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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."
It wasn't designed to operate for only 90 days. The intention was for it to last at least 90 days. But certainly nobody cut corners during construction because of that, so "that part can fail after 100 days".
One that hath name thou can not otter
Given the relative distances, the additional complexity, the long transit times, and all the other factors, this project WAS done on a shoestring budget. Recall that the Rover project was part of NASA's newish directive to get the most useful information for the least possible money.
So what, pray tell, would have been the advantage of sending a human (other than shakier photos of the same rocks)? It would have cost an order of magnitude more money to haul a few people and all the supplies needed to keep them alive for a year-long mission, and most of that mission would have been spent with the astronauts in the ship on the way there and back. Time onsite would have been, at best, a month or so. Probably less.
By making this a one-way trip and sending collection instruments that don't need to consume, breathe, and excrete on the way there, we actually got two useful instrument packages there and got 6 years of good science (and counting). We gathered good information about a couple of interesting spots on the surface of Mars, what it consists of, and what resources may be available to support an eventual manned mission.
I'd rather have that then spend ten or twenty times the money, have less science, and have a shaky photograph of a footprint.
I think we need to send people there. But when we do, it should be a one-way trip. We should continue to send robots until we figure out a good spot for an initial landing site, then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
The Moon would be a good training ground, and having a permanent base there would teach us a lot about doing this with Mars. And beyond.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Yeah, a real waste of a billion dollars. We could have spent that on, what, a month in Iraq? Bailing out three more failed institutions to ensure their CEOs got huge bonuses?
What a shame, wasting our money expanding the horizons of Humanity.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Don't get me wrong, Spirit's situation is bad. But it's not as bad as it sounds.
We are not going to extricate Spirit by winter, that much is true: we have a handful of drive attempts left, we progressed about 7.4 cm on our best sol so far -- 4-5cm has been more typical for our recent drive attempts -- and we have over a meter to go (to the nearest likely extrication point) before we no longer have enough energy to drive. You can't argue with arithmetic: we're not going to make it in time.
Instead, we'll focus our remaining drive attempts on improving Spirit's northerly tilt, which in turn improves her energy intake through the winter. We'll then hunker down for the winter and focus on performing stationary science, such as investigating the soil and rocks we've newly exposed during our extrication driving and participating in radio science experiments to determine whether Mars's core is liquid or solid. (Incidentally, how freaking cool is that?!)
After about six months of stationary science observations, we'll start moving again, at least within a small area. If Spirit feels up to it, we might even get properly back on the road again next year, though her mobility will always be limited -- relative to what she used to be able to achieve -- by the fact that she now has two broken wheels, not just one. That second wheel failure was what put the kibosh on our first serious attempts at extrication from the "Troy" sand pit. We now have a workaround that has been showing some real promise; there's just not enough time to complete that path before winter stops us.
As an important caveat, that "six months of stationary science" will be extended by however long Spirit goes into a low-power mode for the winter. We are likely not to hear from her at all for about six months, and during that time she can't make the observations that will contribute to the stationary science plan, so she'll probably be sitting still for an Earth year or so. Worst of all, during that low-power period, she might die: lack of energy means insufficient heating means components operating below design temperatures means, possibly, end of life. But if she survives that, she'll move again.
In summary: Grandma was already limping, and now she's broken her leg. She's also probably going to go into a coma for a while. But we've known her a long time and she's a feisty sucker; don't ever, ever count her out.
``Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.'' -- Richard Dawkins