Columbia Memorial Station

EngrBohn writes "NASA has named the Mars Spirit landing site the 'Columbia Memorial Station'. They've obviously been planning this, as there's even a plaque at the CMS."

happy it didn't auger

[bandy]

Consider the mega-bummer had they pre-announced and it had ended up augering into Mars like the last probe did.

Bets on whether or not there's a plaque on Opportunity as well?

Re:Martian weather

[kippy]

shouldn't be anything. CO2 doesn't react with aluminum, at least at the low temperatures of Mars unless I'm mistaken. Dust might wear it down after a while but that should be a really long time since the low pressure winds won't hit it very hard.

I'm guessing that it will get dusty at most. They proably made it out of aluminum because it's light and plastic would probably degrade faster.