Mars Rover Spirit Down a Wheel

riflemann writes "NASA is reporting that two years into its 90-day mission, Spirit has lost one wheel and is now running on five wheels, dragging the broken wheel. With this reduced mobiity, the rover still needs to make its way to a slope where it can catch enough sun over the Martian winter to keep it operating. 'Even though the rovers are well past their original design life, they still have plenty of capability to conduct outstanding science on Mars.', says project leader Dr. John Callas."

Comments

Re:At first read, I get dissapointed

[ForestGrump]

And...with a warranty set at say 40k, your chance of failure is very small. As you extend the warranty out, the chance of failure increases, but so does the reasons to void the warranty.

For example, the transmision dies at 70k. You take it into the stealer for them to fix it. Well sir, you should have had the trans flushed every 30k. Because you failed to do so, at 30k and 60k, you have no warranty. (hypothetical of course)

Yippie for a longer warranty? No, it's statistics majors, accountants and marketing dept pumping you for all you're worth.

Grump.

Re:Late Breaking News:

[iced_773]

The rest of us, huh? Including this guy? I think you're the same troll who stalks TMM. And don't try to pass off any of that "I know for a fact there are many of us" bull. Those of us decent enough to log in to speak our minds aren't falling for it.

Also, if it isn't funny, then why am I modded that way? I was also modded Underrated, as you can see in the moderation breakdown. If the civilized people who log in and post meaningful things to Slashdot enough to get mod points think it's funny, then that is all that matters. I don't care what a faceless AC troll thinks, and neither does anyone else. That's why you were modded Overrated.

Re:I'll take the Offtopic hit for this

[LeonGeeste]

Darkie:

I was the one risking karma loss. And his "explanation" totally missed the point of what I was asking, and in a really bone-headed way that can't be explained by mere error.