Mars Rovers on New Missions

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Posted by michael on Friday June 4, 2004 @10:04PM from the keeps-going-and-going dept.

mycro writes "According to CNN, the Mars rovers are on a brand new mission. Because the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers are in such great condition and 'keep going and going', NASA will be using them for a longer period of time to study water, rocks, and formations on Mars." An anonymous reader writes "Today NASA has given its Opportunity rover a green light to enter the steep Endurance crater. Looking at deeper martian bedrock layers is considered now a rich enough science payoff to weigh favorably against the real chance that the rover cannot get back out of the crater."

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Why would they stop working? by lancomandr · 2004-06-04 22:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

Because the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers are in such great condition and 'keep going and going'
Could someone please explain to me what exactly would cause a rover that cost $400 million to develop and deploy to fail after several months? I'm not trying to start a ruckus. Perhaps I should've kept up more but I honestly wonder what causes these rovers to cease functioning. It seems like the expectations for home robotics kits greatly exceed those of the Mars rovers. Hopefully someone can explain it.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Falling down? by anshil · 2004-06-04 22:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

I actually wonder if the only real danger as the story posts constits of never getting out of the crater, but actually also to make a safe journey downward without stumbling, falling and bursting? (Then you've a wreckage without any scientific data to make it payoff)

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Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Re:Exciting, but perhaps down is the way... by DNS-and-BIND · 2004-06-04 22:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Did you ever consider that the deep sea is one of the vanishingly few places on the planet that hasn't been destroyed by humans? The sooner we begin "exploring", the sooner the environmental degradation occurs. I don't think we need to work on an aquatic Cortez just to get you some more species to kill and extract chemicals from their dead bodies. Just a thought.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Exciting, but perhaps down is the way... by InternationalCow · 2004-06-04 23:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

A is for aqua (water) and S is for Sea :). Just kidding. I'm not sure whether there is such a great difference between sea and space exploration. Both envirnoments are not meant for humans and will kill you if you're stupid. Of course, deep sea vehicles will have to withstand immense pressures, but so will for instance any vehicle that is ever to explore Jupiter. There's a great story about this by Arthur C. Clarke (I forget the title - someone?) where this parallel is drawn and a case is made for deep sea exploration as a kind of prelude to planetary exploration. There's not that much deep sea exploration being done that results in observations that the general public can have a look at. I doubt whether military observations made by subs will be made public. The advances resulting from space exploration are a continuing point of discussion so I won't go into that. Re the vast resources - you're right, but we have no idea whatsoever of the resources hidden in our seas.

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Shadows? by bigattichouse · 2004-06-04 23:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Going down in the crater will decrease the rover's daily income of sunlight, won't it.. granted maybe only a few seconds. But those seconds will add up to shave that lifespan down quite a bit.

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meh