What’s been as consistently fascinating and just neat as NASA’s ability to keep Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rovers, going? When 90-day missions wind up in the neighborhood of seven years, then lots of folks are doing lots of cool things.
I read today that NASA has given up on Spirit, though. They were going to try one last time today, and then call it done. It’s been silent for over a year. “Just a machine,” I know, but I guess it’s the romance of the machine’s purpose that lends it a sadness. As a child, I remember being sad when I read that the Viking landers would just sit there forever too.
So then I started reading a bit on Curiosity, the Next Big Thing in Martian rovers. It’s the size of a small car, and packed with science. I particularly enjoyed the complex sequence of events required to land something of that size (intact) on the Martian surface. Check out the last phase:
Then that “sky crane” bit flies away and crashes somewhere out of the way. Pretty cool, yes? Hopefully we can start following Curiosity‘s adventures next summer.
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It will be the space program that solves the energy problem. The fact they have been working for 7 years is really cool considering they have had no maintenance, no new batteries, and no nothing from humans while existing in a fairly hostile environment.