Readers may recall when I visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum last year and took this photo of the upcoming exhibit for the new Mars Rover “Curiosity”.
It looked pretty neat…and to everyone’s surprise and thrill it actually made it to Mars and is fully operational. But now, there’s a been a new development on Mars…
My wife (the cat lover) is not amused 🙂
Mop, mop, drain, mutter – reminder to self “Don’t open Friday Funnies with a mouth full of coffee!”
Fabulous!!
These headlines are self explanatory:
Drill bits on rover could contaminate Mars
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-drill-bits-rover-contaminate-mars.html
Mars Rover May Be Contaminated with Earth Microbes
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/14/161156787/mars-rover-may-be-contaminated-with-earth-microbes
lol. thanks,
Funny !!!
My beagle is rolling on the floor, kicking his laigs ‘n laughing his tail off!
Oddly it was last seen creepily menacing a rock.
The next mission to Mars will be a sample return mission. The return vehicle,”Satisfaction” is expected to bring the poor Martian cat back.
Also, there is this discovery on Mars by ‘Curiosity’:
http://i47.tinypic.com/21kmp2e.jpg
: )
John
So that’s what Martians look like.
Dennis Kuzara says:
September 21, 2012 at 7:29 am
These headlines are self explanatory:
Drill bits on rover could contaminate Mars
http://phys.org/news/2012-09-drill-bits-rover-contaminate-mars.html
Mars Rover May Be Contaminated with Earth Microbes
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/14/161156787/mars-rover-may-be-contaminated-with-earth-microbes
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At least we saved Mars from hairballs …..
H.G. Wells would approve.
Old. Had this one the day after the landing.
Dennis Kuzara says:
September 21, 2012 at 7:29 am
Mars Rover May Be Contaminated with Earth Microbes
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I don’t understand why is everyone so obsessed with not contaminating any other celestial bodies with Earth life. The reason why we’re here is because the basic tendency behind all life is to spread and to occupy any place that can be occupied – so I really don’t get it why aren’t we already trying to do so with Venus and Mars more actively. Sending some microbes there is the least we can do.
Found this on the NASA Curiosity link. Magnetic portals between sun and earth. But of course we are certain that magnetic fields do not affect climate. They did in the past, the paleo evidence is clear, but not now since CO2 gets stronger over time. Scientists have a consensus on this, which means it is irrefutable. Not that it is true, but rather no one can speak about it to refute it, without suffering the instruments of torture.
My dogs are howling with laughter!
Not amused, due to unfortunate timing – one of my cats died last night.
We are not amused.
Best laugh I had all day! Thanks Anthony! Good one.
There are no felines on Mars. Only marsupials.
Another skinny cat in the making.
ferdberple says:
September 21, 2012 at 8:37 am
……
Re: Magnetic portals between sun and earth video
That is an excellent video, and I think it deserves to be on the solar page. There is more to those portals than one can guess from the video. Solar magnetic field plugs directly into the Earth’s magnetic field as geomagnetic measurements witness daily.
However what was not known (I immodestly claim to have discovered it) is that the historic data of magnetic field as interpolated from past records, show that in the Antarctic the Earth’s magnetic field directly tracks the solar cycles, as I show here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/TMCa.htm
However I regret to say that it is not the plain sailing from the ‘consensus science’ which claims that solar variation is nothing to do with the Earth’s environment. The argument against one could consider laughable as you can see if you follow this post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/15/f10-7-flux-sea-level-and-the-holocene/#comment-1081068
and beyond
I am a cat lover and I am amused. My wife is also, but I do not think I will show her the picture. 😉
We had a JPL guy at our local library a couple weeks ago who did a presentation on the rover landing. I asked him why they’d send something named “Curiosity” to a place where there weren’t any cats. He said to hold that thought, it was covered in one of his slides. This was that slide.
Last year he showed us the north pole of Saturn where the aliens are setting up a base. I like that these guys have a sense of humor. They do make clear that these are tongue in cheek statements. This guy is a propulsion engineer on the Cassini mission and is part of the group that calculates how to use fuel for the maximum science by changing orbital characteristics with the least amount of fuel. I wish I could remember his name, he’s very good at public presentations of JPL’s work.
