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Mars Rover Finds Unusual Rocks at 'Home Plate'

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the get-the-umpire-a-new-telescope dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After several months of driving nearly a kilometer, the Mars Rover Spirit has reached the semicircular plateau dubbed 'Home Plate' in Gusev Crater and has unearthed a puzzle. Spirit first got a good view of Home Plate in late August from 'Husband Hill'. The layered appearance is unlike anything yet seen by the rovers."

2 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Keeps going, and going, and going... by salemnic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm simply amazed that this thing keeps moving. What was the original life expectancy? 3 months? How longs has it been going now? 2 years?

    Unbelievable.

    Yay engineers! Yay Science! Yay School!

    s

    1. Re:Keeps going, and going, and going... by INeededALogin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Simply amazing only because they advertised the bare minimum/worst case scenario as the life expectancy. Honestly, NASA couldn't chance another failure so they played it safe.

      This is a machine... a very well built one. The fact that both are running just shows that many of the NASA assumptions were incorrect, such as how well a machine would function on the surface, the effects of the varying temperature on components and the overall dependability of a machine.

      We should be thinking of the 3 months number as nothing more than a warranty. The engineers(whoever they were) gave a conservative number that these things would run for 3 months. Just as car makers give me a 2-3 year warranty, I still expect my car to work well after that warranty is up.

      Anyways, it is amazing, but demonstrates a problem with goverment research projects and the importance of a tangible success/failure as opposed to just saying, it will run until it stops and we will collect as much data as possible. This is also the same problem with Hubble. While Hubble gives us tons of useful scientific research, it is a project without an end and without a tangible success to be stamp on a piece of paper to justify all those tax payers money. (Man... where did this rant come from:-/)