Once again those evil Martians have thwarted our space exploration efforts. Remember that JPL craft built a few years ago that they destroyed. Well it has happened again. NASA Loses Communication With Mars Rover They are wiley too since we have yet to get pictures of them.
I figure the Martians have WMD’s and will be mounting a retaliatory strike against us soon. So hide your dogs and cats cause you know how those aliens are.
Well, what did they expect, leaving a running vehicle unattended in the middle of Gussev? Even the Martians try to go thru there only in groups…
(here’s an idea: for the next Mars probe, hire some of the guys who’ve done the Jupiter/Saturn probes. Those things take a beating and keep on ticking for a decade plus!)
A lot more than that, if you include orbiters and fly-bys. The Russians tried several times and never got it to work, and I can recal a Japanese orbiter that stopped communicating before it even entered orbit.
As far as surface probes go only 4 worked, and that’s if you include Spirit, which we probably shouldn’t.
It’s not just the fact that Mars is difficult; it’s the fact that mobile semi-autonomous robots are bloody difficult. The Voyagers and Galileo probes are marvels of hardened equipment, but no one has asked them to carefully step around the next rock they see or extend an arm out and dig a small hole in the ground.
We should send George W to Mars! After he said that he wanted to send a man to Mars, I immediately thought he was an excellent candidate…maybe our great communicator can talk to Spirit! Or to those martians who keep messing with our equipment. He can put those negotiating skills to work!
Here are my four missing footage conspiracy theories.
Like Blair Witch, the rover comes up to a freaky house. You see something that kind of looks like an alien. All of a sudden the camera angle goes tilted and cuts out.
The rover drives past a Starbucks.
You see a martian geek walk up and put his battlebot on the ground.
All of a sudden you see a car drive by with New Mexico plates.
I sure hope those damn Martians don’t have lawyers, cause if they do we are in a heap of trouble what with vandalizing and defacing rocks. The Earth will have to declare bankruptcy and the universe will then be able to have that expressway they need.
Bwahahaha. I am sure all of us coulda told dem NASA folks that them thar Martians don’t like em messin’ with their planet.
I can just see Martian Xfkdfds turning on switches and going “ooo neato, heat, Mars is so cold this is good. Hey Klpskrt feel this, mmmm warmth.” Then Klpskrt goes and get his/her friends to show this warm thing to and they also turn on the heaters. Thus there is probably a whole bunch of Martians surrounding Opportunity with their “hands” outstretched towards it getting warm.
So since we know that the Martians are hostile…and semi-autonomous robots are difficult…let’s send some battlebots to deal with the martians…The Comedy Central ones, not the lame “Robot Wars” ones.
Perhaps we should re-employ some of those “remote observers” to help us find the missing probes and such. We better hurry, too, I can just imagine those martians trying anal probe our poor robots.