit operated before running
into the problem."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/26/mars.rovers/

"Thoroughly tested"? If you're going to send any object, and especially
an object with a computer and software, to a distant planet where it is
supposed to survive for about 90 days, wouldn't it seem prudent to run
at least a 90 day test of the object on earth before liftoff?

-- Dave

[Dave Seaman]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:11:34 -0800, David C DiNucci wrote:
[color=blue]
> "[Mission manager Jennifer] Trosper said the problem appeared to be that
> the rover's flash memory couldn't handle the number of files it was
> storing. ...[/color]

It seems the Spirit is willing, but the flash is weak...


--
Dave Seaman
Judge Yohn's mistakes revealed in Mumia Abu-Jamal ruling.
<http://www.commoncoura gepress.com/index.cfm?actio n=book&bookid=2 28>

[Michael N. Christoff]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding


"Uncle Al" <UncleAl0@hate. spam.net> wrote in message
news:40154B70.B 8A951B8@hate.sp am.net...[color=blue]
> "Jan C. Vorbrüggen" wrote:[color=green]
> >[color=darkred]
> > > NASA is renowned for its antenna failures - the Hubble space
> > > telescope,[/color]
> >
> > HST didn't and doesn't have antenna problems.[/color]
>
> It sure as Hell did. When they got it up there NASA discovered that
> the high gain antenna feed cable intersected space swept out by the
> high gain antenna. The technical term for this is "pookie pookie."
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Ulysses at Jupiter[/color]
> >
> > That one is going 'round the sun, and has had no problems of the sort.[/color]
>
> The Jupiter orbiter could never deploy its high gain antenna. While
> NASA spurted all over the Media for years, data was being received at
> a rate recalling Radio Shack computers and their modems. Only a very
> small fraction of the collected data was ever relayed. What a
> successful mission.
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > and now their little radio-controlled go-cart on Mars.[/color]
> >
> > ...which isn't having an antenna problem, either.[/color]
>
> No. It turns out $240 million won't custom-build a NASA FlashRAM card
> as good as one can purchase at Radio Shack.[/color]

Actually, it apparently was not the flash ram, but the particular software
that accessed the flash ram. Thats why they think they can fix it by
sending a software patch.



l8r, Mike N. Christoff

[Michael N. Christoff]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

[color=blue][color=green]
> > No. It turns out $240 million won't custom-build a NASA FlashRAM card
> > as good as one can purchase at Radio Shack.[/color]
>[/color]
[color=blue]
>
> Actually, it apparently was not the flash ram, but the particular software
> that accessed the flash ram. Thats why they think they can fix it by
> sending a software patch.
>[/color]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/26/mars.rovers/

I stand corrected.



l8r, Mike N. Christoff

[Bernd Paysan]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

Robert C. Martin wrote:[color=blue]
> NASA has had it's up's and downs. That's understandable. They are
> doing things that nobody has ever done before.[/color]

I don't agree. NASA does things that nobody has ever done before, but most
time it fails, it fails because it does things that a lot of people have
done before, just differently. My impression is that NASA has a big NIH
problem. They had it back before Gemini, because they didn't use their
German rocket experts, and their own rockets blew up again and again, until
the Sputnik shock forced them to rethink a bit. On the other hand, Russian
rocket science is dead conservative industrial production. They still use
slightly modified V2 aggregates in their rockets - lots of them, making
failures unlikely, and since they are "mass products" (several thousands a
year), they are cheap.

When NASA says their flash file system is having problems, I'd like to bang
my head against a wall. Why didn't they use a off-the-shelf flash file
system that's known to work? For all NASA engineers: My footer has an
obligation: "If you do it yourself, you better do it right!".

--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"

http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/

[Alan Balmer]

Re: Mars Rover Not Responding

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 04:41:14 -0500, "Michael N. Christoff"
<mchristoff@sym patico.caREMOVE THIS> wrote:
[color=blue]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>> > No. It turns out $240 million won't custom-build a NASA FlashRAM card
>> > as good as one can purchase at Radio Shack.[/color]
>>[/color]
>[color=green]
>>
>> Actually, it apparently was not the flash ram, but the particular software
>> that accessed the flash ram. Thats why they think they can fix it by
>> sending a software patch.
>>[/color]
>http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/26/mars.rovers/
>
>I stand corrected.
>
>[/color]
Don't give up so easily ;-) From the article you reference:
"Trosper said the problem appeared to be that the rover's flash memory
couldn't handle the number of files it was storing."

That sounds like a (possibly) software or (more probably) design and
specification problem, not hardware.

In any case, I'm interested to discover that Radio Shack FlashRAM
cards are far superior. I wonder how the OP determined that?

--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmercon sultingthis@att .net