After some recent posts in another thread about not advertising this place too much for fear of loons, I wondered just how people had come across this place.

I joined up on the very first day after AlexBlackwell posted an advert in one of the premier kook hangouts: sci.space.history. Luckly it must have pretty much slipped under the radar being new and all, I wouldn't recomend doing that again!

Just curious...

James

I found it through the list of links on volcanopele's now-defunct Titan Today blog. --Emily

I originally found this site by googling "iapetus, equatorial, ridge, cassini" or some variation on that, last January.

I have lurked here very sporadically, and have lost track of this site repeatedly due to some computer problems at my end. I have posted quite a bit else where, under a different handle. In the unlikely event anyone cares, it would not be hard to figure out my interests, outer solar system objects and their histories, and space probes.

Have felt constrained at other sites (S/N thing) so am checking in here more often.

Impressive site. Hopefully I wont drive you all crazy.



Better animatroids here, too.

Someone put a link to the mer.rlproject.com down at space.com, a long time ago

I was looking for Huygens images better than just released official ones... starting from a italian astronomy forum and going through an amateur/forum-member site (I do not rimember who ).
I'm worried too for a trolls invasion (the mentioned forum now has this problem) but on the other hand we are probably missing important contribute from many people who do not knows this place!

I was langushing in the Usenet desert, gulping down the few drops of real info that occasionally dripped into alt.sci.planetary, when dvandorn posted a message about Spirit imaging a dust devil back in March. He was very careful not to mention the rlproject URL, as to avoid a flood of Usenet crazies, but someone else posted it anyway. This place was exactly what I was looking for - thanks for the rescue

If I recall properly, I got an e-mail from Alex Blackwell, letting me know there was a new forum that could be an alternative for those of us who were tired of the signal-to-noise ratio out on Usenet.

I think I joined in the first few days the forum was in existence. I made a few posts, then got distracted... and ran across the bookmark again some months later. I've been pretty steadily active ever since.

-the other Doug

one word: Slashdot.

I heard about it over at Mark Carey's forum. People would mention it 'the other mars forum' without giving the url. It took some googling to find it.

Funny, I just did a search for "rlproject" on space.com and the oldest post to mentioning the site there was one of yours. Hmmm...

(Actually, the MER forum was probably first mentioned there in the lost days before the Great Space.com Database Disaster of July 2004.)

I migrated here from space.com as well. The outstanding image analysis, high level of knowledge and most of all, friendly atmosphere, have kept me coming back.

I first learned of this foum on the #space channel on IRC. Actually, I think it was on one of its precursor channels, probably #maestro, which is now defunct. Links to the forum were/are sometimes posted there, since some similar topics are discussed.

I was looking for information about the MERs, more than I could get from the news, and with more commentary and interpretation than I could get from the JPL website. I saw a notice about what was then mer.rlproject.com posted in one of the sci.space groups on Usenet; when I checked it out, I was immediately hooked. I think I have checked for the latest news from Mars, and later from Saturn, almost every day since some time in February 2004. My Life On Mars.

Via Mark Carey. When I noted that Bruce Moomaw was actively participating here I stopped looking any further.

Peter

That's how I found it, too. Since that day in March 2005 I had a look almost daily and wouldn't want to miss it

Michael

I stumbled upon mer.rplproject ways back when.... I think it had something to do with Bad Astronomy's bulletin board (r.i.p.), though my memories are overshadowed by the wealth of imagery this forum has yielded.....

I now visit here daily... it's got the prime real estate position on my Safari Bookmarks Bar... right next to APOD.

Same here, though it seems so long ago I struggled to remember the exact details. And yes, I'm addicted.

Chris

Via the #maestro channel.

Googling for what was happening with Oppy and Spirit. I first found just a poor thread with two or three posts, letting me think that this forum was not vey interesting. But after abandoning "another" forum, I explored this one and found interesting stuff.

Searching for "Victoria crater" on Google

I also came from SDC after TheChemist posted that link most likely.
Can't quite remember, time looks about right

I pretty much stay around here, going back to SDC for shuttle related stuff and CEV etc.
Some very good discussions there, IMHO, with regard to those, espeicially return to flight things.

