Slashdot Mirror
Long-lived Mars Rovers to Keep on Roving
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a ComputerWorld article about the ongoing saga of the Martian rovers. They've overcome amazing obstacles and they show no signs of shutting down any time soon. "'After more than three and a half years, Spirit and Opportunity are showing some signs of aging, but they are in good health and capable of conducting great science,' John Callas, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Since landing, the rovers have had to surmount a host of technical issues. Just a few weeks after landing, the Spirit rover had an out-of-memory problem that almost ended its mission before it began, but scientists were able to get the rover back into operation. In April 2004, both needed software updates to correct problems and improve their performance."
should read the story of these two amazing machines. There's a lot that's wrong with NASA but there's so much that's right, too -- and this is proof positive.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
in a spectacular fashion. Either extreme, it is rare that a mission is routine.
Probably about a month and a half. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
We have been seeing articles like this for 3 years now. That is great, the more positive talk about a NASA project the better.
The thing that always seems to be missing is: why did these two robots continue to work so well, and, how do we go about repeating their success?
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
These are amazing little guys. It's still a shame that we don't more things like this. It's terrible that we spend trillions of dollars to build militarys and almost zero on things like this which expand our knowledge for the betterment of us all. I am sure there would lines around planet of people who would be happy to go on the mission to exchange the parts on these critters. Heck, I am sure there would be a ton of people who would love to go even if there was a 80% chance it would be a one way trip. We can only hope a space race starts with China since we will only spend if it's counter a "threat" to our supremacy.
i'm really surprised we haven't seen advertisements on TV for the companies and subcontractors that helped make all the components.
talk about some serious bragging rights!
People are still better judges of opportunity and environment than machines. I do not disagree that unmanned machines can be extremely effective at both ends of the cost spectrum (Mars Rovers, Cassini/Huygens), but the machines have to wait for instructions and we have to wait for data. A human could make snap decisions based on live observation that could yield results the machines are incapable of.
Imagine if sifting through the data of someplace the Mars Rover had been a year and a half ago we discovered something extraordinary that merits further investigation. If the Mars Rover is well on from the site, or perhaps no longer functioning, we would have to send another probe to collect more data. A person might pick up on such a discovery much more quickly.
That said, I acknowledge that we are still in the realm of speculation to some degree as there has been significantly more unmanned planetary research than manned, and it has been quite successful.
Do You Experiment?
When NASA says "90 days" of useful life they really mean they've planned for a full year. They won't look too bad if the spacecraft fails after a couple of months and will be seen as miracle workers when if it does survive a full year. A little spin technique picked up from Cmdr Montgomery Scott, no doubt.
That being said, kudos to the engineers and operators for keeping both of the beasties running for so long. It would have been even better if they had planned for an much extended lifetime for the rover's RAT (Rock Abrasion Tool), as each is only good for a few grinding cycles.
Given the huge costs already sunk for design, fabrication setup, testing, and training, it's obvious to all but NASA that they should have built and launched at least one more pair of rovers, possibly with some minor improvements. Furthermore, with interest in Mars from Europe, Russia, and mainland China, the latter rovers could have been produced and deployed with significant cost sharing by multiple participants.
I intend to live forever. So far so good.
Space exploration isn't just about science or nationalism. It's also about humanity and it's desire for exploration. What's the point of learning all about the cosmos unless we can somehow put it to use for humanity? And part of that science is the effect of space travel and other-world habitation on humans. Eventually, humanity will be living out in space, and we will be better and richer for it.
I consider that a fine investment of my tax dollars.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Seriously, this got modded up? Really?
A private company would kept them going to milk as much value out of the rovers as possible and to raise their chances of winning the bid for the next project.
Space exploration would then have to tow the mark vis a vis an acceptable ROI. What is a good ROI for the Hubble or sending satellites to comets? I'm guessing it's zero. Unless you're talking about geomapping, climate studies, telecommunications, all that near earth stuff, the 'return' on space is nil. And I don't have a problem with either accepting that it's nil, or giving up on it because it's nil. Let's just be clear that's what our intentions are. BTW I am firmly convinced that when the Shuttle program finally closes down and the Indians and Chinese have done their nationalistic things with manned orbits, it will signal the end of manned spaceflight for the remainder of the 21st century. Because the return on that investment is almost nil.