Spirit & Opportunity @ + Years

[JALU3]

NASA's rovers mark five years on Red Planet

(CNN) -- NASA's Mars rovers are celebrating their fifth birthday on the Red Planet, exceeding their original life span by four years and nine months, with no end in sight to their history-making work.

The rover Spirit landed January 3, 2004, with Opportunity touching down 21 days later.

NASA said the rovers had made important discoveries about the wet and violent conditions on ancient Mars.

They had returned 250,000 images, covered more than 21 kilometers (13 miles), climbed a mountain, descended into craters, struggled with sand traps and ageing hardware and survived dust storms, NASA said.

Whomever the project managers for this mission is need to be rewarded, and be brought back for future major projects.

[Torplexed]

Five years is about twenty times the initial guarantee. That's pretty good.
With what we've learned about exploring Mars from this pair, and with software and computer hardware improvements, I imagine that we could build and launch smaller, cheaper, and more self-maintaining rovers that are even more capable than these.

It would be great to have a dozen different locations being explored like this.

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Five years is about twenty times the initial guarantee. That's pretty good.
With what we've learned about exploring Mars from this pair, and with software and computer hardware improvements, I imagine that we could build and launch smaller, cheaper, and more self-maintaining rovers that are even more capable than these.

It would be great to have a dozen different locations being explored like this.

I agree. Problem is, I think is that it's hard to keep in the public eye unless we are sending people up and even the shuttle launches got 'routine' until the accidents started happening.

[Zachstar]

You all got to understand.

It is no longer about the science and images. Over these 5 years a TON TON TON TON!!!! Has been learned about keeping spacecraft alive, power management, Movement under bad situations..

The book of stuff learned from it will mean the manned rovers of the future will be FAR more robust.

[Enigma]

Cool stuff.

Just in case anyone has been under a rock, Google Mars kicks ass.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

You all got to understand.

It is no longer about the science and images. Over these 5 years a TON TON TON TON!!!! Has been learned about keeping spacecraft alive, power management, Movement under bad situations..

The book of stuff learned from it will mean the manned rovers of the future will be FAR more robust.

And all that knowledge has cost a TON TON TON TON of money, to little avail. As cool as it is to know what Mars rocks are made of, it doesn't do us any good unless that knowledge is profitable. All NASA is doing, regardless of what success they might achieve, is putting the nation's economy further in the red (no pun intended)

If or when it makes economic sense to explore the red planet, private industry will do it, and it will do so in a fashion that creates economic growth. Wasting public funds on these endeavors and stonewalling private attempts at space exploration through excessive regulation are only delaying the process. Private firms like Virgin Galactic have already put NASA to shame by their efficient use of resources and ability to not waste hundreds of billions of dollars on missions that, while informative, end up benefitting the world very little. For starters, they have pursued the idea of equipping a spacecraft with wings so that it could fly as close as possible to orbit before using fuel-inefficient rockets. NASA did the exact opposite, fitting a spacecraft with wings so it could glide to earth for the completely irrelevant non-hypersonic approach to the runway, all in the name of saving money, with no regard to the hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of fuel required to fill the booster rockets.

As happy as I am for the success of the Mars rovers, I'd be a lot happier if their funding wasn't siphoned from the economy in the form of taxes, public debt, and inflation. Rather than worrying about why Mars is a dead, apparently worthless ball of rock and rust, perhaps we should worry about furthering the progress of humanity through the pursuit of economic development, so that we will have the time and resources to spend on such things in the future.

[JALU3]

Sorry LCpl however, we've already shown the numbers proving that the budget of NASA isn't even 1% of the Federal Budget, what little cost they do have for the significant data which they do produce is amazing. I am not saying that there isn't waste that may need to be cut, or more efficient ways of doing certain things, however, NASA's efforts along with those of private companies are in the best intersts of future space travel for all of us.
And why not have Private Industry design the next national manned program, make a competition of it, best one, wins the larger contract. Much like how old aircraft programs were competed for.