Methinks you're right, Tesh - we got a look at that 'gully' today (thought to be a possible path) and it looks very rough and rocky.

A climb up the northeasterly portion of Mitcheltree Ridge where the going looks smooth and not so steep certainly looks to be a better option. What we'll see when we climb to the top of that ridge will tell the rest of the path-to-HP story - and we might just see this in as little as two to four more days!

By all means - continue your posting, Tesh... They are fast, then slow, then virtually non-existent on the rover site - so yours are a welcome treat.

Those tracks look like Spirit was probably running completely autonomous, rather than on direct commands. I’m thinking the effort is to get further than we could safely expect with direct commands, and we may see more of this, not less.

Thanks for the pointers to the articles !!

There is an interesting dichotomy emerging - highlighted by the differences between the first paragraphs of the articles from Cornell and Spaceflight Now.

“The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have nearly tripled their expected lifetime on the Red Planet.” – Cornell Daily Sun

“Spirit and Opportunity reached the Red Planet on January 3 and 24, 2004, beginning planned 90-day missions...” – Spaceflight Now

We’ve been told that the life expectancy of the rovers was 90 days (that is all they were guaranteed for.)

Remember when Spirit got to 180 days it was said the mission had ‘doubled the expected life.’ *) hence, you would think that if they lasted 270 days, they would have ‘tripled’ their ‘expected lifetime’ – and that today we would be hearing that Spirit has been going over eight times it’s expected lifetime.

But, now we learn from Squires that, "All the components in the rover were designed to last the equivalent of 270 sols before we launched and we've now been on Mars more than 700 sols."

I’m beginning to wonder if NASA/Squires/et al, are now beginning to worry that they may be accused of initially misleading the world as to expectations, i.e., it is less extraordinary that missions last only three times the expected than it is that they would surpass the expected by a great deal more than eight times!

It's a funding thing, you know...

* Two links that speak of doubling at 180+ days...
NASA says 'doubled its primary mission.' - see caption under photo 'Mars Rover A Big Hit'
Discover.com says 'doubled its expected lifetime'

(I hope fortune remains with these missions, and we see survival well into the future !!)

Hope you are right, Tesh... several like those 712 to 714 would sure be nice !

Thanks for that view, jvandriel - expectations do grow...

It ~looks~ like smooth sailing from here on... but I'm betting we'll see fewer long drives like those between 712 and 714, and more shorter drives like that of 729... something like the following, overwritten on a chunk of Tesheiner's latest route map.

Would be nice - but it'll probably be about Sol 745-747 before we get to a point where MER-A actually sets wheels on HP. Too many short drives upcoming... methinks in another two or three sols, fewer clear long drives can easily be mapped.

Don't know about average tilt numbers, but she has not been in ideal conditions for charging ever since she began going down into the inner basin, being tilted away from the most sun, being on a South facing slope and the Sun going lower in the North every day - hence the race to get to a North facing slope soon... and you're cetainly right about the 'valley' local, also limiting exposure a bit by early mountain-caused sunsets - and to some degree, sunrises, I would expect.

Note though, that long pauses (like at Comanche, and this latest 'bright spot') have helped build up power at each layover. During those stops, to do science observation, the batteries get a chance to catch up a bit.

There are many differences, but primary is the latitude location difference - secondary differences of considerable significance has been the increase power usage caused by Spirit's balky wheel, (drawing much more current, now remedied by alternate driving, but still a slight factor) and the stark differences in terrain, taking some degree more power to move 1000 meters uphill than it takes to drive 1000 meters on semi-level terrain. Drain on the MER-B batteries have probably been less deep and less frequent than for MER-A overall.

I would think too, having experienced years of working with batteries, that to some degree frequency of movement (driving frequently, versus staying in one local for extended periods of time) effects battery condition and the amount of energy that can be stored with a given potential. MER-A has driven over rougher terrain, causing this deeper and more frequent drain than that of MER-B, hence MER-A batteries would probably require more power supplied longer to reach the same potential that MER-B could achieve with less power supplied, simply due to differences in the condition of the batteries. (MER-B has been frequently parked (virtually) in several places over much of its time on Mars - while MER-A as been more frequently on the move in higher power consumption territory.)