I don’t know why all you cat-folks are so upset. Whitey is obviously in a pose of religious ecstasy, bathed in the light of his god’s grace beaming down on him. Recent history on Earth shows cats racing to become one with their laser beam. Why should it be different on Mars?
Thank Heaven the caption sticks with “the cat”, rather than “teh kitteh” …
That cat is not killed. Eight lives to go.
Was Kenji involved in this?
http://mahi-mahi.com/images/covers/tethercat.jpg (Lord, I appolgize!)
A sandbox the size of Mars is bound to have a cat somewhere.
” I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too! ” Famous Klingon threat. 🙂
take the contaminated drills for use first. drill the holes using “heavy feeds and speeds” that will heat up the drill enough to kill off the contaminating microbes and they might get away with it.
C
The photo was taken shortly after ‘the cat was let out of the bag’……. ahem.
Cat ‘lovers’ (I’m worried about that….) should not be offended, as the kitty surely has a few of it’s 9 lives left yet!
In the off chance that the kitty’s carcass should ever be returned to earth, to join the skinny kitty enclave at Blackrock, it would indeed be a cat-as-trophy…..
MtK
To all cat lovers, if you look carefully, that is not really a kitten, but one Jimmy Hansen dressed in the ‘cat suit’.
More proof that NASA’s Rover, “Curiosity”, Mars mission is fake! Cats couldn’t breath on Mars!
The entire “Curiosity” mission is being filmed in Nevada near near Area 51, just like the Moon Landings were!
/sarc
well of course.
Dogs are from Mars and cats are from Venus.
There WAS life on Mars.
“Drill bits on rover could contaminate Mars”
I just have to roll my eyes at that. Have the arm hold the drill bits in question up in the sunlight for a few days, then do the @#$%#%^& drilling. Sunlight without oxygen in the air to filter out the UV is *lethal*.
Here’s a Martian cat.
Wait for it.
Darn,darn,darn. Sat here looking at that wondering WTH,until one of my cats,Gunner, hit me upside the head and said “Curiousity,Cat”!!!. Don’t make me think so hard in the AM,Anthony.
And RobRoy. My cat Bailey wants to be on the return “Satisfaction” mission.She thinks that guy is cute(not Mick Jagger).
Darren Potter says:
September 21, 2012 at 11:45 am
More proof that NASA’s Rover, “Curiosity”, Mars mission is fake! Cats couldn’t breath on Mars!
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Perhaps the cat stowed away and escaped when the drill bit container was opened. “Curiosity”, upon noticing the cat was suffering, did the only humane thing it could do, put it out of it’s misery.
(Mods, if the next transmission from “Curiosity” after that picture was sent was the sound of maniacal (mechanical?) laughter, then please delete the “humane” part of that last sentence.)
No offense to cat owners, but this is funny.
Now, if I could only remember my dead cat jokes.
Speaking of humor, I read something yesterday that quickly climbed the charts of my all-time favorites. Apparently a Pakistani man died this week from complications of too much smoke inhalation from burning American flags. Priceless.
Still, not as good as my two all time favorite news stories.
at #2 – an Arizona man (and apartment dweller) who informs his wife he’s going down to the common room to get a soda. After more than a hour, the wife, curious as to what could be taking so long, goes done, only to find her husband lying under the over turned soda machine, dead. Police surmised the machine failed to dispense his soda and the man then tried to “shake” it loose, with the machine falling on him.
at the top spot – a young man in Chicago kills himself while playing Russian Roulette. Following the theater release of the movie “The Deer Hunter” incidences of people killing or seriously wounding themselves copying the Roulette scenes popped up all over the country. What made this one memorable for me was that the guy was playing Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol.
Lemme see if I got this right –
Several thousand lifetimes of carbon footprints just to kill a cat on Mars ?
Mike McMillan says:
September 21, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Your video should be viewed after this one:
As a commenter on your video says: the music makes it a million times funnier.
