Terrestrial Garbage On Mars

An anonymous reader writes "The garbage left behind by the twin Mars rovers was highlighted this week by the close-up view in panorama of the Spirit rovers' heatshield. Not including the various Viking, Pathfinder and some crippled probes, the human contribution of rover hardware to the martian surface now includes a few odd nicknacks, parachutes, heatshields, back shell,landing petals and many wheel tracks. It may be September before the rovers themselves become part of the red planet's debris field."

Comments

They make great reference points

[shiwala]

Maybe the garbage will have useful navigation purposes:

"Have the rover turn left at the heatshield and then go towards the parachute."

Mars Environmental Front alive and well

[kippy]

If you've read the Red Mars trilogy, you know about the hypothetical conflict between Mars preservationists "the Reds" and terraformists "the Greens". While these books are set in the future, within the Mars-nerd community people are already starting to form similar ranks. From scientists who condemn manned missions as contaminating a virgin planet to people already doing research on what greenhouse gas mixture to use to heat up the place. There is a NASA debate on this that got some press recently.