Three cheers and two years for the Mars rovers

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow, two years and still going strong.

(CBS) There was absolute euphoria at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory when the first rover touched down on Mars and pictures started streaming in. Three weeks later, its twin landed safely on the other side of the Red Planet.

And now?

CBS News correspondent Jerry Bowen reports there is daily disbelief.[continued]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/09/eveningnews/main1193231.shtml

I have been very critical of NASA for quite some time, but how can anyone not be blown away by this amazing success story? I damn near cried when they landed and the data started streaming in, and now I just look and watch in utter disbelief.

 

[Chronos]

An under appreciated marvel of human ingenuity, to say the least. Surely deserving of an 'ancients wonders' nomination by our descendants. I remember when the Hubble was successfully launched - talk about an epiphany.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Surely deserving of an 'ancients wonders' nomination by our descendants.

The way things are going our descendants will still be driving them! Whirlwinds...who knew?

For me this is almost as good as a manned mission. And for all practical purposes, when one considers the money spent and active time on the planet, in many ways this has far exceeded what a manned mission could for decades to come.

Does anyone else have their name on the CDs. I submitted ours and other family members, just for kicks. For a long time I didn't think this was the right mission - I thought that mission failed - but I saw recently that this is the right mission. It seems that there was [maybe still is?] confusion on this point.

 

[Chronos]

I think the unmanned missions are far more sensible. With the technology we now have, humans are an unnecessary and expensive hinderance to exploratory missions.

 

[S.P.P]

That is fantastic that they are still operational. It's a shame Beagle 2 didn’t have similar success.

Agreed that unmanned missions are the way to go. Manned space flight costs far more than unmanned space flight, so all the extra money spent on a manned mission could be put to better use in unmanned space flights.

 

[berkeman]

Did you folks see the specials on Public TV (maybe special Novas?) about the preparations for the mission? Talk about having to overcome obstacles! The parachute didn't work at first, and the bouncy air bag things tore at first... They managed to fix all the problems in time for the mission, though, including installing updated software on the flight there. Good job, NASA.

 

[franznietzsche]

That is fantastic that they are still operational. It's a shame Beagle 2 didn’t have similar success.
Agreed that unmanned missions are the way to go. Manned space flight costs far more than unmanned space flight, so all the extra money spent on a manned mission could be put to better use in unmanned space flights.

I disagree. The engineering lessons learned in manned spaceflight are huge. There was far more utility in what we learned in the process of putting men on the moon that what we learned from getting them there, and this I think is something people do not understand. Unmanned missions are better for studying distant worlds. However, manned missions push us much further along technologically because they are so much more difficult.

 

[LURCH]

This mission's success is a huge achievement for mankind. I don't think robotic missions are the way to go, myself, but this one's a keeper for sure!