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Mars Spirit Rover final resting place

Denver

Penultimate Amazing
Denver
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WASHINGTON -- After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.
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January 26, 2010 - Full text

Is it just me, or is it hard not to feel an anthropomorphic sadness at this?

Though on a happier note:

01-Feb-2010 - Opportunity Passes 12-Mile Marker
 
Maybe aliens will discover it, give it immense power to complete its mission, and send it home.

"Spi-ver seeks the creator."
 
zooterkin said:
Not just you. :)
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The first time I've ever flatly disagreed with XKCD.

Spirit's mission was never to return to Earth. It was designed with a single purpose: to go to Mars, and stay there. To imagine any other outcome is, frankly, perverse.

Spirit completed its mission many times over. It lived, by its standards, multiple lifetimes, each of them fulfilling and fruitful. And even now its makers have not abandoned it, but rather continue to give it honor and glory as a science station.

If we're going to anthropomorphize it at all, we should not cast it as a pathetic creature yearning to crawl back into the womb. Rather, we should applaud it as a bold and intrepid explorer, that after going above and beyond the call of duty, after going where no-one has gone before, can finally now rest on its laurels, before being welcomed into that Valhalla reserved for tools that have performed admirably in their master's hand.

The purpose of these probes is not to return, but to keep going. Why would Spirit want anything less?
 
theprestige said:
The purpose of these probes is not to return, but to keep going. Why would Spirit want anything less?
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For the same reason a lot of people here on earth do? I myself don't, but many people do--and I just don't see what there is to disagree with. Sure, we can disagree with people who say life has a universal purpose, or who claim they will be reunited with God when they die. We'd be talking about facts. But aspirations and dreams aren't facts. They aren't open to disagreement. If someone hopes they will be raptured soon, it makes no sense for you to say, "I disagree." We know it will never happen, but that's not the point.

Maybe you're just saying the comic would be more moving if we had a brave rover who faced all adversities without flinching? Personally, I liked how xkcd humanized that sort of existential abandonment, even if it's something I myself don't feel.
 
Rairun said:
For the same reason a lot of people here on earth do? I myself don't, but many people do--and I just don't see what there is to disagree with. Sure, we can disagree with people who say life has a universal purpose, or who claim they will be reunited with God when they die. We'd be talking about facts. But aspirations and dreams aren't facts. They aren't open to disagreement. If someone hopes they will be raptured soon, it makes no sense for you to say, "I disagree." We know it will never happen, but that's not the point.

Maybe you're just saying the comic would be more moving if we had a brave rover who faced all adversities without flinching? Personally, I liked how xkcd humanized that sort of existential abandonment, even if it's something I myself don't feel.
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Atheism admits the possibility--indeed, insists on the fact--that humans are not meaningfully made, are not built with any purpose. But we know--we know--that robots are built with a purpose. We know because we built them for that purpose.

Humans purpose cannot be perverted, because human purpose is a myth. But robotic purpose is a reality. Robotic purpose is a fact. Far from being abandoned, Spirit has been fulfilled. I stand by my argument: We should celebrate Spirit as a purpose fulfilled--fulfilled many times over. To mourn Spirit as a purpose unfulfilled, a purpose for which it was never built nor intended, is a perversion of all that Spirit has become, and all it was intended to become.

And more: It is an obscenity. Not content to be purposeless yourself, you insist that the purpose of other, purposeful things be ignored, so that their faked-up lack of purpose can echo your own lack of purpose.

It does make a kind of sense, though: If humans have no meaning, why should their creations have any meaning? Maybe XKCD is right: Spirit really shouldn't want to accomplish its mission many times over, or take pride in accomplishing its intended purpose, should it? Doing so would make it... more than human.
 
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theprestige said:
The first time I've ever flatly disagreed with XKCD.

Spirit's mission was never to return to Earth. It was designed with a single purpose: to go to Mars, and stay there. To imagine any other outcome is, frankly, perverse.

Spirit completed its mission many times over. It lived, by its standards, multiple lifetimes, each of them fulfilling and fruitful. And even now its makers have not abandoned it, but rather continue to give it honor and glory as a science station.

If we're going to anthropomorphize it at all, we should not cast it as a pathetic creature yearning to crawl back into the womb. Rather, we should applaud it as a bold and intrepid explorer, that after going above and beyond the call of duty, after going where no-one has gone before, can finally now rest on its laurels, before being welcomed into that Valhalla reserved for tools that have performed admirably in their master's hand.

The purpose of these probes is not to return, but to keep going. Why would Spirit want anything less?
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Well said sir....Although the thought that in some unknown future. These guys will get brought back home, put in a nice little air conditioned museum. A place where generations of kids can see them and be inspired to reach out to the stars
 
theprestige said:
The first time I've ever flatly disagreed with XKCD.

Spirit's mission was never to return to Earth. It was designed with a single purpose: to go to Mars, and stay there. To imagine any other outcome is, frankly, perverse.

Spirit completed its mission many times over. It lived, by its standards, multiple lifetimes, each of them fulfilling and fruitful. And even now its makers have not abandoned it, but rather continue to give it honor and glory as a science station.

If we're going to anthropomorphize it at all, we should not cast it as a pathetic creature yearning to crawl back into the womb. Rather, we should applaud it as a bold and intrepid explorer, that after going above and beyond the call of duty, after going where no-one has gone before, can finally now rest on its laurels, before being welcomed into that Valhalla reserved for tools that have performed admirably in their master's hand.

The purpose of these probes is not to return, but to keep going. Why would Spirit want anything less?
Click to expand...

I saw it as a play on the word "rover", and maybe a reference to other explorations not designed with a return trip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika
 
theprestige said:
The first time I've ever flatly disagreed with XKCD.

Spirit's mission was never to return to Earth. It was designed with a single purpose: to go to Mars, and stay there. To imagine any other outcome is, frankly, perverse.

Spirit completed its mission many times over. It lived, by its standards, multiple lifetimes, each of them fulfilling and fruitful. And even now its makers have not abandoned it, but rather continue to give it honor and glory as a science station.

If we're going to anthropomorphize it at all, we should not cast it as a pathetic creature yearning to crawl back into the womb. Rather, we should applaud it as a bold and intrepid explorer, that after going above and beyond the call of duty, after going where no-one has gone before, can finally now rest on its laurels, before being welcomed into that Valhalla reserved for tools that have performed admirably in their master's hand.

The purpose of these probes is not to return, but to keep going. Why would Spirit want anything less?
Click to expand...


Way to stomp all over a piece of poignant whimsy...
 
It's been a Mars rover a half dozen years
So we ask you now friends not to shed any tears
As it can't be dead-wasn't living before
It just never will be a Mars rover no more

And it's no,nay,never
No nay never no more
Will it be a Mars rover
No never,no more

Ever since on a rocket that robot was hurled
And became a great rover on that ruddy world
It's sent us fine 'postcards' and data galore
But it never will be a Mars rover no more

And it's no,nay never....

It 's roving no longer,it's stuck in the sand
Though its partner's still out rolling over the land
All luck to her then,that's if luck there may be
And Spirit will stand and we'll see what we'll see

Though it's no,nay,never...

If it's epitaph time we think this might be good
Spirit did so much more than we thought that it could
And boldly or no went where none had before...

...And a proud Martian Rover will be evermore

And it's O,Aye ever
O aye forevermore
Will it be a Mars Rover
O forevermore!
 
"Just a flesh wound!"

"The Black Knight Spirit always triumphs! Have at you! Come on then."
 
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