SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
It’s a tough process. It’s a long waiting game. You do the
best you can to try to forget about it because rumors
are going around and you’re told they’re not going to
select the class, they’re going to cancel it, it’s going
to be a super small class. You just try to ignore these
things and people always ask you, ‘Have you heard
anything? Have you heard anything?’ It’s like no, no I
haven’t heard anything. And then you get the phone
call that you’re going down. You know you’re in the
final cut because they’re only bringing 80 people or
50 people down, whatever it is, to the interview and
then you’re in a week long medical exam, psychological
testing, I mean it’s everything.
It’s really an honor for me to have got that close twice
to go through the process and you get the best physical
in the world compliments of Uncle Sam and I found
out there’s nothing wrong with me. Then when you go
through the medical stuff, psychological, interview,
you’re left with a pool of people. One year it was
20, they picked 13. What do you do? They can’t pick
everyone. At that point everyone could have been an
Astronaut.
It’s kind-of a secret. They don’t really say how they pick
people. It depends on the make-up of the selection
board. It changes cycle to cycle. And then the next
time I applied, I didn’t get nothing. I didn’t even get
references checked. What happened? It’s just they were
looking for different things. The next cycle I applied, I
was a finalist again. You just never know. I’ve applied
for this cycle now but I’m older now so I think that my
chances of getting in are like zero, but I figure why
not try it? The worse they can happen is they say no.
Well, they’ve already told me no before it’s not going
to hurt my feelings. So I’m going to just keep trying!
MISSION CONTROL:
What was it like before NASA had the Rovers?
DR. JIM RICE:
Before we had these Rover Missions, Spirit and
Opportunity, there was a debate amongst the scientist
– do we really need a Rover, because they’re more
expensive and harder to operate. Can we just get a
lander and grab whatever we see out there? That’s not
even a debate anymore! You want a Rover because
Rovers extend your area of operations and maximize
your science dollars.
There’s a mission that’s going to launch in 2018 and
it’s a lander, but what they are going to do is drill
down about 2 meters and put a seismometer to try to
measure Marsquakes. So there’s a reason for having
that lander there, but Rovers are the way to go.
MISSION CONTROL:
How far has opportunity driven so far?
DR. JIM RICE:
About 26 ½ miles, more than a marathon. Those Rovers
were certified to drive less than 2000 feet, less than
a half a mile actually. It’s really cool, because where
we are now in a place called Marathon Valley – that
name wasn’t accidental! We figured by the time we
get to that valley we would have covered the distance
of a marathon on earth. When we crossed over into
this valley our odometer clicked over the distance of
a marathon, hence the name of the valley.
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1961 Magazine Fall 2016