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This is an incredible achievement. The "key traces of water" is awe inspiring in itself. However, what is more impressive is that Opportunity is still chugging

This is an incredible achievement. The "key traces of water" is awe inspiring in itself. However, what is more impressive is that Opportunity is still chugging along 7 years longer than predicted and making these discoveries. Unfortunately, NASA is pretty bad at displaying successes and explaining why it is important. The press release: http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20111207a.html http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20111207a.h...

jerrya 15y ago
I used to kid people that Spirit and Opportunity's longevity were themselves a problem. They were built in an era of faster, better, cheaper and at the beginning of that time, the theory was that it was better to have more spacecraft even if some failed than to build expensive too big to tail projects that consumed the entire budgets. That Spirit and Opportunity went far beyond their 90 day requirements was a indication of overengineering, and wouldn't it have been better to have had 20, or 40 Spirits and Opportunities launched, even if 1/2 of them failed? (Now their longevity could be, not because of gross over-engineering but because the minimum engineering required to bring them to 90 - 120 days naturally makes a 5-10 year lifespan easy....) We seem to have since gone back to wanting huge, too big, we're too afraid to let them fail projects. I haven't followed it closely, but I am saddened that apparently Curiosity is a one off, and not part of a dual, triple, twenty member fleet. It could also be that I am just unaware of NASA's planned follow on to Curiosity.
- Retric 15y ago
  The problem with faster better cheaper is programs are cut until just before they become irrelevant. If you want to send 20 identical robots someone is going to come along and say, what's the harm if we only send 1/2 that. But they will do the same thing if you only want to send 10. Sending 2 is vary defensible because 'you want some redundancy' but funding is not appropriated based on bang for the buck. PS: ITER is a great example of this. Initially the goal was to test a full scale power plant with turbines etc. But, they kept cutting until it was exactly on the threshold between useful and toy without generating any power whatsoever.

jerrya 15y ago

I used to kid people that Spirit and Opportunity's longevity were themselves a problem. They were built in an era of faster, better, cheaper and at the beginning of that time, the theory was that it was better to have more spacecraft even if some failed than to build expensive too big to tail projects that consumed the entire budgets. That Spirit and Opportunity went far beyond their 90 day requirements was a indication of overengineering, and wouldn't it have been better to have had 20, or 40 Spirits and Opportunities launched, even if 1/2 of them failed? (Now their longevity could be, not because of gross over-engineering but because the minimum engineering required to bring them to 90 - 120 days naturally makes a 5-10 year lifespan easy....) We seem to have since gone back to wanting huge, too big, we're too afraid to let them fail projects. I haven't followed it closely, but I am saddened that apparently Curiosity is a one off, and not part of a dual, triple, twenty member fleet. It could also be that I am just unaware of NASA's planned follow on to Curiosity.

Retric 15y ago
The problem with faster better cheaper is programs are cut until just before they become irrelevant. If you want to send 20 identical robots someone is going to come along and say, what's the harm if we only send 1/2 that. But they will do the same thing if you only want to send 10. Sending 2 is vary defensible because 'you want some redundancy' but funding is not appropriated based on bang for the buck. PS: ITER is a great example of this. Initially the goal was to test a full scale power plant with turbines etc. But, they kept cutting until it was exactly on the threshold between useful and toy without generating any power whatsoever.