Spirit Dies?

[tw]

After being struck in the sand for ten months, the last Spirit attempt to get out caused a third wheel failure. Ground controllers may have changed tactics. Winter is coming. Mars even on its equator is extremely harsh in the summer. In the winter, and without being able reposition, controllers are now speculating about Spirit's ability to survive this winter. So all efforts are being rechanneled into fortifying Spirit for Winter.

Spirit was always the hard luck child. Opportunity, even in development, was devoid of so many problems that plagued Spirit. Fortunately, at the highest levels of NASA, a program that was only supposed to build one risky Rover, instead charged JPL to build two in only two years. To load existing science tools (from a previous program - Athena) onto a mobile platform.

Well five years later, both Rovers that were so risky, were still doing science. Like anything that gets old, Spirit is approaching death. Caps a victory that naysayers have disparaged.

Spirit has maybe one more experiment. Using its radio and stationary location, science hopes to measure Mars expansion and contraction. Hoping to learn about Mars core. For example, why does Mars not have a protective magnetic core so necessary for human survival?

A Spirit death watch has started. Every watt that Spirit can generate will be necessary to save it from winter's chill. Mars is that inhospitable to manned exploration. Which is why programs such as Martian Rovers are where most of our science budget should be directed - and away from political agendas that get almost all NASA's budgets.