90 ordspråk av Steve Squyres
Steve Squyres
[Before launch] it just seemed impossibly far away, it seemed unreachable. Tonight, I go out knowing our rovers have been there a whole Martian year...it's a much more familiar planet. We know the place.
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[Opportunity has wheeled up to such an outcrop that has some rinds on it,] among the best we’ve ever seen, ... So once we nail the cobble problem, we may go after the rinds next.
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A sol like that gives you confidence. I'm really convinced now that we're able to keep the vehicle safe.
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Also, we're doing what any field geologist would do in an area like this: climbing to a good vantage point for plotting a route.
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Both rovers continue to be in superb health. It has been just a remarkable mission and I would say we literally feel on top of the world right now being on the summit of Husband Hill.
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But that's purely conjecture at this point … a working hypothesis. Everything is on the table until we've gotten more data down.
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Chris will remember vividly as we were struggling along the northwestern flank of that mountain how much loose, fine-grain stuff there was. Our wheels would dig in, we'd slip around and we'd dig in deep. Remember that potato-sized rock we got stuck in the wheel once? It was really treacherous driving because there was accumulated dust there. We were probably in the wind shadow on the lee side of the hills at that point.
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Driving in that terrain was a challenge with all six wheels. With five wheels, it was a mess.
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Easy problem to find and fix, but it happened at just the wrong time and cost us data, and one more sol, ... Another first for the Mars Exploration Rover Project.
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Every time Spirit has gained altitude, we've found different rock types,
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For Opportunity, we're going to continue south through the etched terrain, studying bedrock as we go and heading toward Victoria crater.
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For Spirit, the priority has been to reach a safe winter haven.
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For Spirit, we're going to head down the hill, looking for bedrock and heading toward Home Plate,
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For the scientists, it may be a chance to look at the deepest fresh hole in the ground that we'll ever see on Mars. ... For the engineers, it's an unprecedented chance to see how a heat shield performed during entry through the martian atmosphere. There's something for everybody.
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I actually see the Mars year anniversary as being more significant, ... We will have seen Mars over an entire seasonal cycle.
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