CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: TREK AROUND MARS IN CYPERSPACE: JUST JUMP ABOARD THE INTERNET (COLUMN 45)

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Space. This final frontier and the Red Planet have been turning a lot of heads lately. Photographs are being beamed to Earth from the Mars Pathfinder, and the world is fascinated.

The tiny 22-pound Sojourner rover is creeping across the red landscape of Mars studying the soil and rocks. OK, so it's not the fast lane. The rover traveled just 16 inches the first two days.

But the information is amazing. For example, read a Mars weather report: minus 76 degrees at dawn with a light wind blowing from the southeast. Unbelievable! The Internet is bubbling with data about Mars and space in general. This is the first mission to land on the surface of Mars in 21 years.

SEMissourian.com staff member Dennis O'Shields is joining our trip to Mars, via the Internet.

Dennis: Let's start with CNN. They have a special section entitled Mission Mars.

cnn.com

We downloaded a QuickTime movie of the Pathfinder. It's nice to see what they can do with computer animation these days.

Joni: In the Destination Mars MuliPlex, you can view streaming video and snapshots of Mars.

Dennis: I'm busy looking at the photographs of the rover's airbags. All we're doing is sending them expensive toys -- giant beachballs.

Joni: You know the saying, all work and no play makes Martians dull boys. You can also find out the latest Mars facts, including evidence that a flood may have once inundated the now-dry planet.

Dennis: They also have two shockwave games. In the one game, you can test drive the rover. In Target Mars, it's your job to put Pathfinder on Mars. You have to figure out the launch codes.

Joni: Forget it. I can't even balance my checkbook.

Dennis: I think I overshot it.

Joni: Deep space, Dennis?

Dennis: It might hit Jupiter. Oh well, that's another mission.

Joni: Let's jet over to the definitive site on Mars: NASA. Warning: it's been very busy this week and you might have trouble getting in. It took us several tries.

www.jpl.nasa.gov

Dennis: This is actually the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where all the research is done. Let's check out news flashes.

Joni: You can find everything from mission status reports to the fact Mattel has released a toy version of Sojourner.

Dennis: I like that.

Joni: You can also download numerous images from the site, both browse images and high resolution. Dennis, I notice you're downloading quite a number of those photos. What are you going to do with them?

Dennis: E-mail them to friends who don't have a fast link. I find this stuff fascinating -- ever since July 20, 1969, the day Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. I was 18 months old and would not move from in front of the television.

Joni: That explains it. We could never access the main NASA site after hours of trying. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Dennis: Let's check out the official Pathfinder site. There are three main sites with mirror information.

mars.sgi.com

www.sun.com/mars

mars.compuserve.com

These corporate mirror sites can take between 6 million and 15 million hits at a time. NASA set up the mirror sites to help with congestion. There are a number of international mirror sites available as well.

Joni: At the Pathfinder site, you can find all the photos taken by the Pathfinder. You can also get the current weather conditions, science results, rover status, and much more.

Dennis: These sites have been so busy, they can't even keep the thumbnail photos of the images. They had to take those down and only offer downloads of the full-sized photos. And we're on the Sun Microsystems site, which makes computer mainframes. That tells you how busy these sites have been.

Joni: For a more offbeat look at space and science, you can visit Dr. Matrix' Weird Web World of Science from Australia. Why is it weird?

www.tasmall.com.au/drmatrix

Dennis: Because he has everything to do with technology. I just found this site in the last few days. There's stuff on science here I haven't seen since I was a child. They have stuff on biology, astromony, physics, chemistry and search for extraterrestrials.

Joni: They call it a festival of exploration. Let's check out the space technology category. He has links around the globe. He links to sites that feature any and all human curiosity, not just science.

Dennis: The search engine Yahoo has a huge listing of related Mars sites, including one that offers video of the Pathfinder landing.

www.yahoo.com

Joni: The Mars Mission choice is at the top of the Yahoo main page. Many of the major newspapers offer special reports on Mars. The information is vast and right at your fingertips -- that is if you can put up with the wait the demand has caused.

Dennis: What's your favorite space site? E-mail us at clicksemissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor and Dennis O'Shields is a member of SEMissourian.com web staff.