Opportunity and Spirit

[shnozzola]

Some 5,000 miles away from the limelight surrounding Curiosity's every move, Opportunity this week quietly embarks on its tenth year of exploration -- a sweet milestone since it was only tasked to work for three months.

Spirit, on the other hand, landed in a less interesting spot and had to drive some distance to find geologic evidence of past water. After six productive years wheeling around, it fell silent in 2010, forever stuck in Martian sand.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57565004/older-mars-rover-embarks-on-10th-year-of-exploring/

[pianodwarf]

Those two rovers are one of NASA's biggest success stories ever.  Really neat stuff.  And I'm especially looking forward to what New Horizons finds out in July of 2015 when it reaches Pluto... I have a feeling there are going to be some big surprises there.

[Nick]

Cool stuff and cost effective.  We can probably find out lots more this way than trying to put humans there.  Humans would want to take a break after 10 minutes. Opportunity has gone 10 years without one.

[Dante]

The technological explosion that we've all been witness to these past few decades are absolutely astounding!

Yay, science!!

[wright]

Cool stuff and cost effective.  We can probably find out lots more this way than trying to put humans there.  Humans would want to take a break after 10 minutes. Opportunity has gone 10 years without one.

I see robots like those rovers as paving the way for human explorers. Right now, using machines in those situations makes more sense, economically and politically.

But properly equipped and trained, humans are still more versatile. Give most scientists the opportunity to practice their specialties on Mars and I bet you'd have to force them to take a break after 10 hours.

[DumpsterFire]

Just imagine, those rovers will be there for as long as Mars exists. Long after mankind is gone, who or what might discover them and wonder how the heck they got there?

[wright]

Just imagine, those rovers will be there for as long as Mars exists. Long after mankind is gone, who or what might discover them and wonder how the heck they got there?

True enough. And it's a testament to the design and operations teams that they so exceeded their mission goals.

That said, the hardware we left on the Moon will probably be easier to find by hypothetical future aliens (or the sentient descendents of Terrestrial cockroaches, whoever gets there first); Mars has this inconvenient thing called weather.