Hey everyone,

I'm hosting an online Q&A session with rover driver Scott Maxwell tomorrow (March 10th) at 8pm Pacific (I believe that's 4Z March 11th for you UTCers). We're having it on AIM (AOL's instant messaging system). To get into the chat, IM me first (aggieastronaut) and I'll invite you in. To ask a question, IM me to let me know, and I'll open up the floor in order I get the IMs.

Hope to see many of you there!

I have just been reading the transcript of Scott's chat, which can be found here...

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=5...4355&ref=nf

People, you absolutely have to read it, there are some absolute gems in there, well worth reading - actually, well worth printing out and keeping, as an "inspiration hit" to have handy for whenever you're feeling a bit down or frustrated, or start taking the exploration of Mars and the rest of the solar system a little bit for granted.

Two things sprang to mind right away. Firstly, what a great job Aggie did holding the thing together! Jeez, Aggie, that must have been like trying to herd your beloved kittens! Secondly, what an absolutely fantastic ambassador for space exploration Scott Maxwell is. I've had the privilige of meeting him a couple of times now, and the guy positively glows with the passion and excitement he feels for exploring Mars. He communicates that passion and excitement, and inspires it in others too, effortlessly, and I really think NASA and JPL should be making a lot more use of his communications skills and passion for Outreach.

Read the transcript, and you'll be grinning for an hour. You'll see.

How about putting the transcript available somewhere else than Facebook? Maybe even this thread.

Not my call. I guess you should ask the Chat hostess about that...

Agreed that no one should go copying and pasting the chat transcript onto another site without permission. But FYI, the link you posted doesn't seem to be accessible, even to other people on Facebook.

Opening for me just fine...

It's sure not coming up here. There's no error message or anything, I'm just redirected to my Facebook home page. I'm guessing it's a question of my not having the right friend, but have no idea.

Ok. I've sent a Tweet to aggieastronaut asking if there's any way she can put the transcript up on a non-FB site.

Thanks, same problem as Mike here... and I definitively want to grin for an hour...

I'll be on campus tomorrow, so I can add it to my website then. I'll post the link tomorrow!

Thanks Aggie, lots of people will enjoy it, I'm sure.

Thanks!

Oh, and if you do have Facebook, the rover account I run is this one: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1044841632 Add as a friend, and then you can check the notes.

Here's the link: http://people.tamu.edu/~kbean1988/mrdchat.htm

And it's like Stu said, it was like herding my two kittens.

Thanks; I enjoyed reading the transcript

Before I forget to mention it, the smileys and the 'soandso has joined the chat' etc. were edited out. Other than that, it's word for word.