Hence, it would not be unreasonable to expect that the condition of the MER-B battery would be in better overall condition than that of MER-A, and that the MER-A battery would be more difficult to charge to as high a potential as the MER-B battery. One thought to keep in mind - these batteries (like any other) are approaching the point where they will simply refuse to take a full charge, no matter how clean the panels are, or how much sun is available. They are the best that could be built, but all rechargeable batteries have a limit to the number of times they can be charged to the full potential they could achieve when new.

I'm very sure he and other mission control folk very much want to get to Victoria, but I'm just as sure that if something very different pops up on the way there (moving as quickly as they can to do so) that they will not pass up the stop for good science on any new or different object. You take all you can get as you go, despite a hoped for goal. One thought, there is little diversity expected, but we've been treated to the unexpected frequently - so I would guess we'll be making more stops along the way...

But there are transcript links on the page cited...

Here links... Part 1 and Part 2

Most interesting - particularly about water being mostly laced with sulfuric acid...

Thanks Tesh! Seems we be effectively stuck in the sand...

Go to THIS LINK and once the page has loaded, you can pan around the entire summit, pan up and down to look at the rover itself... hit save page as, then in options, select Web page complete. (Don't know if your browser supports this, but if not, download and install Firefox - for that option alone, it is worth your time.)

Save in a directory with your other images, you should be able to use this to wow the kids - it is like standing on a mountain on another planet, and turning 360 to see the entire landscape. (The bigger the view screen the better...)

Since you don't have much time, a minute or two of projecting this from your laptop would very much have that 'Awesome!' effect you're looking for.

As Jeff's prior suggestion, start with the landing - stress the thing wasn't guaranteed to last over 90 days - but, it made it to the mountains, climbed up on top, and recorded this view for us all - part of over 75,000 pictures Spirit has sent home. And, it's still going strong, over two years later - a fact we can thank the builders of the MER's for.

Perhaps kids can get excited about 'Space exploration' when they realize they don't have to go into space themselves to be major contributors to 'science.' The awesome design and performance of the MER's themselves is almost as astounding as are the pictures of Mars... meaning, it took engineering jobs to make this possible, so it may be helpful to tell kids that they dont have become astronauts to make major contributions to space exploration.

Good luck with your project... I'm sure you'll do just fine.

I messed with gamma - harsh like, to better see into the hollowed out end of this thing. There seems to be parts of the original laying all around this larger piece.

Perhaps on decent from on-high, it hit that harder job right in front of it, broke into many pieces and bounced up in the air and landed all about... you know how that song goes...

Bill, yours is as good as any! It is the thoughts of others that really make this a very interesting place - whether or not the 'thoughts' rank high among the 'scientific' or not... *grin*

That one rock might be from one of those 'rubble pile' asteroids or meteoroids they talk about - with unusually low densities in composition. Two of them are 253 Mathilda (~1.3 g/cc) and 25143 Itokawa (~2.3 g/cc). No one has come up with a solid explanation of how and where these things formed - but, one is that they were blown off of a planet perhaps a lot like earth, another is that a planet a lot like earth exploded one day eons ago. Whatever the story... that rock looks like a conglomerate loosely cobbled together... how and from where is where the fun begins!

Well, it seems the rate of impacts, particularly various sizes, it not known at all. Much 'science' is pure speculation based on the prognostications of what some deem ‘experts.’ They used to ‘date’ by counting impact craters – then figured out, most belatedly, recently, that larger impacts cause many smaller ones... duh!

With prognosticators being that lame, anyone with half a brain has just as good a guess as the ‘experts’ – who apparently habitually keep their brains far too well pickled.

Considering that experts today claim that about 100 tons of meteoroids hit the Earth every day – it would be interesting to see what they think the daily tonnage rate of meteoroids on Mars is.

I’m skeptical of these ‘mini-craters’ seen on Mars being caused by anything directly from space, despite thin atmosphere – but, I’m certain that many a piece of larger meteors are indeed part of the landscape we have seen in these photos. If those mini-craters where MER-B is are caused by a meteor of any size, they are more likely something blown into the sky by the original object, and less likely to be a grain-of-sand-like fragment of the original, especially in the region where MER-B is. That is, unless there are far more exploding meteors on Mars than we have reliable knowledge of.

Many people are not aware that quite often larger meteors entering earth's atmosphere often explode prior to impact - making the 'impact' a large number of impacts of various degrees of force. I have not seen reliable data on the frequency and probability of this happening in the Mars atmosphere - but low angular entry could make this possible on Mars as well. (Consider the likelihood of multiple orbits before lower Mars gravity finally brings down a 'captured' meteor.)

