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NASA Concedes Defeat In Effort To Free Spirit Rover
An anonymous reader writes "NASA has conceded defeat in its battle to free the Spirit rover from its Martian sand trap. The vehicle became stuck in soft soil back in May last year and all the efforts to extricate it have failed. NASA says that Spirit, which landed on the Red Planet over six years ago, will 'no longer be a fully mobile robot,' and has instead designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform."
Nothing but a crappy robot stuck in the sand
oh really? the space shuttle has, due to it's unique method of funding, held back private enterprise in the development of space travel. remember Lindbergh? he was not funded by the us tax payer. so rather than private enterprise leading us forward, as they have pretty much everywhere else we now have a fragile and antiquated (until recently the flight deck computers used 1978-vintage 8086 microprocessors!!) space shuttle that rather than flying every week flies a few times a year at a cost of $1.3 billion a flight. oh yeah - sexy big numbers for the most inefficient organisation on the planet. and we have a stupidly expensive stationary car on mars and people are going "wow".
/. is cawing a broken down toy on mars. i'm stupid?
"Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation and a private space entrepreneur, says NASA can remain relevant--but only by focusing on what for-profit companies won't do. "NASA should be in focusing on breakthroughs in propulsion systems. They should be taking very high risks, funding things that are likely to fail because that's what government should be doing, pushing the envelope," he said in an interview with CNET News.com."
yeah man... I'm really "fucking stupid" - nasa has held up commercial space flight and