Dad, Husband, Mars Rover Crew Chief. Opinions and views expressed are my own. Not a NASA account. Contains strong language. He/Him. https://linktr.ee/doug_ellison
Them: We're forcing you to go back into the office because we believe work is more meaningful when employees are together and have a shared sense of comradery.
Me: So, unionize?
Them: No, not like that.
@cosmicray Fun times in the LA airspace last night...our house is near the right turn airliners usually take coming from the north for approach to the north side of LAX 26L...one weirdly low and slow plane overheard had me looking at ADSBExchange and it looked like ~4 aircraft all were in the pattern on the go around having been waved off.
@thomas_appere Definitely the end of an era. Since Emily left TPS it's basically been abandoned in place...just trying to take a backup crashed the thing. Better to bring it to a close on our own terms rather than carry on and have it crash and die unexpectedly now TPS isn't going to pay any more.
@mike_malaska Without it - would we even have thought to get mild heat stroke 3 days in a row? It's telling that there's one reply on the forum, but 50+ engagements here. I was sad at the prospect....but relieved there's some graceful finality to it.
@malderi Far better to acknowledge it's over and go out gracefully. But yeah - it's the end of an era for sure.
@amoroso Sadly there just isn't the traffic to justify the expense. I have no idea how to rescue it from the old Invision platform. It's incredibly broken behind the scenes. It was amazing for its time, but that time is gone I think. Even those of us who were there when I started it in '04 have moved to using other types of platforms to share their work. Looking at the Italian Discourse, it looks like it has 10-100x the traffic....which is awesome.
@PaulHammond51 It's been a long time coming - it's time. It's been without proper maintenance for years. 20+ yrs is a good run. The conversation is elsewhere these days.
@Ohsin Unfortunately maintaining things like that take a lot of time and money and there simply isn't enough of either to try and rescue it from the technical state it's in. What's interesting is that my posting here about it has triggered 9x as much engagement as on the forum itself. It's a shame but nothing lasts for ever.
Well - it had one hell of a run...nearly 21 years. But UMSF is closing its doors on Jan 1st 2025. http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8823 . I owe my entire life to that place, and that place owes its existence to Steve Squyres, Jim Bell and Alice Wessen. The time of dedicated forums like that is well gone, but for a while back there in the late '00s....it was amazing. I remember making this first R-G-B image I posted in Feb '04 like it was yesterday.
@mike_malaska Painted Canyon is awesome. We managed to do the whole loop - ladders and all - with the kid just turned 6.
@mike_malaska @cosmicray I love how you can check through TSA anywhere and then just walk to terminal B. TSA can be such a shit show at B sometimes. I’ve checked in at 6 and walked to B before 😂. And hey - at least it’s not Heathrow which is about as much fun as drowning.
@mattgrayyes They’re a 25 year old design now - started life as a payload for the 2001 lander that got cancelled….used the same design for the cameras on Spirit and Opportunity 2 years later….and Curiosity another 8 after that. In any other world, 25 year old camera tech would be $5 on Ebay 😂
@mattgrayyes I took that one as part of my ECAM shift last Friday :). That image is part of a little three frame mosaic we take every few days to check how dusty the atmosphere is by using line-of-sight to the distant northern rim of Gale Crater. When it’s really dusty we can’t see it at all.
Those of us in LA are so lucky to have this 45 mins down the road.
@mattgrayyes #emf2024. Hi from Mars Rover HQ in Pasadena :)
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If you have eclipse glasses....get them back out. The sun is putting on one hell of a show right now. I got out the 800mm lens I decided to NOT take to the eclipse and stacked this from a short 4k res movie.
@65dBnoise https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/ingenuity-helicopter/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-team-says-goodbye-for-now/ "This transmission, received through the antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network, marked the final time the mission team would be working together on Ingenuity operations.". There is no Ingenuity ops team anymore. It's over.
@65dBnoise It's so far away it wouldn't be visible....and Ingenuity operations ended a couple of weeks ago.