Spirit Outlasts Viking 2 Lander 137
ScottMaxwell writes "Spirit, the Mars rover designed for a 90-day mission, has now outlasted the Viking 2 lander. Viking 2 survived until its 1281st sol (Martian day); Spirit is now on sol 1282 and counting. Assuming both rovers continue to weather the ongoing dust storms, Spirit's sister, Opportunity, will reach the same age in a few weeks. They aren't breathing down the neck of the all-time record just yet, though — the Viking 1 lander lasted 2245 sols on the surface of Mars; Spirit and Opportunity won't break that record for another 2.7 Earth years."
Re:NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear powered (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh my goodness me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh my goodness me (Score:4, Insightful)
20, almost 30 years of no significant space achievements.
Oh sure, there's a couple of impressive things that have been done with probes. Crashing them into asteroids, flinging them out towards Pluto, but where are the asteroid mines and space colonies, the moonbases and He3 refining facilities, or even an interstellar probe to the nearest star system?
Re:Delete *.* (Score:4, Insightful)
Or perhaps something like what they did to the display resolution dialogs after a while... Ie if communication is lost after a command for X time units, undo the command.
Re:Oh my goodness me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear powered (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot Tags of any worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
theydomakethemliketheyusedto, gogogadgetlander
What exactly is the criteria for tags getting on the front page? Are you seriously saying that several Slashdot users all came up with these tags at the same time? That is clearly either evidence of editorial manipulation, or that cyanide pills need to be handed at the next nerd convention.
LS
Re:Nuclear powered (Score:3, Insightful)
or even 'suns',
What exactly do you think that "sol" means?