![(reblogged from msmandrake)
Additionally, from Air & Space Magazine via Sterling:
“The policy on the [rover] team to release images to the public as soon as they came down was a novel move,” says Janet Vertesi, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Informatics at the University of California at Irvine, who recently wrote her dissertation on the Mars Rover team’s operations. […]
Team members are happy to talk about this relationship. “You’re so involved with these machines that they sort of cease to be machines,” says Sharon Laubach, who holds a Ph.D. in robotics and is chief of the JPL group that develops the software instructions for the rovers. “We send them commands, like letters and missives, and they do what they want and write home at the end of the day. These girls are off on their own, and we hope they do what we ask them to.” […]
“It’s hard for us to understand the experience of these robots that are so far away from us,” says Vertesi. “So the scientists and engineers do the ‘rover dance.’ It’s a series of gestures that imitate the rover actions: unfurling of arms and rotating of wrists; splaying of arms behind them like solar panels. Always very aware of where the sun is. These people have a semi physical presence on Mars. One scientist got up and was talking about an observation and he began to shuffle backward…and then he said, ‘Janet, get your camera. I’m turning into the rover!’ ”
Driver John Wright confesses to some of it. “The thing I always notice is that I have to mentally visualize what the [rover] arm is doing. And I have to use my left arm. When I’m talking about it, I start with my right arm, and then I say, Wait, I have to use my left arm, because the shoulder joint’s on the left front side of the rover, and the elbow sticks out to the left. So you’re sticking your thumb out, wrapping the arm around. And turning the wheels. There’s definitely a lot of hand-waving.” […]
End-of-life questions make anyone close to the rovers uneasy. Yet with Spirit’s recent stranding, the scientists are often asked about the inevitable.
“They talk about them as geriatric,” says Vertesi. “Amnesia. Arthritis. All very human experiences. But to mention a rover death….The pressure to preserve the rovers is huge.”
John Grant is practical about the demise of the probes, but says they’re not there yet. “I know it will happen someday, but I don’t want to think about the eventual end of the mission,” he says. “With the rovers, it’s open-ended. You don’t want to let go of them.”
“There’s definitely a lot of hand-waving.” There always is.
[Also this is sort of the job I mainly want—sitting around people doing science and asking them what it feels like.]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/spirit.png)
(reblogged from msmandrake)
Additionally, from Air & Space Magazine via Sterling:
“The policy on the [rover] team to release images to the public as soon as they came down was a novel move,” says Janet Vertesi, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Informatics at the University of California at Irvine, who recently wrote her dissertation on the Mars Rover team’s operations. […]
Team members are happy to talk about this relationship. “You’re so involved with these machines that they sort of cease to be machines,” says Sharon Laubach, who holds a Ph.D. in robotics and is chief of the JPL group that develops the software instructions for the rovers. “We send them commands, like letters and missives, and they do what they want and write home at the end of the day. These girls are off on their own, and we hope they do what we ask them to.” […]
“It’s hard for us to understand the experience of these robots that are so far away from us,” says Vertesi. “So the scientists and engineers do the ‘rover dance.’ It’s a series of gestures that imitate the rover actions: unfurling of arms and rotating of wrists; splaying of arms behind them like solar panels. Always very aware of where the sun is. These people have a semi physical presence on Mars. One scientist got up and was talking about an observation and he began to shuffle backward…and then he said, ‘Janet, get your camera. I’m turning into the rover!’ ”
Driver John Wright confesses to some of it. “The thing I always notice is that I have to mentally visualize what the [rover] arm is doing. And I have to use my left arm. When I’m talking about it, I start with my right arm, and then I say, Wait, I have to use my left arm, because the shoulder joint’s on the left front side of the rover, and the elbow sticks out to the left. So you’re sticking your thumb out, wrapping the arm around. And turning the wheels. There’s definitely a lot of hand-waving.” […]
End-of-life questions make anyone close to the rovers uneasy. Yet with Spirit’s recent stranding, the scientists are often asked about the inevitable.
“They talk about them as geriatric,” says Vertesi. “Amnesia. Arthritis. All very human experiences. But to mention a rover death….The pressure to preserve the rovers is huge.”
John Grant is practical about the demise of the probes, but says they’re not there yet. “I know it will happen someday, but I don’t want to think about the eventual end of the mission,” he says. “With the rovers, it’s open-ended. You don’t want to let go of them.”
“There’s definitely a lot of hand-waving.” There always is.
[Also this is sort of the job I mainly want—sitting around people doing science and asking them what it feels like.]
