Spirit Dies?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

More cheap shots. And not one useful contribution on the topic: the Martian Rovers. Instead you again attack others.

What criteria do you use to decide who to attack today? How many sided are your 'attack dice'?

Tw, you have an allergy to the mature mindset -- one so severe that you yourself will never be an emotionally mature person in this life. It is the reason you are as repellent as you are. Without this problem you'd be a lot less so. An observation backed by many data points is not an attack; it is an assessment.

It wouldn't hurt if you actually had enough intelligence and wisdom to be a conservative -- but you can't get your mind around that idea either. No concept of it. It's an added deficiency.

[classicman]

After six highly successful years of exploring the red sands of Mars, NASA's rover Spirit will rove no more.

With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working at all, the resilient little explorer will become an immobile scientific observatory -- if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter.

"Its driving days are likely over," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a telephone news conference Tuesday.

If Spirit can be awakened after what could be a six-month hibernation, researchers will use it to attempt to answer one of their most pressing questions: whether the planet has a solid iron core or a liquid one.

If the vehicle can't be revived, it will still have far surpassed scientists' original expectations and its design life of three months, traveling nearly 12 miles across the barren surface of Mars and finding strong evidence that water once altered the planet's terrain.

Spirit's twin, Opportunity, is still moving across the Martian surface farther north nearer the equator and on the other side of the planet, and continues to send back valuable data.

Link
Let us hope for what may be after the martian winter, revel in what was 24x its expected lifespan, and look forward to its twin Opportunity which was so aptly named.
No matter how one looks at this, it was and continues to be a HUGE success.

[glatt]

from http://xkcd.com/

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

Did I do a good job? Do I get to come home? ... Guys?

I believe my IBM PC that used the same processor is now asking the same question.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

No matter how one looks at this, it was and continues to be a HUGE success.

Which is exactly what my post said. More important - best science is not from a political agenda - Man to Mars.

Same questions will be asked soon about Ares 1 - a Saturn V on steroids that might need be canceled. A rocket that does what the French and Russians are already doing - for less money.

Due to political agendas and White House lawyers rewriting science, America will soon have no vehicles to get to the ISS. A political agenda almost cost us Hubble. Destroyed at least eight major space science experiments that we will not profit from years from now. The death of Spirit demonstrates why success best occurs when science is not rewritten by White House lawyers. And why such successes will be less than what could have happened. Why the best science comes from robots and unmanned vehicles.

The death of Spirit (like the death of George Washington) is a tribute to what does work - and why. After six years, Spirit is in a death watch. Opportunity continues. We need more science from such superior solutions – some that were canceled or delayed by decisions in the 2000s. Fundamental to many upcoming question about to be asked because after six years, Spirit may die.


BTW, how much power does all that productive work? At one point, Spirit ran all sol on energy consumed in 50 minutes by one 100 watt light bulb. Both Spirit and Opportunity operate all sol on maybe 12 watts of electricity. Survival on Mars is that difficult.

[Pie]

Damn, glatt, you beat me to it!!

[classicman]

UG - I already responded to that - let it go, seriously - let it go.

[ZenGum]

That cartoon is soooo sad.

It occurred to me a month back - if the rovers had been fitted with vertical-axis wind turbines, they would easily survive the winter. Mars is the windiest place in the solar system, the energy generated could produce heat.
Hang in there Spirit. Good luck Opportunity. Stop anthropomorphising, Zengum.

[tw]

From the Washington Post of 1 Feb 2010:

NASA budget for 2011 eliminates funds for manned lunar missions
The budget numbers will show that the administration effectively plans to kill the Constellation program that called for a return to the moon by 2020. The budget, expected to increase slightly over the current $18.7 billion, is also a death knell for the Ares 1 rocket, NASA's planned successor to the space shuttle. The agency has spent billions developing the rocket, which is still years from its first scheduled crew flight.

[tw]

From the NY Times of 20 May 2010:

Longevity Record on Mars for a NASA Space Rover
The NASA rover Opportunity is now the longest surviving spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

Meanwhile the Martian Rover Spirit may be fighting for its life. Since it could not relocate is solar cells, and since the winter solstice has just occurred, Spirit has not been heard since 22 March.

Lowest temperature for the Rovers is -40 degrees. Spirit was below that temperature when it shutdown. Hope is that Spirit has gone into low power mode - to put all its power into keeping warm. So NASA's deep space network has been listening. Hoping that Spirit will wake up and transmit. If it can generate enough power to turn on the transmitter. And if it survived temperatures below what it was designed to withstand.

[tw]

Spring is in the air. Spirit has been missing since 22 Mar. Hopefully attitude has sufficiently improved that it will talk again in a few weeks - sometime in November.

[tw]

It’s been a half Martian year. And still nothing from Spirit. Only thing left is for an official word announcing the loss of Spirit. Of course, Opportunity continues to explore without the so many problems that plaqued Spirit. Whoever in Nasa upgraded the Rover program to two vehicles deserved a big bonus - if not praise. Opportunity existed only because of that decision.

Mars is so harsh that even machines have difficulty surviving. Solar cells - the best we can make - still create only a few hundred watts at best. Sometimes only enough power to light a bulb for a few hours. So cold that (suspected) even electronics fail.

Next year, the rover Curiosity should be launched. Because Mars is so inhospitable to man and machine, Curiosity will not use solar cells. Even the best cells do not make it on Mars. Curiosity will be using radioactive batteries.

[ZenGum]

radioactive batteries are good, but why not wind power? certainly no shortage of that on Mars, especially in winter. Install a vertical turbine that can retract if the storm is too powerful, and you're good to go.

[Aliantha]

What a great idea. It's almost as if any old drongo could work for nasa!