Young people tend to take the presence of rovers on Mars for granted thanks in large part to Spirit and Opportunity and the amazing job they did of exceeding ev

Young people tend to take the presence of rovers on Mars for granted thanks in large part to Spirit and Opportunity and the amazing job they did of exceeding even the most optimistic expectations for their longevity. Kids who are in high-school today don't remember a time when there wasn't a rover exploring mars. The people responsible for that success of Spirit and Opportunity have enabled a generation of scientists and engineers to grow up knowing that something built by humans is driving around on another planet. Prior to Spirit and Opportunity n rover on the surface of mars was the exception. Since Spirit and Opportunity it has been the rule. The Mars Exploration Rovers have been truly groundbreaking in terms of how we think about the feasibility of exploring other planets. The idea that we would send a rover to another planet and it would drive around studying for more than a decade would have been laughable in 2004. Now it is something that we think of as being perfectly reasonable. That is an amazing accomplishment.