Word: yogis
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Yogi? Casper? Flat Top? Scooby Doo? The naming of these rocks and formations [SPACE, July 21] seems shrewd as a public relations ploy, but flies in the face of naming heavenly bodies after illustrious figures of myth, science and literature. Will the first earthly Mars walker who greets these familiar objects on site at Ares Vallis be likely to record for posterity the query "Dr. Boo-Boo, I presume"? Is this a failure of our educational system? Did the ingenious individuals who are involved in this project not avail themselves of the liberal-arts curriculums at their distinguished universities...
Then, demonstrating a technique that any driver maneuvering into a tight parking spot would envy, Sojourner energetically swiveled its wheels back and forth and "crabbed" sideways into a position near Yogi. The next day, however, when the rover moved toward the rock to perform X-ray spectroscopy, says project scientist Justin Maki, "it got a little too enthusiastic." What really happened is that Sojourner's controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory failed to take into account a small outcropping at the base of the rock. Pushed ever so slightly upward, the rover gently bumped into the rock and began...
...groan swept across the operations room at the J.P.L., and pictures transmitted by the lander soon afterward showed Sojourner askew, leaning against Yogi and seemingly helpless. But a quick check of the rover's systems confirmed that it was in good health, and controllers had little doubt that they could restart Sojourner, back it off the rock and try a better approach...
...Cook was proved right. On the morning of Sol 8, Sojourner awoke, received its instructions and, after one more brief glitch, backed off Yogi, approached again and began eagerly sniffing out the rock's chemistry. Back at J.P.L., the exuberant Pathfinder team was predicting that Sojourner might live for weeks--and even months. Indeed, the little rover just could...
Barnacle Bill: 1=D Yogi: 2=C Casper: 3=B Twin Peaks...