# Spirit is successfully on Mars

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spirit-is-successfully-on-mars/222623>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 4, 2004, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spirit-is-successfully-on-mars/222623 "2004-01-04T08:32:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![asrivkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9d8465/32.png) [@asrivkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asrivkin)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spirit-is-successfully-on-mars/222623/141 "2004-01-10T18:13:37Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*  
> \*\*You can do lots of useful science without landing anyway. For instance, the mission could carry ten or twenty small rovers, drop them in areas of interest (including high risk areas we don’t dare fly to now), and they could be flown down under direct control by astronauts in orbit. This would allow them to place them precisely near interesting features on the planet, and instead of having slow, ponderous AI move the thing around the astronaut can drive it from orbit. You could even possibly do a sample return launch from the ground. If you don’t need people aboard, the vehicle can be much smaller (and much riskier).  
> \*\*

That’s true, and I hadn’t thought of that. I can imagine putting a Skylab-type craft into orbit around Mars and running rovers through there, or doing preliminary work on samples before sending stuff back to Earth. I suppose I’m stuck on the words Mars _flyby_, which I admit your summary didn’t use. It might be the fault of the news service I read rather than in the actual plan. Putting people into orbit around Mars (or on a mini-base on Phobos) would make a lot more sense to me than zinging them on through the system.

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**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spirit-is-successfully-on-mars/222623/142 "2004-01-10T19:33:32Z")

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The article I read specifically said, “The first proposed mission might just put people in orbit around Mars rather than landing them, much like the earlier Apollo missions which orbited the moon without landing.”

There would be lots to accomplish in orbit. For instance, I can imagine that we’d want to send supplies first in a robotic ship and put that into orbit (or maybe several of them), and then the manned mission would rendevous and dock with them in Mars orbit, and perhaps even assemble a larger space station there out of pieces sent on multiple missions.

If you did that, then at some time in the future at our leisure we could send a lander module.

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