NASA Web Sites Get 40 Million Hits Amid Mars Mania

NASA’s World Wide Web sites logged an estimated 40 million hits Friday as cyber surfers around the world followed Pathfinder’s search for life on Mars.

“We are really now in the electronic age, and I am so proud we can get this information to everyone who wants to see it,” said NASA administrator Dan Goldin, adding that the space agency’s site was deluged even before the first pictures were beamed back.

The Web Interface for Telescience shows several perspectives of the rover’s position and paths. Users can change the path and then run the rover to see how it interacts with its environment.

The simulation was more complicated than programming a VCR, and a test drive only resulted in the rover moving around rocks.

Mouse clicks revealed panoramas or smaller pictures from various perspectives of the rover.

Even with a high-speed Internet connection, though, some users were frustrated by its slowness.

“I think maybe for kids growing up in the video age, this isn’t terribly exciting,” university student Glenn Glazer said as he checked out the rover simulation.

* Internet address for news and images: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews