How about...Medusa.

I concur. Great name Dan.

Medusa, whos head Persus gave to......ATHENA (our MER payload!)

Is that a challenge?...Accepted!

Jiigurru (Lizard Island)

I see the head of a Varanus Gouldii (sand monitor) poking out from the sand there...maybe just a case of malfunctioning pareidolia...

And it goes towards what I was thinking about Endeavour's names, the crew for features along the rim and for features inside the crater itself I thought about using names of places visited by the vessel on its journey of exploration.

"To European eyes, Jiigurru appeared almost formidable. In August 1770, during his exploration of Australia's east coast, Lieutenant James Cook wrote, "It is mostly high land very rocky and barren except on the NW side where there are some sandy bays and low land, which last is cover'd with thin long grass trees etc the same as upon the Main(land)".

He was impressed by Gould's sand monitor (Varanus gouldii). "The only Land-animals we saw here were lizards and these seem'd to be plenty which occasioned my naming the island Lizard Island""

From here.

Do you like it?

EDITED: Here I was taking my time doing some serious research ( ) for naming properly this feature and Dan just overthrow the pile of old manuscripts and charts I had on the desk...

Why not?

Cos after reaching the rim of Endeavour she's setting off for Valles Marineris, silly...

Stu, please do NOT associate in the same sentence the two words I put in bold in your post

Not sure it is appropriate :
Click to view attachment

One of the best (unofficial) names ever...

Was Ithaca dropped in favor of Endeavor for Big Crater ?

Ithaca is just what we've been calling the big crater for many years (long-time UMSF'ers know who's responsible for that! ) It's also the homebase for Cornell University. Endeavour is the name that the Rover teams have put forward, with the hope that it might become official.

Astro0

Stu, I hope you don't mind, but your latest prose stirred me to make up a few new posters using your words.
Enjoy
Astro0
Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

What will we be without these two ... (not talking about craters )

Mind? As always, I'm honoured!

Here are some very rough straight-line distance estimates to Endeavour (names are ustrax's):
- Banks and Solander: 18 km
- closest "rim" (more like a wide bulge): 13 km
- northern tip of western ridge: 15 km

Obviously, because of the weaving between the ripples that Oppy will have to accomplish, the actual roving distance will be greater. I hope she makes it!

Astro0, the image in that second poster is simply spectacular!
Definitely one of my favourites so far!

Are we here yet?...

While Oppy is renitent is saying farewell to Victoria, while the guys in the room next door are looking for solutions for surfing the dunes, while the views towards Endeavour remain there, teasing us, before the long trek, I thought that this would be a good occasion to let myself navigate in history’s waves.

Since we are headed to, presumably, visit other craters on the way to our destiny (Mini-Endurance?...), I’ve been doing some research, based on the fact that these features are being named after scientific and exploration ships.
Fascinating stories, foggy adventures, an oceanographer king, legends and discoveries have made their appearance along the way and I’ve retained the name of few of these vessels who have all the conditions to figure aside the already existing flotilla in Meridiani’s Sea of Sand.
Here they are, waiting to sail once more...:

-HMS Porcupine
-HMS Lightning
-HMS Challenger
-Talisman
-Travailleur
-Hirondelle
-Princesse-Alice
-NRP Amélia

Who knows if we will hear about them in future sols?...

Rui... want to share these with you...

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity.

- Emily Dickinson


‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’

- Mark Twain

Stu, impossible to imagine this mission without its lyrical side...some may disagree, or found curious all the poems, mottos and utopias but I believe that this is what makes of MER such a "human" adventure.

"Was it worth it? Everything is worth
If the soul is not small.
Who wants to go beyond the Bojador
Have to move beyond the pain.
To the Sea, God gave the danger and the abyss,
But it was there that He mirrored the sky."

Fernando Pessoa - Mar Portuguêz

I'll change some words...

"Was it worth it? Everything is worth
If the soul is not small.
Who wants to go beyond the Purgatory
Have to move beyond the pain.
To Mars, the Universe gave the danger and the abyss,
But it was there that He mirrored the will."

This become a poetry room

Astro0 : great posters and great verse of Stu.

The idea of leaving Victoria Crater gives me nostalgic feelings. This is why I've made the picture, with name incrustation to the landscape of an end of a sol (bays and a fuzzy Endeavour beyond the horizon).

That's really nice, Ant... love the way you've put the name "Endeavour" actually beyond the horizon, I would NEVER have thought of doing that!

On the poetry thing... I sometimes worry about posting mine (or lines from other poems) here, because I am very aware that not everyone "gets it", and some people probably think this isn't actually the place for waxing lyrical about space exploration when it's such a Hard Engineering subject. But I like to think there's room for everyone here: the engineer who takes delight in learning and talking about gear ratios, thresholds and performance limits, etc... the geologist who sees a subtle but serene beauty in the cracks in and planes of a dust-coated rock sitting exposed on the surface... the meteorologist who smiles with understanding when they see cotton wool clouds drifting like Scooby Doo ghosts across the pink martian sky... the dreamer who refuses to accept that something is 'clearly impossible' and pushes the rovers on with the sheer force of their passion... the poet, like me, who can't create scientifically useful driving maps but can, occasionally, string a few words together to illustrate the drama and excitement of this amazing, thrilling time, and help people look beyond the rovers' polished metal to glimpse the very human hearts beating within them...

