Mars Rover Opportunity Surpasses 30km Driving

Phoghat sends this quote from Universe Today: "With her most recent drive of 482 feet on June 1, 2011 (Sol 2614), NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover has zoomed past the unimaginable 30 kilometer mark in total odometry since safely landing on Mars nearly seven and one half years ago on Jan 24, 2004. That's 50 times beyond the roughly quarter-mile of roving distance initially foreseen. And Opportunity is still going strong, in good health and has abundant solar power as she continues driving on her ambitious overland trek across the martian plains of Meridiani Planum. She is heading to the giant Endeavour crater, some 22 km in diameter."

kilometer conversion for the math impared

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

That would be 0.000001668 of a light minute

Late-Breaking News from the Council: Onwards!

[Tackhead]

The most Illustrious Council of Elders reports that last remaining mechanized invader from the blue world inexplicably refuses to yield as its brother did, and that our campaign against the invaders must therefore continue onwards.

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, spake thus:

"Our red planet still basks in the warm afterglow of its recent V-S Day [slashdot.org] celebrations. V-S day marked the most recent victory in our campaign, but there still remains work to be done. Despite its wounds, the last remaining mechanized invader from the blue world continues to mark our red soils with tracks left by its foul wheels of terror."

When a junior tech guru for the Sacdot news service meditated on the fact that the campaign against the second invader has taken 29 times longer than the initial campaign estimates, and that during this time, the invader had 1.2 times the distance from the plains to the peak of our world's tallest and most sacred volcanic peak, K'Breel, in his mercy, had the guru's gelsacs - as well as the gelsacs of 503 of the tech guru's podmates - rendered unavailable for service.

(Speaking ex-councillo, K'breel was heard to have murmured "Connection reset? Meditate on THIS!" while applying varnish to the freshly-pierced gelsac of a junior cache server administrator.)

I hope they got the extended warranty

[zill]

That's 50 times beyond the roughly quarter-mile of roving distance initially foreseen.

I am deeply saddened by the decline of quality of recent American automobiles. Back in my days they built cars that lasted a lot more a quarter-mile.

There's not even a service center within 55 million kilometers for crying out loud!