
Spirit Gets Stuck, Makes a Big Discovery  - mshafrir
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/02dec_troy.htm?list66646
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RevRal
Off topic. I like to imagine that when we start to colonize mars, our two
robots will be recovered and put on display in reverence. Someplace where
everyone can see them, much like the statues of important human figures.

I've been following these guys for so long, so this is really awesome/sad.

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aerique
Same here. I'm so impressed these have been in operation for 6 years!

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rimantas
It is even more impressive keeping in mind that the planned duration for the
mission was three months (90 sols, to be precise).

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pierrefar
Very verbose and longwinded article. Summary: Rover gets stuck straddling a
crater. Wheels sping uncovering sulfates. Sulfates are associated with
volcanic steam vents.

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pavs
I think they intentionally did that to make science appealing and interesting
to people who otherwise couldn't care less. I think they did a good job with
that article.

I like that. We need more people to be interested in science and less on
reality TV and celebrities.

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pierrefar
From my experience as a science blogger, they failed miserably because they
weren't telling a story. The way it read is that they are constantly delaying
getting to the point.

They need to tell a story. Maybe something like "Many many years ago, Mars was
covered with steam vents <insert image of a steam vent on the red plant>. How
do we know? Ah, we had to get stuck to find out." That is an interesting
story. Delaying is not.

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scott_s
They told a story, but it was about the rover, not Mars. If you're trying to
appeal to non-scientists, that's probably the way to go.

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nebula
A very interesting TED talk on Mars rovers:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_elachi_on_the_mars_rovers.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_elachi_on_the_mars_rovers.html)

Apparently NASA didn't expect them to function this long; on the dusty Martian
surface, the solar panels should have been covered with dust completely,
leaving the rovers dead long ago. It's a lucky coincidence that "sand devils"
on Mars had been cleaning the solar panels and keeping the rovers alive.

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johnyzee
Windshield wipers?

Seriously though, NASA is very PR savvy. Announcing the robots' lifespan as
three months was probably just to make sure they would overdeliver.

Still an awesome accomplishment.

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nebula
Wipers sounds like a good idea. Not sure why they didn't implement it in the
first place.

Now that actually makes NASA look bad if they go around claiming that here was
a problem that we could have taken care of by just adding a good old
windshield wiper, but guess what? we didn't. But luckily we got saved by the
fact that Martian sandstorms had been doing this job for us, which by the way
we didn't know until we actually went there .... That doesn't sound very PR
savvy to me.

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jordanb
Putting "Windshield Wipers" on the probes to another planet isn't exactly like
going down to Auto Zone and picking up a few strips of black silicone.

Wipers would have to survive the extremes of space and the surface of Mars.
They would need motors, which require heaters to keep them from freezing
(increasing the amount of energy the probe needs). They would increase the
weight of the craft, increasing costs or requiring them to leave off other
features. They would have to be extensively tested, like the rest of the craft
-- especially the mechanical elements. Imagine the press if they got to Mars
and found their expensive wiping mechanism had jammed and would be useless.
Finally, if the dust of Mars was charged at all, the wipers would have just
rubbed the dust around on the panel, so they could have ended up with
functional wipers that did no good.

The mission was designed so that it could complete its high priority
scientific objectives in three months, and the probes were engineered so that
they had a high probability of surviving for three months.

Dust accumulation was not expected to be a problem in the high priority part
of the mission, and since it was a hard (expensive) problem to address, it was
not addressed. It was happy circumstance that previously unknown phenomena on
Mars meant that it ended up not being a problem at all.

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sili
What are the chances of using the rover's arm to pull it out of the sand-pit
when it gets stuck? Or is it to underpowered to be of any help?

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pvandehaar
either: It doesn't reach down that far, or it can't lift, or they haven't
thought of that.

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schammy
NASA needs a TL;DR version of their articles.

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dkersten
I know! I read the first few sentences and they mentioned this amazing
discovery, but it forced me to scan down about half way through the article to
actually find out what it was..

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Raphael
The image looks like there's a puddle of water.

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tengkahwee
I thought this has something to do with the supernatural.

