Spirit, the untiring robotic "wonder child" sent by NASA to explore the eerily earthlike fourth planet from the sun, has completed one martian year--that's almost two Earth years--on Mars. Designed to last only 90 martian days (sols), the six-wheeled marvel the size of a golf cart has pursued a steady course of solar-driven geologic fieldwork, bringing back some 70,000 images and a new understanding of Mars as a potential habitat.
Anyone who honestly believes that the MERs were designed to last "only 90 martian days" should stand on his head. At the same time, it's interesting to consider our casual acceptance of the Mars rovers, which have come to seem like permanent fixtures on the Red Planet; I have a nightmarish vision of one or both of them outlasting human civilization as we know it, mutely imploring Earth for new instructions as we struggle for breath on the uncompromising shore of a new century.
2 comments:
Go Spirit!!!
Remember the crappy first Star Trek movie and Vy'ger?
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