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> It’s just not realistic to have someone drive halfway around the planet. I get that he’s in a giant rover, and so can traverse across obstacles much larger th

> It’s just not realistic to have someone drive halfway around the planet. I get that he’s in a giant rover, and so can traverse across obstacles much larger than the robotic rovers could. But he certainly wouldn’t be doing that at 25 kph. I'm interested to know why exactly this is the case. Would the vehicle tip over too often? Would the tires wear out? Would the engine break down? And if these problems exist, will they always necessarily be there or would it be possible to develop a rover that could indeed traverse half the planet?

SamBam 5y ago
I had the same thought. The author talks about 25cm resolution cameras, and still being surprised by obstacles, but they are driving a rover that is more than 10x smaller than the vehicle driven in the Martian. This article claims that the Dhofar desert in Oman is one of the closest analogs to Mars. If I tried to control one of the Mars rovers through it, I'm sure I'd hit some nasty obstacles, but I wouldn't worry much about rocks when planning to traverse in a Jeep. 1. https://apnews.com/article/deserts-oman-yemen-ap-top-news-mars-a118550d15d34442b53f1474274b66f4 https://apnews.com/article/deserts-oman-yemen-ap-top-news-ma...
- Strilanc 5y ago
  The author is also probably used to driving with tens of minutes of latency. I would guess the current Mars driving experience is more of a planning experience, where an unexpected obstacle ruins the plan and creates an hour of delay from replanning and recommunicating. Whereas a human driver on site would have just steered slightly to the left and not thought twice about it.
aequitas 5y ago
I think this could maybe be answered better by a Dakar rally driver, as driving through a desert without roads with minimal waypoints or detailed maps and only field of vision would be a similar experience I guess.
Clewza313 5y ago
The circumference of Mars is over 21,000 km/6,500 mi, with obviously no roads or any sort of support infrastructure. Travelling in the Australian outback or Siberian tundra for even a few hundred km requires painstaking preparation and contingency planning, with the first rule being "never travel alone". Expecting to traverse distances 100x longer solo, in literally uncharted territory, when a crack in the windshield can kill you is just not realistic.
- Asraelite 5y ago
  To be clear, I'm not doubting the author's claim, I fully believe that it's an infeasible task. I'm just curious what the specific problems that would arise would be. I don't know anything about off-road driving.

SamBam 5y ago

I had the same thought. The author talks about 25cm resolution cameras, and still being surprised by obstacles, but they are driving a rover that is more than 10x smaller than the vehicle driven in the Martian. This article claims that the Dhofar desert in Oman is one of the closest analogs to Mars. If I tried to control one of the Mars rovers through it, I'm sure I'd hit some nasty obstacles, but I wouldn't worry much about rocks when planning to traverse in a Jeep. 1. https://apnews.com/article/deserts-oman-yemen-ap-top-news-mars-a118550d15d34442b53f1474274b66f4 https://apnews.com/article/deserts-oman-yemen-ap-top-news-ma...

Strilanc 5y ago
The author is also probably used to driving with tens of minutes of latency. I would guess the current Mars driving experience is more of a planning experience, where an unexpected obstacle ruins the plan and creates an hour of delay from replanning and recommunicating. Whereas a human driver on site would have just steered slightly to the left and not thought twice about it.

aequitas 5y ago

I think this could maybe be answered better by a Dakar rally driver, as driving through a desert without roads with minimal waypoints or detailed maps and only field of vision would be a similar experience I guess.

Clewza313 5y ago

The circumference of Mars is over 21,000 km/6,500 mi, with obviously no roads or any sort of support infrastructure. Travelling in the Australian outback or Siberian tundra for even a few hundred km requires painstaking preparation and contingency planning, with the first rule being "never travel alone". Expecting to traverse distances 100x longer solo, in literally uncharted territory, when a crack in the windshield can kill you is just not realistic.

Asraelite 5y ago
To be clear, I'm not doubting the author's claim, I fully believe that it's an infeasible task. I'm just curious what the specific problems that would arise would be. I don't know anything about off-road driving.