My guess is that 1000 years ago the inner basin looked pretty much as it does today, give or take a few craters here and there. But, there would most likely be fewer and smaller dunes - and less 'smooth' area devoid of exposed rock on the surface. Beyond a few thousand years, what it looked like is simply a guess, yours being just as good, if not better, than anyone else might claim.

Thanks very much, Bill - that is a great piece - very informative! There are also a number of other pdf's in that pip directory (see just by trimming the trailing file) that are most interesting.

Sure is... I'm not much of a chemist, or geologist, just an avid rock-hound that's been tinkering at the hobby for about 50 years... I've seen stuff like this right here on good old terra firma quite often, and your comment on minespoil nails exactly where I've seen stuff like this.

Typical content is just SiO2, and CaCO3, but the ‘pretty stuff’ is in metal oxides, primarily iron, aluminum, magnesium and lead - in that order of prominence. The zeolites and feldspars being what I’m after (crystalline forms of) - and this mars dig looks akin to Analcime - often a multicolored zeolite, but usually white. It's usually aluminum based, but with lead it goes multi-color. Wish they would publish more on what elements the spectrographic work shows...

I’m really enjoying watching this odyssey here... so much fun! I’m most thankful for this site, and everyone’s great work.

But, looks like next week, after working these ‘bright spots’ over real good with the Moessbauer, it’ll be very interesting to see what kind of dune-dodgin’ Spirit will have to perform to get ‘round the horn.’

It may be the rocks ahead (by the third dune down the road) could make for difficult passage. Does anyone think ‘a long way around’ could be necessary? There’s also what looks like a large fourth dune... it gets interesting’r and interesting’r!

Here’s a sloppy drawing of a couple of ‘maybe detours’...

Tesh... Bill is, I think, right on. They are in the process of going around the larger deeper dune, and continuing to skirt the hills (at least for the next few days of driving.)

Though I would like a view from higher ground, we know where we want to be - and sight-seeing isn't going to get us the speedy arrival with the most time and power conservation needed. Once around this dune, I expect we'll see long drives again - one after another. (That is, unless we run across a little green dude waving a red stop sign... )

Thanks! And, thanks too, Tesh...

It was that power graph that collided with the Sol dates of 750 - 800 that had me worried in the first place. But, since then I saw that these power numbers are NOT actual - so the decending lines that go below 'death' are... not real after all. (Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of that graph now.)

Spirit and Oppy both have beaten the odds - enormously. I hope that the guys who have done such a marvelous job in keeping them both healthy so far, continue to do so for many more months. This has been, in my estimation, the most spectacular success ever in planetary exploration, so much so that future attempts will have a hard time meeting expectations based on the marvels these two MER vehicles have continued to provide us with.

Well - I ~tried~ to remove the attachment, Tesh - it got there without showing up in the preview - and after the system said that it was too big to add. (That's why I posted the link to an altered smaller image.)

It is ~definitely~ time for bed...

[quote=Tesheiner,Jan 11 2006, 03:14 AM]
Route map, up to sol 719.
- -
Tesh, I'm beginning to worry that we'll not spend much time at Home Plate...

I'm speculating that it will take at least (and that's moving fast) another 7 to 10 days to get to Home Plate - and with little time for doing much probing, another 8 to 10 days to get to a North facing slope. Do you (or anyone) see a route fast enough to get us to Home Plate and to safe wintering ground, in time?

In the link below, I've used a piece of your Route Map to illustrate daily drives - for perhaps 14 days+... and you can see where we may run rather short of time.

380KB image

I'm beginning to wonder if Home Plate will be left for the springtime...

From the look of it, there were many rocks that may have wound up in front of one or more wheels, providing a blockage that may have caused wheels in sand to dig in a bit to gain enough traction to roll over said rocks. Since I can't really tell from the photo distortion, there may also have been a slope contribution to the inability of the rover to move easily, which could also be a contributing factor to the rather obvious bit of wheel spinning.

I'd say the odds are quite good that a premature end to the driving plan took place due to slippage - considering they are trying to 'put the pedal to the metal,' as they say.

As of 12/17/2005 posting on exploatorium it looks like the dunes of El Dorado are no more than a few feet away.

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