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Spirit and Opportunity Are Back Online
PinkyGigglebrain sends us news that the Mars rovers have survived the dust storms that have swept the surface of Mars for the last 6 weeks. How well they survived remains to be seen. Due to a combination of dust still suspended in the atmosphere and dust on the rovers' solar panels, they are only producing about half the power they normally would. The article is a little sparse on the exact health of the rovers but it's good to know they are still with us.
What we really need, though, is for people like you to shut up. "Ooh! Those robots are so tyoot, we should treat them like little dressed-up dogs and make them go say hi to each other! It'd be so super sweet, and maybe they'd die trying to do it and it'd be so romantic and maybe we could make a movie about it! Awwww...." No. We need them to collect scientific data from Mars, which NASA spent almost a billion fucking dollars on them to do. You need to stop thinking with your anus, and go read a book or two.
By the way, dumbass, they're on opposite sides of the planet. You know how far Opportunity traveled on Aug. 21? 13 meters. Take a while for them to meet up at that pace.
ResidntGeek
Designed for a 90 day mission, and here we are at over 13 times that number of days.
maybe the idea was to understate the expected lifespan of the robots and this would me it seem as if we (the taxpayer) got our moneys worth even if they didn't live up to their creators expectations.
now joe sixpack gets to look at the lifespan and, if nothing else, at least thinks he got more than his moneys worth for all the trouble that nasa went through. granted, there are a ton of shitballs out there who would hardly take this into consideration but i'm sure a few people who think we're just wasting money on space are somewhat impressed by the durability of these two vehicles.
after all, rednecks are impressed by pickup truck commercials where they carry a few tons of building materials even though they know that the most that will ever be put into most of these trucks is a hunter's tree stand and a couple cases of beer.