Mars Rover's Epic Trek For the Crater Endeavor

Smivs writes "The BBC reports that NASA is to send its Mars rover Opportunity on a two-year trek to try to reach a crater called Endeavour. The robot will have to move about 11km to get to its new target — a distance that would double what it has already achieved on the planet. Endeavour is much bigger than anything investigated to date, and will allow a broader range of rocks to be studied. Detailed satellite imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will help pick out the best route ahead; and new software recently uploaded to Opportunity will enable the rover to make its own decisions about how best to negotiate large rocks in its path. Opportunity has just emerged from the 800m-wide Victoria Crater. Endeavour, by comparison, is 22km across."

Comments

A case for manned exploration

[blind biker]

A human would take no more than a few hours to get there, on foot, much less with some vehicle. And would be able to do much more and diverse probings and experiments. And let's not forget that in those 2 years, the rover has a very high likelihood to break down.

So while human exploration of Mars may be expensive, it is probably much cheaper when comparing results.

I know the /. crowd has a strong, somewhat irrational animosity towards manned exploration. So I'll burn some karma, big deal :o)

Re:A case for manned exploration

[oldspewey]

irrational animosity towards manned exploration

Leaving aside - for now - the part where a human mission to Mars is almost certainly a suicide mission, if you want to make the case that other people are irrational your best bet is probably to present your own rational ideas for a fully-costed human mission, including all the associated life-support requirements both in transit and once on the surface.

Then we can compare your ideas against the cost of the Spirit and Opportunity missions

Re:A case for manned exploration

[KeensMustard]

A human would take no more than a few hours to get there, on foot, much less with some vehicle.

You've inadvertently demonstrated the stupidity of your own argument there. If the point is to "travel faster" and vehicles travel faster then humans, why not send a vehicle? And if we have the vehicle, what's the human for? After all, it's not the 1960s. Vehicles don't need humans to steer them.

And would be able to do much more and diverse probings and experiments.

Rubbish. The fact of the matter is, we would get better quality results form observing mars from orbit then from a human on the ground. Any human observation/probing/experiments on Mars will be entirely reliant on instruments to do the measuring, cameras to record, etc. If we are sending the instruments anyway, what do we need the human there for? After all, it's not the 1960s. Instruments no longer require us to be physically present to read them.

And let's not forget that in those 2 years, the rover has a very high likelihood to break down.

So - what? S+O demonstrates clearly that we can engineer well enough to reliably meet the mission objectives - Huygens demonstrates that with a backup system, we can gather results of enormous value even in the event of partial failure.

So while human exploration of Mars may be expensive, it is probably much cheaper when comparing results.

Experience says otherwise. Human activities in space have been expensive boondoggles of little or no scientific value. Robotic missions in space - Galileo, Hubble, Spirit+Opportunity, Voyagers, Cassini/Huygens, beautiful and exciting discoveries that push the boundaries of our experience. Hardly a days passes where one of these missions doesn't give us pause. It's irrational to think we need to physically go ourselves. It's not the 1960s anymore.

Re:11 km

[Gewalt]

There really should be a moderation tag for "most people aren't nearly as funny, or as obvious as they think they are".

No, it really was funny and obvious. You're just not nearly as sharp, or as bright as you think you are.

Re:11 km

[arielCo]

That's 100.248 football fields in PopSci units :)

Re:11 km

[Comboman]

There really should be a moderation tag for "most people aren't nearly as funny, or as obvious as they think they are".

Funny is admittedly somewhat subjective, but any Slashdot reader interested enough in Mars exploration to read this article would no doubt be familiar with the Mars Climate Orbiter and the error involving conversion of metric units that caused its failure; so I would call the joke fairly obvious.

Re:Let's hope the motors hold out.

[mbone]

Oh, and given that there was never any plans to get the rovers back, this was always a "suicide" mission.

But you are right, JPL will keep running these until they physically fail.

Re:11 km

[paniq]

Those of us with an username.

Re:Amazing

[GeordieMac]

actually a better mechanism would be to use compressed atmosphere to blast the dust away. Wipers have more points of failure and would likely abrade the surface of the solar panels, permanently reducing the efficiency fo the cells.

Re:More than a suggestion

[gstoddart]

I know that NASA are a bunch of good people, and I know that there are very good reasons for why they do things the way they do.
But PLEASE!!! 2 years to go 11 km? I know that the Rover will stop every now and then to check out soil samples etc, but 2 years???

Dude, it's around 2 feet long and being remotely controlled on a very long time delay and it's, what, several million km's away??

It can only go so far each day before it has to shut down, recharge, and wait for new driving instructions. That usually involves people looking at obstacles and coming up with a series of instructions for it to follow to move forward so it doesn't go crashing into a rock or into an unplanned crater.

It's not like they have detailed maps and a GPS tracking system you can just plug in the coordinates and have the auto-pilot start navigating there. This actually is some pretty challenging stuff.

Remember, they started designing these suckers some time in the 90's, and they've lasted several years longer than expected. Cut them some slack, it's not like your RC 4wd is going to fare very well on Mars or magically solve the control problem of piloting something that far away.

Man, you'd think plopping something onto a whole 'nother planet and navigating it around over fairly big (for the rover) distances was something that wasn't difficult. This falls well into the realm of completely bonus science for a mission which has been completely successful in terms of the engineering goals it did accomplish (and exceed).

Cheers

Re:Let's hope the motors hold out.

[ctetc007]

It may be true that this specific mission seems a bit suicidal, but what else are you going to do with it? Nothing? The rover was meant to run until it died, and this seems like as good a cause to die for as any.

The rover isn't just going on a boring 2 year long road trip, it's also exploring the rocks and terrain along the way. Even if it doesn't reach its destination, the trek will still be of scientific value.