Spirit Dies?
 

One Martian Rover got stuck in sand many months ago. Ongoing has been a rescue mission. But nothing has worked.

Some of the most successful American science missions - that was designed only for months and has lasted years - may be in a death watch.

Engineers may be running out of options. See the story at Spirit.

The Martian Rovers were a last 'hail Mary' attempt by JPL to save science. A program created in the 1990s. Pioneered in Cornell University for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in CA. Most useful science from NASA only comes from unmanned operations. Martian Rovers are two spectacular examples of what makes science work. Because Mars is so harsh, these Rovers have done what only robots can due with a few hundred watts of energy. Loss of Spirit would be a tragedy - loss of a real hero.

Master Yoda?

I keep telling you that we are getting too close to things that the Martians don't want us to see. That's why all these Mars missions are failing left and right. It has nothing to do with misplaced decimals by lowest bid contractors!

No, no, no. It's management, Wolf. Management.

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. But would NASA listen?

Nooooooooooooooooo. We like our paradigm just as it is, thank you very little.

It's nature's way of telling you

Not to use passive voice?

No, that you gotta go.

ARTIST: Spirit
TITLE: Nature's Way
Lyrics and Chords


It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you in a song

/ Asus2 - G#sus4 G# / /

{Refrain}
It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong

/ C#m AB / / E B / A - /

It's nature's way of telling you, soon we'll freeze
It's nature's way of telling you, dying trees

{Refrain}

It's nature's way, it's nature's way
It's nature's way, it's nature's way

/ AB BA / /

It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
In a song, oh-h

It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong

... / A B A B A B C#m - /

It was bound to happen. After crashing so many probes into Mars, eventually we were going to get Mars pregnant.

Chortle.

I know it is silly, but I feel attached to those two robot explorers. It is easy to anthropomorphise them.

Even if spirit is completely bogged, it can still do a little useful work, helping us make super-accurate measurements of Mars' orbit.

It will be a sad day when both finally shut down for good.

So, Spirit and Opportunity will lay dormant for decades. Centuries, even. Then some day, they will be visited by... people. Astronauts will bring them back to Terra, back to the Air and Space Museum, back to life!

They will be studied and photographed, perhaps they will have a ticker-tape parade.
:celebrat:

They'll probably be humiliated, tortured, and sold for scrap, by Martian hobos.