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Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

nytimes.com

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Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#131

Post by droithomme »

Ianworld wrote: post #105
slg wrote: post #23

Opportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.

I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long. They weren't making any major new discoveries and sucking up resources and mindshare stopping him for kicking off and focusing on new projects. He said nobody would take the PR hit to decide to just end a mission like this so he was stuck.

> I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long.

Not surprising at all. Coached a FIRST team for several years. At this point they sell licensed robotics kits with canned instructions for kids to put together and those kids win because of time limitations. The teams that build from scratch and actually contribute discover or learn anything at all are intentionally blocked from winning. The entire program is total crap for retarded children. Meanwhile smart kids are off doing their own projects that are 1000x as complicated as the most challenging FIRST challenges. It's just turned into a money burn.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#132

Post by ngcc_hk »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never found it impressive, it’s a horrible padded estimate meant to cover NASA and make them look good. A real estimate needs to be useful and somewhat close to the actual outcome. There’s no way they were this off without it being on purpose. Imagine if your retirement planner or accountant was off by 44X in their number crunches for you. Would you say they were good at estimating?

Jesus dude, can’t you enjoy a crowning achievement of human and American excellence? You think NASA is overly concerned about public perception to the tune 44x an original estimate?

Crazy sometimes human could be. But let us celebrate instead.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#133

Post by rdl »

buboard wrote: post #10

Self driving terraforming robots would be an excellent testbed for AI technologies. What is the reason for pushing humans again?

We absolutely should make extensive use of robotics on their own and as preparation for manned missions. Stuff like sending ships and fuel factories in advance of people, to place fully-fueled ships for return missions, habitations, etc. for them on arrival.

Manned missions still make sense for two reasons: 1) humans are (presently) more versatile than computers/robots, and this will probably continue to be the case for 20+ years (although one human can do the work of many through technological augmentation), and 2) the emotional/sociological/etc. value of humans actually being there (plus in the longer term, actual settlement).

I'd like to be approximately the 1000th person to move to Mars, sometime in the next 15-30 years.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#134

Post by NL807 »

jacquesm wrote: post #95
Retric wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That story is very much over sold. They defiantly designed the things with a longer lifespan in mind. NASA simply had more reasonable minimum specks so if they died on day 220 nobody would call the program a failure.

Expectation management is sometimes as important as the actual delivery.

It's pretty much what you do in any successful enterprise. Under promise, over deliver.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#135

Post by ngcc_hk »

slowhand09 wrote: post #77
Timothycquinn wrote: post #66

Please have one minute of silence to remember this wonderful machine that gave us all so much... Kudos to all those who contributed to make this such an overwhelming success. Science FTW.

Earth minute or Martian minute?

Lol. Come on let us ... rip.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#136

Post by rocketperson7 »

hinkley wrote: post #78
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of factors. 1) The yield rates for spaceflight-qualified chips is very, very low. Like 1%-5% or so. The chips are inspected when they come out of fab, and only the most perfect ones are given a spaceflight certification. The rest of the chips are used for other, less stringent applications (test boards, or military/embedded applications). 2) Spaceflight parts have significant paper trails. For metal parts, t…

Commercial aircraft also track provenance very carefully. I wonder how much the two systems have informed each other over the years. You would never want a part involved in a stress test to be reused, and you certainly don't want test parts anywhere near a production craft. This isn't like IT where you can cannibalize parts from a QA box to put into a production server.

Having worked on mission critical commercial aircraft electronics, I can assure you every part is stress tested before it goes on a plane. Both after its first made and every time its in for service. Supposedly there has been research done showing that stress testing does not adversely affect reliability, at least at this quality level

Also, the paper trail is quite literally paper. Its kinda amazing how slow the aviation industry is to adopt new things

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#137

Post by sramsay »

Retric wrote: post #87
slg wrote: post #23

Opportunity's and Spirit's original missions were planned to last 90 Martian days each. They ended up lasting over 8,000 combined. That is almost as impressive as getting the rovers to Mars in the first place.

That story is very much over sold. They defiantly designed the things with a longer lifespan in mind. NASA simply had more reasonable minimum specks so if they died on day 220 nobody would call the program a failure.

Oversold?

A group of engineers put a working robot on a moving object 140 million miles away, and that robot trucked along for fourteen years.

I honestly do not see any aspect of this which is not totally and completely astonishing, marvelous, and awe-inspiring.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#138

Post by brandonjm »

jessriedel wrote: post #109
Ianworld wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember talking to a high up on the program at a FIRST robotics event who complained about them running so long. They weren't making any major new discoveries and sucking up resources and mindshare stopping him for kicking off and focusing on new projects. He said nobody would take the PR hit to decide to just end a mission like this so he was stuck.

What's the limiting factor on just running with reduced staff support? (Honest question.)

I had the same question, I don't imagine it takes too many people to decide what it should do and give the robot commands while monitoring it.

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#139

Post by justinator »

m3at wrote: post #129
Evidlo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just depends on what your definition of a Martian minute is. If you define it as 1/(24*60) of a Martian day, it is different from an Earth minute.

You're likely joking, but just in case: on earth the second is not defined as a fraction of the day, it's a SI unit defined as a constant count of energy level variations of an caesium-133 atom.

What came first, the definition/concept/time span of a second,

or the discovery of the Caesium-133 atom?

Re: Nasa’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission

#140

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never found it impressive, it’s a horrible padded estimate meant to cover NASA and make them look good. A real estimate needs to be useful and somewhat close to the actual outcome. There’s no way they were this off without it being on purpose. Imagine if your retirement planner or accountant was off by 44X in their number crunches for you. Would you say they were good at estimating?

Jesus dude, can’t you enjoy a crowning achievement of human and American excellence? You think NASA is overly concerned about public perception to the tune 44x an original estimate?

I celebrate the achievement just fine, it’s the horrible estimate that is shoved in my face constantly I have issues with. It represents a dumbing down of science for the masses that is just getting worse year after year that I resent. The rover isn’t good enough as is, we are told to be impressed by a nearly 50-fold wrong estimate that is all anyone knows about the rover. I knew it would be one of the top comments on this post. As a scientist I appreciate precision and good science, not hero worship and bureaucratic PR estimates.
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