“He” is not amused…..
http://media.photobucket.com/image/emperor%20of%20cat%20kind/Bellwitch/Cat%2520Macros/Macros%2520made%2520by%2520others/EmperorSeriousCat-1.jpg
ferdberple says:
September 21, 2012 at 8:37 am
Found this on the NASA Curiosity link
Ferd,
Very interesting – Thanks!
MtK
Normally I’d have been amused. Unfortunately on Tuesday I had to put my 14 year old cat down, so you can understand if it wasn’t bringing out a chuckle.
However, that is clever. I like visual puns. And I don’t think there can ever be enough cat pictures on the internet.
That is a white cat with one head and four legs. Martian cats differ materially, notably in the insults they are willing to endure.
Cat-lovers everywhere were not amused by this picture, until they realized that. obviously, ‘Curiousity’ was turning its death-ray on a Martian Warmist dressed in a white cat-suit. Then it all made sense and we were greatly impressed and relieved.
OH NOEZ MAH KAT HAS KNOW JOIND GREENPEAS!
PLZ RETRACT!
By the way ,I WANT mars contaminated by earth bacteria,plants and people…as soon as possible
CodeTech says:
September 21, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Normally I’d have been amused. Unfortunately on Tuesday I had to put my 14 year old cat down, so you can understand if it wasn’t bringing out a chuckle.
However, that is clever. I like visual puns. And I don’t think there can ever be enough cat pictures on the internet.
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Sorry about your loss and the loss of others who’ve made similar comments.
That’s a downside of a public forum. We don’t know the people or personal stuff going on with them.
There are a lot of jokes about meeting St. Peter at the Pearly Gate or other such things that are funny. When my Mom and later when my Dad died, I didn’t laugh at them … for awhile. Those who knew me and remembered what was going on didn’t tell those jokes around me.
We don’t have that here. It WAS a funny post.
Laugh later if not now.
As Kenji would say: “So many cats, so few recipes.”
Cat asked “I can has cheezburger ?”, Curiosity couldn’t handle it (would have preferred a hot dog, I suspect…). Result was CATastrophic warming…
Curiosity might be sorry it killed the cat if it accidentally spills water on those little nodules it found and they turn out to be instant Martians: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ED4dQvzPqY
Hilarious! I love the cats dramatic pose. (my wife and I have 5 dramatic cats)
Lost three of our ten cats over about a month and a half, last one was last Friday, all the oldest ones. Including… Well, I could easily write a page, instead I’ll just say he was my favorite, or at least “most willingly tolerated”.
Cartoon was worth a grimace and chuckle. White cat, no fur pattern? On a red-orange planet? Does it normally live at whatever pole has the most ice, and Curiosity caught it out in the open during migration?
*sigh* Cold hard winter coming and down to seven portable heating units. And why does PETA hate the idea of pets so much? They use no electricity and are carbon neutral. And easily recycled!
So THAT’S what happened to Schrodinger’s cat.
Gunga Din, I appreciate your comment… I was not trying to elicit sympathy, just that seeing the picture was a bit of a pang. I actually liked it and have passed it along to others.
I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, she was my friend for years and is now gone, but I’ll be fine. She had a better life with me than she would have on the farm, and as kadaka said, “I could easily write a page”, which I did, elsewhere. Cats are great. The internet needs more cats!
It`s a nuclear-powered tank with a LASER!!
What could possibly go wrong…?
Oh great. Now we have to send up hundreds of rovers to feed the Marsian kitties and open and close the doors for them – at all hours of night and day – plus admit that the planet belongs to them.
****
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 21, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Lost three of our ten cats over about a month and a half, last one was last Friday, all the oldest ones. Including… Well, I could easily write a page, instead I’ll just say he was my favorite, or at least “most willingly tolerated”.
****
I sympathize. The big, old, fixed male cat that came w/the house when I bought it was hard to lose, years ago. He was big & confident enough to chase dogs outta the yard….
Two questions instantly entered my mind. Is Curiosity really equipped with a Death Ray? (It is.)
My second question is still unanswered: Who took the picture?
Who took the picture?
Cat’s lawyer..
Jabba is not amused…