I know, I know, there I go again. I know they're just robots, lifeless shapes of metal being driven by remote control from far across the solar system, mindless automatons with no feelings, no emotions of their own, and maybe it is silly to write poetry about them, but it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I realise that we - mankind - dared to dream we could build such machines, then designed them, built them and flung them across the solar system to explore an alien world on our behalf, and are now seeing Mars through their eyes. I can't imagine how Paolo, Scott and Sharon feel as they sit down to actually drive Spirit and Oppy across Mars, but I do know that they won't just think of it as driving a robot; they're exploring, in the truest sense of the word, and, magically, we're looking over their shoulders as they go...

We might not reach Endeavour. But we might. We just might. But whatever happens, Oppy won't set off on her long drive alone; we'll all be walking alongside her, in spirit at least, keeping her company, trekking south across the great plain of Meridiani towards a new horizon and a new adventure. We'll all find something different to thrill and excite us along the way, making new pictures, writing new poems and creating new maps along the way. And in a hundred years time, when Oppy rests in the Museum of Exploration on Mars, and is seen every sol by hundreds of fascinated visitors, they'll look back on this time and envy us - us! - for accompanying her on her journey.

True, but they also are the eyes (and minds) of hundreds or thousands of people transported to mars, and this is what makes this journey so great!

James, still sleeping?
There's work to be done!
(Pando, are you around my friend?)

Seems like we might be seing some new features in the most recent navcam images:
Click to view attachment
Or not...I'm a bit lost with the change of position...here's the original.
Is it possible that, from this point of view, the rightmost feature may be located in the rim closest to Victoria?

Rui, that image is looking north so not related to Endeavour. Here's a polar projection of the latest navcam shots.

I knew I shouldn't have drink that extra cup of coffee...
So...What is it?!
Let's go and have a look?

Stu,

You're so right. Just look at the posts before and after your's. There is technic, there are pictures, there is poetry. Even technic can be emotional. Perfect exemple in only a few posts.
What I love here is the alternance. What I love is: you never know which one you'll get before opening a post.

You forgot one...there is also cheerful ignorance!

Rui's hill is the big drift fringing Duck Bay. Let's not go back and look at it!

Phil

Could/should be the rim of the Duck Bay.

Stu, speaking only for myself as usual, I'm one of the few who does not get it. Both because English is not my primary language, and also because I do not appreciate poetry in my native language either. I'm pretty sure that if I sit down with you I can quickly explain any of the technical details that now escape you, but you might spend years and fail to explain to me how to put together words so that they make you feel something.

Your poetry is more than welcome but unfortunately not "grocked" by your truly.

Paolo

Paolo, I know that you are on the engineering side of the fence and that I am not Stu but...

Itaca

Quando ti metterai in viaggio per Itaca
devi augurarti che la strada sia lunga,
fertile in avventure e in esperienze.
I Lestrigoni e i Ciclopi
o la furia di Nettuno non temere,
non sara` questo il genere di incontri
se il pensiero resta alto e un sentimento
fermo guida il tuo spirito e il tuo corpo.
In Ciclopi e Lestrigoni, no certo,
ne' nell'irato Nettuno incapperai
se non li porti dentro
se l'anima non te li mette contro.

Devi augurarti che la strada sia lunga.
Che i mattini d'estate siano tanti
quando nei porti - finalmente e con che gioia -
toccherai terra tu per la prima volta:
negli empori fenici indugia e acquista
madreperle coralli ebano e ambre
tutta merce fina, anche profumi
penetranti d'ogni sorta; piu' profumi inebrianti che puoi,
va in molte città egizie
impara una quantità di cose dai dotti.

Sempre devi avere in mente Itaca -
raggiungerla sia il pensiero costante.
Soprattutto, non affrettare il viaggio;
fa che duri a lungo, per anni, e che da vecchio
metta piede sull'isola, tu, ricco
dei tesori accumulati per strada
senza aspettarti ricchezze da Itaca.
Itaca ti ha dato il bel viaggio,
senza di lei mai ti saresti messo
sulla strada: che cos'altro ti aspetti?

E se la trovi povera, non per questo Itaca ti avrà deluso.
Fatto ormai savio, con tutta la tua esperienza addosso
gia` tu avrai capito cio` che Itaca vuole significare.

Kavafis

I don't believe that, even for you, the journey towards Ithaca/Endeavour will reduce itself to find the path, cross the distance and get there, will it?...

Hi Ustrax

Where is Pando??? No reply from him Since June
Does anyone know how to contact him?
He's missing out on the new adventure

Thanks Rui,
I wish of you all can get the music of this magnificent poem. Every language has its own sounds and give untranslatable feelings.
I'm just in awe at the moment...

Hey Bobby, did you missed this : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...mp;#entry127604 ?

Thanks Climber

Yes I did miss that post and thanks
I think Ustrax missed it also

Now Go Oppy

Absolutely not. What I meant to say is that while I can appreciate a good picture, I typically cannot appreciate poetry, I only wish I could.

