2/8/99

Imagine if you will, a desolate desert stretching from one mountain range to the next. Everywhere there are traces of an arid and barren world. Low bushes two to three feet above the ground scattered throughout the wasteland. Dry creek beds creat ed by flash floods trace the grounds between the sparse brush. In the middle of nowhere a small talented group of NASA scientists operate a desert base. A motor home converted to house six scientists and engineers as they work. Even the bath r oom and bed have become network stations with operators stationed by their equipment. Outside the cramped work space a moving truck acts as a repair shop and construction post. Connected to the desert base is a large three meter parabolic antennae and t hen further away a generator groaning in the distance. A mile up the hill, barely visible, a field party works with the Marsakod rover as they test its capabilities in this hostile environment.

This is as good as it gets. As a manager responsib le for NASA’s robotics education project I don’t often have the honor to work in the field with the technology. Austere as this place is, it is also incredibly beautiful, and a much more relaxing place to work when compared to the pull and tug environment of Silicon Valley.

Today, I arrived at the site after a short drive from Baker, population 390. I also mananage NASA’s Learning Technologies Project. Our senior technician, Seth Carter, drove another technician, Damien Canerot and I up to the Rover Test site where we formulated some ideas on how to improve the quality of the video going back to Ames. Once back at the desert base I got NASA engineer, Alan Federman on the line and he stepped me through some adjustments on our r eal media encoder. Adjustments which dramatically improved the quality of the video. The system we have built can support 1700 viewers nationwide. When you look at this rover sitting in the desert, it isn’t too hard to imagine it on Mars.

I really enjoyed working with the IMG folks from Ames. They are clearly NASA’s finest. We hooked up a second video transmitter working at the 2.3 Ghz range. Shortly after doing this, their wireless ethernet to their Marsakod rover stopped workin g. We believe that their wireless equipment must have been suffering from harmonic interference, or a frequency conflict. So we took down the video transmitter that we were going to use. Fortunately, they had another wireless video link in operation. Hans allowed us to switch cameras so that we could have better coverage with out camera. With the link now complete, we transmitted a live video image at around 9 frames/second over a 30 to 50 Kbps stream. I really love this stuff.