What do you mean what happened to the last Mars rover to land? Didn't you see the Transformers teaser trailer? ;)

Only if someone loses the metric-to-standard slide rule.

Also, this probe is a lander, not a rover like the MERs. There is also some possibility that they imaged the crash site of MPL, though there isn't any telescopes in orbit capable of seeing that close.

@Rybanis: Phoenix is a rover. I have seen it. It roves.

Actually, I was at a science cafe with the principal project engineers Monday. Phoenix is a digger, not a rover.

The gravity sensor is not mounted upside down on this model, and it sounds like they have a great shot at a good landing.

The talk was really pretty amazing. It was presented by Patrick and Rigel Woida, A father and son team. & just a couple of fun loving engineers who just so happen to have lucked into having the best shot at detecting life on Mars.

The running joke was that if they find water we will be there in 20 years. If they find life, we go in 5 years, and if they find oil, we land next year.

Big Party/Wake Sunday the 25th. Keep you fingers crossed for a nice soft landing away from boulders.

@EBone: I was hoping someone would mention this. The first Mars Polar Explorer mission was lost, at least in part, due this country's stupid lazy stubbornness to finally drop the traditional measurement system once and for all.

Adding complications by forcing technicians to convert back and forth only introduces more possibilities for error.

Either this country should drop all use of metric or it should utterly eliminate all use of the traditional system with any casual backsliders publically executed on television as an example!

I mean we've been footdragging over this stupid half-assed sorta converting for more than a hundred years now. Enough's enough!

Grumble, grumble. If I were king--

@corpore-metal: I blame public schools and their teachers more than anything. They refuse to teach metric to anyone unless they're in a science class. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage against the rest of the world for pity's sake!

@corpore-metal: we were on track to go metric until King Ronnie decided it was just to hard to get used to. I remember the MPH/KPH Speed limit signs, but they vanished like the solar panels on the White House roof.

@corpore-metal:I can see the public not wanting to change, but why on earth and beyond would our scientists not be solely on metric?

@Dug: Where's your science cafe?

@mik3cap: When China and India pass the US in GDP--any year now--as the EU already has, our parochial attachment to a antiquated measuring system will underscore our irrelevance. We've been ignoring the ringing of that wake up call for more than 30 years.

@codydog: Which is a prime example of what I'm talking about. It used to be the pejorative that we tossed at the Soviets--"a third world power with missiles." How ironic when find ourselves labeled the same way.

@RAHfanboy: Good question. Why on Earth were the engineers and technicians forced to convert to operate the Polar Explorer probe? They shouldn't have to right? But they were just the same. Why?

And I heartily sick of the public not wanting to change. We've let the gradualists mollycoddle the public on metric for at least 40 years. That's two generations at least.

I say to the hell with the footdraggers who whine about the expense and effort. I say we systematically and categorically purge all evidence of old system and just let those lazy bums who can't be bothered to use metric sink or swim.

If we give them no reference points to the old system there'd be no problem. They just use the new system without learning it at all.

Grumble, grumble. Call this a fine way to prepare for the future because I don't.

Anyway, hopeless and lonely idealistic rant over. Excuse me while I search for linux drivers for my dvorak keyboard now. Sigh.

@mathmos:

[www.azstarnet.com]

Cheers

It was the Mars Climate Orbiter which was lost due to a metric-imperial mixup - it was launched around the same time as the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander.

And yes, I'm a Mars fanboy - I've even had the Phoenix lander's hoped-for landing marked in my calendar for ages. True nerdery!

@CargoCult:
Oops. Darn, if I'm going to get a good rant going I may as well get my facts straight. Yeah, it was the Climate Orbiter, not the Polar Lander.

Polar lander was likely lost due to excess vibration causing the lander to think it had already touched down, or cold engines with inadequate performance. And the Mars Science Laboratory would much better fit the moniker of "an even more bad-ass version of the current Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity." Since it actually is a giant rover. Phoenix is much more like a sleek and slim version of the Viking landers: sit in one place and do some serious soil science.

"Phoenix, an even more badass version of the current Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity"

You're probably thinking of Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled for launch in 2009 [mars.jpl.nasa.gov] . Phoenix, as others have noted, is a static lander. MSL *is* badass, at least for rovers...

@Annalee Newitz: Well it might be roving right now, but once Pheonix lands it isn't going anywhere. Not sure what you saw, but Phoenix is as stationary as the Viking landers. It's a digger and instrument platform...

From the official NASA web site FAQ:

Why is the Phoenix spacecraft a lander instead of a rover?

Despite the success of Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Phoenix mission will use a lander because it is simply a different type of mission. The rovers were designed to study rocks at different locations, looking for evidence that the liquid water once flowed on the surface of Mars. Unlike the rovers, which were hunting for evidence of water at points along the Martian surface, the Phoenix lander knows exactly where to go to find water. To reach it, however, the spacecraft must dig down below the surface. The Phoenix lander is going to an area of Mars where water is believed to exist in the form of ice just below the surface. This water ice is probably spread fairly uniformly throughout the northern plains so the lander should be able to uncover ice wherever it lands.

Yes, disappear...nothing like those alien teenagers vandalizing our electronics! Damn alien kids! *swings about cane*

The lander is definitely just that, it lands in one spot and stays there unless someone can figure out how to pull it around with the robotic arm that it has for digging.

Yes, this is the vehicle that was built for the 2001 lander that was canceled because the MVACS, Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (aka Mars Polar Lander), did not land successfully, which is the same vehicle.

There has been much debate as to why that lander added another very small crater to Mars (crashed). The reason MVACS made a crash landing instead of a soft one, at least as I understand it is that the system that was supposed to turn off the engines at touch-down stopped when the legs fully extended. Apparently the shock of the landing gear locking into place was similar to the shock of the touch-down, which triggered the engines to go off.

The Phoenix lander has been tested extensively and will not replicate the mistake its predecessor made.

woah - holy 'bermuda triangle' batman ---
So, we lost the Mars Climate Orbiter in late '90; Mars Polar Lander also in late '90s; and the British-built (or ESA or whatever) Beagle 2 in early '00s, the thing just went who knows where...
Sounds like an excellent 'lets send another more expensive mission to see how the other really expensive missions failed'.. nahh let's cut to the chase and send a manned mission... what could go wrong? (e: sarcasm ends)
Honestly, i do hope we can get some serious data and landing location analysis stuff..

The MSL may be Spirit and Opportunitiy's big cousin, but I doubt it will ever be the hero that Spirt and Opportunity are. Last over 16 times their expected lifespan, surving sand traps, dust storms and threatened budget cuts. Personally I attribute it to the anima of Marvin the Martian and Duck Dodgers, their mission patch mentors.

@corpore-metal: As Cargo Cult said, it was the Mars Climate Observer that failed due to the metric/imperial mix up - and that was never intended to be a lander...

However, to NASA's credit, they were the ones using metric units. It was the the dumbasses at Lockheed Martin who quoted thruster power in 'Pound seconds', when NASA asked for "Newton seconds"...since when was a 'pound' a unit of force anyway ?