back to article Opportunity rover gets bored of spot it's explored since 2014

The thirteen year-old Opportunity rover is moving on from the region of Mars it's been exploring since 2014. Opportunity has spent the last 30 months at “Cape Tribulation”, a spot near the rim of the Endeavour Crater. The Cape's yielded all sorts of insights from finds like an outcrop of clay-like minerals and some interesting …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Obligatory xkcd reference

    https://xkcd.com/1504/

    1. Stevie

      Re: Obligatory xkcd reference

      Forget XKCD, the obligatory reference is this one.

  2. imanidiot Silver badge

    No it wasn't

    It WAS always expected to last more than 3 months. 3 Months was just it's primary mission time, things it "had" to get done before the winter and the possibility of losing the rover due to lack of power from dust on the solar panels. Plans to survive the winter had already been made before the rover arrived on the planet though. But 13 years is certainly something no-one would have believed a decade ago. And I'm sure we can forgive the lil' chap his memory problems. I'm sure we all get those senior moments once we age.

  3. Ochib

    Obligatory xkcd reference

    https://www.xkcd.com/695/

  4. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Football field

    First of all, I thought Americans knew even less about football than I do. So why would they compare anything to a football field?

    But more importantly, this is NOT a suitable measure of length. NASA, henceforth refer to El Reg Standard Units.

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Re: Football field

      I thought Americans knew even less about football than I do

      American football. What a friend of mine calls "almost rugby played while wearing ladies tights and moped helmets".

      1. Havin_it

        Re: Football field

        Or the suitably-descriptive-while-retaining-brevity: handegg.

    2. wobby

      Re: Football field

      Nasa, which measures in football fields has put forth 25 missions to Mars with 6 failures/partial failures yielding a 76% success rate. Countries which do not measure in football fields have fielded 30 missions to Mars with 24 failures/partial failures yielding a 20% success rate. Obviously football fields are the superior unit of measurement.

      1. Evil Auditor Silver badge

        Re: Football field

        wobby, you've got a point there. And I guess, NASA also determines their budgets in terms of football fields...

  5. dontti
    Facepalm

    This article needs some translation to english

    As in wtf length is a football field? Why is it even used? It's some arbitrary measure of distance used by the americans for americans, it has no meaning outside USA.

    1. cray74

      Re: This article needs some translation to english

      As in wtf length is a football field? Why is it even used? It's some arbitrary measure of distance used by the americans for americans, it has no meaning outside USA.

      Yep. Anyone else in the world would only use "cricket fields" or "tennis courts" because there are no other sports in the world named "football," let alone ones that also have a field approximately 100 meters long. ;)

    2. Dr. G. Freeman

      Re: This article needs some translation to english

      Does it include the bits behind the "goals" that have the team names on it, or is it goal line to goal line ?

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: This article needs some translation to english

        "Does it include the bits behind the "goals" that have the team names on it, "

        That must be a bugger at half time when the change ends!

    3. Bill Gray

      Re: This article needs some translation to english

      Were I writing that press release, I'd be keeping in mind that its goal is to ensure attention is paid to the Mars program and that funding continues. I'd phrase it in ways that the average voter or elected official would understand. I'd avoid use of metric units that might make me seem like some godless furriner, and stick with good ol' American units. To make the press release seem less elitist, I'd put in a reference to a sport for Real Men such as football.

      You, as (I'm assuming) a non-American, just don't matter as far as the writer of that press release is concerned.

      I've never seen a Russian or Chinese space agency press release, but it does seem to me that the ESA releases (which have their own issues) don't appear to be quite so narrowly Eurocentric. Once Brexit is accomplished and the UK is on its own for space affairs, I assume any press releases from the new British Space Agency will measure things in the height of Big Ben or something like that.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: This article needs some translation to english

        "Were I writing that press release, I'd be keeping in mind that its goal is to ensure attention is paid to the Mars program and that funding continues. I'd phrase it in ways that the average voter or elected official would understand."

        So, heights in multiples or fractions of Trump towers, distances in multiples or fractions of Trump golf courses, areas in multiples or ftactions of the area of Trump's resort in Florida, time intervals as multiples or fractions of the average time between Trump's tweets.

        Got it.

      2. Andrew Newstead

        Re: This article needs some translation to english

        Er, the European Space Agency is not part of the EU. It is a separate organisation and not all EU countries are involved and a few non EU countries are. The UKs membership is not affected by Brexit.

    4. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: This article needs some translation to english

      Do not, ever, confuse a football pitch with a football field.

      Given the various sizes of Premiership football pitches, the FP is not suitable as a length metric.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Last I heard, NASA is American, funded by Americans, so if they want to measure in corn dogs, that's their prerogative.

    1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Last I heard, NASA is American, funded by Americans, so if they want to measure in corn dogs, that's their prerogative.

      Using mixed units of football fields and corn dogs was what lost them a Mars probe.

      1. cray74

        Using mixed units of football fields and corn dogs was what lost them a Mars probe.

        Semantics. You say "lost," I say, "successful demonstration of lithobraking."

      2. SolidSquid

        Actually it was mis-communications when getting parts manufactured abroad, primarily the americans worked with the American standard football field and the third parties worked with the UK football field standard

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      I had an interesting conversation with a fast jet pilot, in a bar. The subject was the mixture of measurement systems used when flying. As an example, height is usually specified by the flight level, a multiple of 100 feet (?). They used the units that were easiest to accommodate in a very busy brain.

      If you have ever seen an elderly, experienced, carpenter working out imperial dimensions you'll understand the utility of quarters, eighths ,sixteenths etc. Use the metric system and it is calculator or a pen and paper.

      Ultimately use what is best for the particular problem, ideally El Reg of course.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "If you have ever seen an elderly, experienced, carpenter working out imperial dimensions you'll understand the utility of quarters, eighths ,sixteenths etc. Use the metric system and it is calculator or a pen and paper."

        Alternatively, have you ever seen a young, experienced carpenter working out metric dimensions you'll understand the utility of working in base 10 throughout. Use the imperial system and it's "WTF is that?" :-)

        Although it's funny reading people writing about using British Imperial units as "proper American" units :-)

      2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        If you want your measurements to be easily divisible by four (or three) you choose appropriate sizes. Which is why your window is 1200mm wide not 1m.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Last I heard, NASA is American, funded by Americans, so if they want to measure in corn dogs, that's their prerogative."

      Maybe so, but they already screwed up big time by using old-fashioned measurement before.

      "Hey, is that measured in milli-football fields or micro-football fields?"

      Maybe not. Milli- and Micro sounds too metric. More likely in 1/3rds, 1/8ths or thou.

      Football fields can be used for area too. And maybe use footballs for volume. How many footballs of fuel do we need?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Fuel is normally measured in weight as volume changes based on things like temperature etc. Eg - in F1 they can only use 110kgs of fuel per reace.

  7. &rew
    Thumb Up

    Inspirational stuff

    It's successes like this that make me think things like, "of course I can pluck up the courage to speak to a stranger in the pub".

    All joking aside, it is stuff like this that gives me hope for humanity.

  8. fishman

    US and UK

    The US and the UK have one thing in common. Neither have any teams now playing in the Champions League.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: US and UK

      Americans wouldn't understand the concept of the Champions League. Apart from the football confusion, Americans only ever play other Amercians for world titles. That way they can always be world champions.

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