Mars Rover Spirit Still Alive 185
Toren Altair writes with this excerpt from a story at The Space Fellowship: "NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit communicated via the Mars Odyssey orbiter today right at the time when ground controllers had told it to, prompting shouts of 'She's talking!' among the rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 'This means Spirit has not gone into a fault condition and is still being controlled by sequences we send from the ground,' said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for Spirit and its twin, Opportunity."
Re:NASA Automotives (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, I think your car would run pretty darn well if you had a dozen scientists and engineers continually operating and maintaining it.
Re:Ummm (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to ask, but is it doing any useful science anymore?
Even if it is still doing the same science year after year it can deliver information on longer term changes in the environment on Mars. A five year perspective is much more than 20 times more valuable than a three month perspective.
Re:Ummm (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider that the powers that be decided that the price tag associated with these two gizmos was worth it for the three months worth of science they were going to get out of them. Now that they've lasted roughly 20 times as long that means something went really right, the return on investment is definitely there. But it's just as important to know what they could do better. What are the weaknesses of the system? What systems upheld the best? These systems aren't mass produced like your auto, knowing what is effective and what isn't is just as much science as their original mission. And with the data that we're collecting we're going to make better probes in the future. That's worth the money too.
And yes, I'm sure that they're still doing science based on their original mission too. They have an ability to see things from a point of view we may not see for many more years to come. May as well get what we can while we can.
Re:NASA Automotives (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm willing to risk my safety on a metric to standard conversion problem for a car that will run.
um...metric is the standard.
Re:bellows and a nozzle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why can't they just flip the panels over?
If it's staticly charged, flipping won't have the expected result. Plus flipping requires quite some energy (it has to flip back as well), plus we wouldn't want it to get stuck while it's upside-down, would we?
Re:This was a triumph! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course people are emotionally invested. Think about it for a minute...
*waits*
It is not unusual for someone to put in 10 years of their life planning and building one of these things. They you have to wait for the launch, wait for it to reach Mars, and hope you get some good science out of it.
This rover was supposed to last at least 90 days. It's still going 5 years later. They're still getting good science out of it.
Now, with some of the people on the project having 15+ years of their lives invested in this, you expect them to NOT be emotionally invested?
Re:NASA Automotives (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to roving on Mars, the Lunokhod program had lots of things going for it.
* The much shorter communications time, which someone else mentioned, allows near real-time operator control, so a rover can move faster and not so gingerly creep your way around. Being so much closer allows you to also use a less-powerful transmitter, or transmit more data at the same power level.
* Being so much closer to the Earth means that it is feasible to send a much larger and heavier rover using the same rocket.
* Being so much closer to the Sun means that there is vastly more energy available, even considering the state of photovoltaics in the 1970s. The Moon has no dust storms to obscure the panels, either. Because of its slow rotation, one has about two weeks of continuous sunlight to work with. (On the other hand, it also means that you need to build a rover that can survive for two weeks with no sunlight).
On the whole, I'd say that the success of Lunokhod 30-40 years ago shouldn't make the Mars rovers' accomplishments seem puny today. The environments and challenges of the two locations are distinct, so the comparison isn't appropriate. Perhaps it would be better to compare the progress that has been made for each location over that time.
How good were Mars rovers of that time compared to now? Answer: terrible. There weren't any Mars rovers until Sojourner in 1996.
How good are the lunar rovers of today? Answer: who knows!? There haven't been any since Lunokhod. There are a few in development, from governments and private groups, but none have launched or landed yet, and won't for years still.
Re:This was a triumph! (Score:2, Insightful)