I was already viewing Exploratorium and considered the official Mars rover page was to slow to bring news and description of what I was seeing. So I googled too, but lurked for quite some time - think I did so without having registred at first.

I followed a link from the following spacedaily article who brought me to this amazing forum.

Robot From Earth Climbs Mountain On Mars
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzp.html

Since that day, I spend some time every day reading the new posts, and posting a few.
Chris already used the right term : addiction.

Rakhir

Google for me. I was running searches on planetary science and one of the hits brought me here.

I had been following the Rovers for several months on my own when I found the Mark Carey board. I learned of the mer.rplproject from that board, joined here October 2004 and the rest is history. I'm here to stay.

--Bill

Googling for MARS FORUM... Find Mark Carey's "MARS FORUM" and I was happy for a while...
There I find a link (or somebody mention "Unmaned spaceflight") so I dicided to look for it... It was THE BEST FIND EVER!!!

This is THE BEST ASTRONOMY FORUM that I know of...

Since then I'm comming here almost every day. I only regret that my english is not that good so it's much more dificult for me to write post's...

Thank you for making it this good!!!

Tomislav Bandin...

I used to just take what was dished out at the NASA MER web page, and the occasional article on Space.com, as I had done with Pathfinder and MGS. Man I loved those early televised MER press conferences, then my cable company dropped NASA TV and for a while I was able to get the press conference streams on CSPAN's web site. But then CSPAN quit saving the streams. I even have a friend who worked on data security at JPL who used to forward me email updates, but then my friend got sick and had to go on longterm disability.

I seem to recall that the information and details just dried up after Oppy left Endurance. Out of frustration one day (while they still had heatshield photos up on the MER web page after two weeks) I did a Google search using terms like Vostok and "etched terrain" hoping to find some article I may have missed. That's when I found the Mars Exploration Rover Forum. I even recall telling my wife (who has little interest in all of this). "Wow. I struck gold here."

I discovered this forum by the link: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zk.html
After that, I found it a very good site to start to learn anything related to manned and unmanned spacecrafts and am start to listen to the most complicated things about the astronomy. Besides, I found the people from Forum to be very educated and friendly.

Rodolfo

I also found it through the same SpaceDaily link.

tty

I also learned about this site from spacedayly.com when they cited unmanned spacefliht as a source for the news that Opportunity has stucked in the sands and that was the first information about that. Since then - that was back in april - I visit every day the forum. I do not feel myself enough competent (my professional activity is very very far from the science) to participate in the discussion, but I appreciate the level and have spent many hours enjoying the readings. It's simply great!

I could be wrong, but I think I followed a not-quite-link posted on the Yahoo! Space Model Group (which likewise suffers fools rarely!). It's been a pleasure to follow the discussions here, and to sometimes contribute when my limited knowledge maps onto the subjects in hand - oh, and as for the glorious, hand-crafted images...

Bob Shaw

google: mars forum, found a bunch of them, started visiting the yellow forum and UMSF daily but quickly found interest here and frustration over there. Although it depends of course on who you're talking to.

why? One day I wanted to know if there were more MER-maniacs like me and immediately found what I was looking for.

Nico

I am a refugee from Space.com land... I saw someone who posted a link here and followed it. I have to saw this is one of the best (if not the best) space message boards out there!

I came from one of those 'anomoly' Yahoo groups whose members are sometimes quite lucid. I had been of the mind that there was more than we'd been told about Mars. The rovers have shown quite clearly that Mars is a dusty desert planet. If there is life, it is probably clinging to tiny niches and very lowly evolved.
Once I got on this forum I never looked back. The level of professionalism and intelligence is miles above the other sites.

I remember my first day of cruising the images and I was hooked. Used to be I could keep up with all of the posts daily...ha! now there are so many people posting and so many topics..I have to concentrate on my main interests..Saturn and Mars.

