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Mars Exploration Rover Spirit Launches
Joost Schuur writes "Two down and one to go. After several delays, due to bad weather, Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit', the second of three Mars probes destined for the Red Planet this year has launched successfully. An identical probe, named Opportunity by 9 year old Sofi Collis, is set to launch June 25th. Earlier this month, the European Space Agency's Mars Express took off in Baikonur and is already well on its way. All three will rendezvous December/January 2003/4 and include landing modules, when late-comer, Japanese probe Nozomi will catch up after a 5 year trip and several course corrections that sent in in a slingshot maneuver around the Sun to build up enough velocity."
First, we sent mice to Mars. I have no idea why, maybe it was to eat the red cheese.
Next, we sent cats to take care of the mouse problem.
Now, we have to send dogs like Rover to take care of the cats?
What next? Will we have to send gorillas to eat the dogs, and hope that the Martian winter then kills the gorillas? Skinner: "When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Probably not. The majority of the trip is done just through sheer momentum, which requires no extra fuel. And a launch is such a large, complicated event that you couldn't really make do with less than two full teams (one per rocket), so you wouldn't have any savings in terms of fuel or personnel.