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Spirit Rover is One Year Old

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the happy-birthday-to-you dept.

dolphin558 writes "The little rover that could, did. The Spirit Rover marks its one year aniversary after an expected lifetime of just 3 months. It has traversed more than 2 miles of Martian landscape and sent back thousands of pictures and reams of data. There is no indication that it will die anytime soon as it climbs the Columbia Hills."

7 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by TychoCelchuuu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the spirit rover can last for a year on Mars, why do we need to send astronauts (naughts?)? Wouldn't the money be better spent on more robots?

    --
    Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
    1. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by ravenspear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      why do we need to send astronauts

      Because we can.

    2. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by danheskett · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This was a very basic attempt at a robot. If we redirected the money spent on manned space flight, the space station, and other human-based space flight projects into the robotic missions, you'd see some damn fine robots.

      We aimed very small with this mission. Yet we got big. Very big. What we really need is a coherent team of robots that work together to go to Mars. Overlapping functions, semi-autonomy, semi-intelligent bots that are able to function together for a common goal.

      Robots are the best future of NASA.

    3. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by ravenspear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I am waiting for a good reason to send man to mars. But so far, we got nothing.

      How about because it is there and we are here, and if we don't find a way off this rock before we turn it into a smoldering pile of nuclear waste our species isn't going to leave behind much of a legacy.

    4. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by stienman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the spirit rover can last for a year on Mars, why do we need to send astronauts (naughts?)? Wouldn't the money be better spent on more robots?

      The robots cannot make decisions on the fly, other than extremely simple obstacle avoidance. When a decision is to be made, the robot talks to us, we think about it, and then command the robot. This takes a huge amount of time.

      An astronaut can walk faster than these robots can move. Put a moon rovor type vehicle up there with a few astronauts and you can do as much exploration in a day as the Spirit and Opportunity have done their entire existance.

      Plus, we can, there are those who want to, and there are those willing to pay for it. Who are you to tell them to stop? So far this mission has cost you less than $10 of your taxes. I fully support the government using taxes to perform such missions, and apparently a majority of Americans feel similarily.

      -Adam

    5. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by pthisis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the spirit rover can last for a year on Mars, why do we need to send astronauts (naughts?)?

      Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
    6. Re:Great! Keep the Spacemen at Home by danheskett · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Further, you cannot simply tell a robot to 'explore that rock over there' like you could a skilled human.
      You can't do that *now* with Spirit, but there is no reason you can't do that now with current robotic technology. There are numerous robots that function semi-autonomously with complex behaviours that could be modified for Mars. Additionally, *THERE IS NO RUSH*. If we build more durable robots for Mars we can take a few days to do what a human could do in a single day. So what? When the robot "dies", we just leave it. Shipping enough supplies for a 12-month round-trip through space for a human to consume is a monumentally expensive (time, weight, and design requirements) expenditure. Let's say we ship a human to Mars for a 60 day stay. That means we need to ship 14 months of life-support supplies for each human. That's a lot! How many backup robots, replacement parts, and redudant robots could we send for the same cost in dollars and weight?

      Even if we sent a team of 5 robots, more advanced than currently possible, they would still require about 30-50 people micromanaging the robots
      So what! Engineers on earth cost far less than astro-persons in Space! Give control to various robots to Univeristies around the world.

      Given one week they would still, as a group, complete less science than one astronaut would complete in a day.
      Let's say that's true. So, how long could a human stay on Mars? Two months at max? That's 60 man days. If we sent 12 various robots up, and all 12 robots can only do 1/7th the work of a human, we would by this point (landing plus one year), but far ahead of that one manned mission. Who knows how long we could design robots to last on Mars? Is there any reason we couldn't design a team of robots to function nominally for 5 years?

      Lastly, we can do it, there are people who want to do it, and there are those who want to finance it. Why should they be stopped? Who are you to tell them the best way to do what they want to do?
      For 100% private money, fine. But for government tax dollars the goal should be the most most valuable science for the least most safe dollars.

      If you are talking about preparing for future colonization, it won't be NASA doing it. Period. That is not their goal now, nor has it ever really been.