Keep up all the good work everyone, I hope to contribute where I can (I especially like to make the animated GIFs of Saturns moons passing each other).

Eric P / MizarKey

P. S. Proud to be 'Member 45'.

I really can't remember... but it must have been a round-about route via Google.

Phil

Eric:

Slightly OT, but...

...I think we're exposing a macro-biological prejudice if we start talking about life 'clinging' or being 'lowly' - if an organism fits it's demonstrably harsh niche so well that it has out-lived all it's competitors, and shows no sign of dying out, then it's both highly evolved *and8 at the top of the tree! The human race should do so well!

Just because something is slime doesn't mean that it ain't top dog - our own planet appears to have a far larger and stable sub-surface ecosystem of 'lowly' organisms than that with which we big bugs on the surface are familiar!

And who's measuring relative success...

Bob Shaw

[AOL]
Me too!
[/AOL]

Hello, new here. A former online friend gave me the link. Looks great, will read and post when able.

I came after TheChemist invited me (we knew each other from space.com forums)

Slashdot ran an article today called "Fountains of Enceladus." In a response, "Eccentric Anomoly" wrote Since Cassini is so slow in releasing results to the general public, you may be interested in this discussion (including some neat image processing) by amateur astronomers: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showt opic=1729 [unmannedspaceflight.com] This site usually get a jump on the official Cassini channels of about a week.

I followed the link and liked it so well here I modded him up. :-)

--Greg

I stumbled in last May... not sure how I found it, but I was messing around with other forums at the time, and I think getting directed over from Space.com is the most likely possibility. Been checking every day since. But as a teenager with no image processing skills, I don't have much to contribute. I'm just here to find out new and interesting things more quickly than you can anywhere else online.

Someone (I believe Nick Hoffman) posted the link to mer.rlproject.com at habitablezone.com. I remember this vividly because Oppy had just arrived at Endurance and there was some good discussion going on here. I was also a regular at space.com. I've been guilty of mentioning the site a couple of times over at space.com but was definitely not the first one!

Can't remember

I think I got here via a link on the new mars forum, when the rovers just landed

I had been emailing Emily Lakdawalla with The Planetary Society. And she gave me the UMSF site.

I am a meteorologist. But after a BS and one semester of grad school, I succumbed to the siren call of the business world. For almost 30 years I have been a TV weathercaster. I'm afraid to think about how much math and physics I have forgotten over the years. I used to dream of participating in the exploration of Mars and the rest of the solar system. It had to stay a dream. But now I participate vicariously through this forum. And I congratulate and heartily thank all of you more educated and experienced members, whose contributions make this forum such a joy. I'm here every day.

By the way, for those of you who are members of The Planetary Society, there is a new forum there. It is just in the very beginning stages. But it too will hopefully grow and become useful... but of course it will never replace this forum!

David Finfrock

I found it through the lunatic Mars forum.

Well, in terms of clinging, I think that it is a reference to the idea of life that flourished during other Martian epochs, and is now barely surviving under current conditions. I agree with you on the lowly part.

I found it via a small, private planetary science discussion board that I was (and am) a part of. It was a forum that has become very walled off to keep out the kooks. I have always been impressed by Unmannedspaceflight's ability to stay so open and yet keep itself from being inundated by kooks.

The very fact it IS so open implies, IMHO that eventually, one day k00ks will come rampaging in. And then it'll all go downhill, all the reasonable guys who actually contribute to constructive discussions will give up and move on, trying to find another "safe haven" for a while.

I'd like to believe that day will never come, but I'm skeptical, as always...

They have. Twice. And their accounts were deleted, the IP addresses banned, both time within the space of 24 hours.

Trust me - as long as I am in charge of this place - it will NOT get kookie. It's lost some of the magic it had a year ago, but it's still a good place, and I will not see it ruined.

Doug

I think that the (mostly) serious tone of this place may also help to keep all but the most nutty of the fruitcakes away. But I'm glad Doug is there to swat them - your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Oh, and I'm going to disagree, and suggest that the magic is not diminished, but has evolved.

Chris