Wow, when did Spirit and Opportunity learn to work on their own? I
wonder if the people who get paid to drive them know this. If they are
working on there own, what do you think they're thinking? "There's a
rock, let's flip it over." Or maybe, "damn it's dusty today." Or
maybe, "Hey Opportunity, find anything interesting yet?" "Nope, I got
stuck in a crater for a bit though." "Speaking of that, hows the
foot?" "Oh, what a drag."
Jeff Miles
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On Sep 10, 2009, at 12:56 PM, b_s-wilk wrote:
Huh? I thought NASA's moon program is, unfortunately, still alive
and sorta
on schedule. We're abandoning our plans for a space station after
our
commitments are done and putting all our eggs into Ares/Orion.
As of this moment, it still is alive. However, a White House panel
of experts has recommended canceling the moon plan in favor of
other ways to get to Mars. I wish they'd recommended canceling the
whole manned space program instead. It's staggeringly expensive and
serves no clear purpose. Satellites and robots can do far more for
far less.
Spirit and Opportunity rovers have been on Mars for six years, since
June/July 2003. They work on their own, make basic decisions on
their own, send useful data back to the earth, don't complain, don't
need food, clean themselves by finding dust devils. And Spirit has a
broken wheel, is on low power due to lack of winter sunshine. http://marsrover.nasa.gov/overview/
Rovers were on a 90 day mission, now 6 years. Could humans do any
better? Not likely. The next places to study are Europa or Titan,
where you can't send people, but satellites provide plenty of good
data. There's no scientific reason to send humans to space except
maybe to repair satellites. But does it cost more for a space
mission or to launch a new satellite [more space junk]? The
technology isn't ready for a long mission with astronauts.
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