Paolo

I can understand Paolo, I really can, but if you can just remember the time when there were no pictures...

How would you describe something as amazing as Mars, something that cannot be imprisioned in a picture, like the will to move onwards, to learn, to discover, to see the unseen and know the unknown, to surpass purgatories and face 12kms distant utopias? That is, in my humble point of view something impossible to achieve without one of Mankind's greatest conquests, to, through words, express the beauty and the core of it all.

We're too spoiled by tech...

In view of the publicity Kavafis got in UMSF, it is a bit spooky to realize that another famous poem of his, "Waiting for the barbarians" starts with these very words :

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?"

I think I can find at least one example of a deeply moving poem that's at least close to the subject:



I don't know about anyone else, but "High Flight" always chokes me up, and I cannot read it aloud.

That said, I have to say none of the rover poems works for me. The style seems fine, the words seem to be well-chosen, the rhyme and meter are pleasing -- but something leaves me cold. I'd like to say something helpful about that, since I feel Spirit and Opportunity ought to be at least as inspiring as a Spitfire, so I'll say I think the reason the poems leave me unmoved is that they really are just about the two machines. I guess I'm not satisfied with them just being machines -- I want them to be symbols of something much greater. If a rover "feels" something, I don't want it to be an actual physical malfunction -- I want it to be something felt by all of us who want to reach for the stars. I wish I could be more precise.

Yes, I know it's unreasonable to expect something as good as "High Flight." :-) Yet sometimes it doesn't seem like you're that far away from it. Don't mean to offend -- just wanted to offer some feedback that might actually be useful.

--Greg

That is a fantastic poem, thank you, personally, for introducing me to it and, although I do not entirely concur with you about Stu's poems, there have been, at least, two poems through which this mission has been fueled by, well, I personally didn't know these so, at least for me, they work as my two favourite works so far...El Dorado by Poe and Ithaca by Kavafis, and these you can't disassociate from the sols we've been through...
Engineering, science, astronomy...man...that without the "pilgrim shadow", that without " what Ithaca means", that without, "Ectasy of Gold" (my own MER soundtrack...) wouldn't mean a thing...

And even if the words don't work out for you I am sure, beyond UMSF there's someone dreaming about an Atkinson's Mars...

TheChemist...don't tell me you have reached that poem only know?!...

Just received an e-mail...looks like Jim Bell jgot into the party...

"It is going to be an adventure--if we can make it! Once we finish at the alcoves and promontories of Victoria, we will be starting to routinely take Pancam images in that direction--for a LONG time..."

That sounds like a lot of headaches coming from me to you James, doesn't it?...

And...of course...don't forget this from Jim...

Well, the english translation of it, yes. I just had a flash realizing agora --> forum --> UMSF,
and it felt weird

Channel 4 here in the UK had a WW2 veteran read it at the end of an episode of the archeology program 'Time Team' where they found and recovered a Spitfire. I was in floods of tears.

In that vein, thinking about Opportinity's trek to Endeavour, have a look at Ulysses by Tennyson:

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennys...lyssestext.html

This bit of it is particularly apropos:

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

Or maybe it just seems so to someone embarking on a mid-life career change. ;-)

--Greg

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"...Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."

God...I'm in tears...

/me wipes a tear from his eye and provides hugs for everyone within reach.

Now, can we get back to science, engineering, exploration, and planetary adventure here? (I'm not totally insensitive to the emotional side of planetary exploration...I actually enjoyed the challenge of reading and trying to interpret all the poetry. Personally, I've been looking for an opportunity to insert some operatic mp3 files into the discussion, but I'd have to guess that Doug might frown on that. )


OMG! I've been waiting for that! Do you know when his book will actually be printed? I can't wait to get a copy of it. Currently it can only be pre-ordered.

After Ken asked people to submit 3D images for possible inclusion in the book I began collaborating with another member on a large color anaglyph. I guess it didn't make the final cut, or we would have heard by now. That's somewhat of a bummer, but I'll get over it.

I think there is a problem with the book cover. We may need to get word back to Jim Bell and his publisher regarding the 3D anaglyph affect in the title. The "3-D" portion of the title is printed as an anaglyph, but it appears they got the red and blue parts reversed. Most red/blue anaglyph glasses put the red filter over the left eye, and blue over the right eye. To properly see the 3-D effect on the book cover, one would need to wear their glasses backwardly.

Una furtiva lagrima ?
Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön ?
E lucevan le stelle ?
Che gelida manina ?

We probably should not go there. I am crying again... Hehe.

I remember Jim Bell telling at spacEurope that the book would come out in November, and that is the date also at the Sterling site, but at Barnes&Nobles a more specific date is indicated: December 02.

I've forwarded your words about the anaglyph and the cover to Jim.

EDITED: Here is Jim's notes, it will come out in November indeed:



About the cover:



For all those anxious with the Long Trek, we're almost there...:

Marketing opportunity, Tom (no pun intended). In addition to buying the book, you will also have to buy the special proprietary Mars 3-D glasses.