Charles Elachi: The story of the Mars Rovers

http://www.ted.com At Serious Play 2008, Charles Elachi shares stories from NASA's legendary Jet Propulsion Lab -- including tales and video from the Mars Rover project.

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[c6gunner]

"im a physics and astronomy major"

Uhuh. And I'm a Japanese jet pilot!

Listen, kid, I know that at this point in your life things seem pretty hopeless. No girlfriend. No job. Just a drug-addicted highschool dropout, praying that your parents won't kick you out of their basement. But have hope. Things will get better. If you at least try to go back and finish finish school, you'll be giving yourself a new shot at life. Just try, ok?

Meanwhile, I've got a 747 to fly to Tokyo. Take care!

[niginit]

LOL, i dunno if this is a joke or what but the end was worth reading the rest of the drivel.

religion is poison:(

[caro2486]

Lebanon has made a new acheivment with dr Rachid Matta another lebanese mathematician who succedeed to prove Euclide's theory that stayed unproven sinve 3000 years ago

[caro2486]

mm

i'm a 19 yo lebanese girl

on behalf of all lebanese people we are proud of Dr. elachi who' s lebanese from zahleh ( a magnificient christian small village in LEBANON )

and Dr. edgard choueiri who is the president of the world plasma rocket heading members fo the major countries in the wolrd like USA , russia , germany , france etc....

[RamadaArtist]

This is probably a really naive question, but ever since I first heard about how the rovers collect dust and it reduces the effectiveness of the solar panels, I can't help but wonder why they didn't put, like, essentially windshield wipers on them (but with brushes instead of rubber blades.)

[selachi2009]

@Za7a7aZ What do you mean by spirit?

[selachi2009]

@swyft187 The Dispute for all Monotheists, is not our origin being from matter in space, it is the origin of the matter to begin with, and how it has been arranged perfectly. I am not for trying to convert just intellectual discourse between all humans with respect to their positions. My position is that we are all a result of the Big Bang but the Big Bang stemming of an absolute source of energy, intelligence, wisdom and knowledge. I best understand this source via Shiite Islamic thought.

[BlackStar250874]

@swyft187 Nicely said, but really, white dwarfs are not really exploding anymore ..  You are talking about really high mass stars that produce iron, and they are not going down so quietly..

[chutsu]

@Za7a7aZ well it kinda makes sense, cause looking back at history, the Apollo programme, the sole objective was to prove to the world that the US has the upper hand in terms of aerospace technology, and that the US can and will develop "space" weapons against their enemies if needed. I (an outsider) believe (Note: My own opinion) that NASA may well be developing space weapons on the side line just in case a Space War does break out. So secrecy really ain't far that fetched..

[Za7a7aZ]

He says why do we explore, why do we do this.....He completely forgot that it is the people of the USA that pay NASA employees to explore for them. NASA has been starting to be secretive and along the way they consider themselves an organisation that decides for itself what information will be made public and has the suggestion that they have no responsibility towards the common people who are just as interested and enthousistic as the scientist themselves about space and everything in it.

[Za7a7aZ]

I wish he told something about the "hidden" part of JPL., something about the 'spirit' they get their inspiration from.