
Mars rover reaches Endeavour crater, finds signs of ancient Martian water - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/05/the-opportunity-rover-endeavours-to-find-signs-of-ancient-martian-water.ars
======
SkyMarshal
_> Over seven years into its (originally) 90-day mission, the Mars rover
Opportunity arrived at the rim of Endeavour Crater._

This is absolutely amazing engineering. I would love to see NASA double down
on robotic exploration (and mining) of the solar system for the next decade or
two.

Really advance the state of art of robotics, make discoveries that would be
extremely difficult and costly for people to do, and get many more missions
per/dollar than a manned program could.

~~~
pvarangot
_> This is absolutely amazing engineering._

It was also luck.

The rovers had their power requirements and solar panels designed so that 90
days of mission could pass before getting occluded by martian dust. Once on
Mars NASA discovered that occasional whirlwinds, which existence was unknown
during mission planing, cleaned the panels back to usable current output
levels.

~~~
aggie
Serious question: why not have wiper blades?

I'm having a hard time accepting we can land a rover on another planet, but we
can't find a way to clean some dust off of it.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Fans would be a smarter solution. Wiper blades plus dust and dirt = a mess,
not necessarily clean solar panels. Engineering something that would be
reliable on Mars would be rather difficult, and would add mass and complexity
to the rovers, which would take away from the mass needed for other
instruments and time needed for testing everything else. Also, dust buildup on
the solar panels was only one factor limiting the expected lifetime of the
rovers, so instead they chose to balance the engineering of the vehicle and
concentrate on hitting the base mission lifetime expectancy.

~~~
msftguy
Reasonably sized fans wouldn't work in Martian atmosphere..

------
ChuckMcM
Another nail in the 'dry Mars' hypothesis. Fascinating stuff of course, it
will get really interesting when Curiosity gets there. Looking forward to
that!

~~~
planetguy
The "dry Mars" hypothesis has been dead for decades. At this point we have
about as much evidence for water on Mars as we have for water on Earth.

The media is always keen on every new "omg, there was once water on Mars"
discovery, but we've moved on to trying to figure out the details; where,
when, how much, where did it go?

~~~
MartinCron
_At this point we have about as much evidence for water on Mars as we have for
water on Earth_

Be careful with language like that. Sloppy journalists might turn that into a
"we need to balance both sides of the story" and we'll wind up with people
denying the existence of water on Earth.

~~~
InclinedPlane
[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2376#c...](http://www.smbc-
comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2376#comic)

------
sanxiyn
Recommended reading for Mars rover fans: a diary of a Mars rover driver.

<http://marsandme.blogspot.com/>

------
mmukhin
Woooow. Makes you think twice about panspermia theory, being descendants of
Martians.. (latter is Neil Tyson comment)

