I enjoyed that too.
And about the route precision on the dunes “detour”, I think that at the end we’ll have to live with that uncertainty of, let’s say, 20m around each sol position, and that’s all.

Dilo, last time I saw V&V was on 624 navcams, here. I used those references to refine my first estimation for that sol position. They were barely visible and actually could be confused with jpeg artifacts but the headings to those little features were conclusive.
I dunno tf they are still visible today, but I would say yes.
And those little craters are best seen on pancam pics. When was the last time a 360º pancam mosaic was taken, sol 621 or later?

It's not the same thing. Spirit had a sticky drive motor which never failed, just started to consume more current. Oppy has a broken steering actuator and it is not sticky but really kaput. It doesn't respond to commands. However, miracles have happened before with the two machines. I think they had all their bad luck back here on Earth (just read the book!) and are now cashing in the good times.

Is that really true? It's not responding to commands now.

I thought that is was it was working but wouldn't drive beyond 7 degrees of straight and was therefore not being used in case it really did get stuck and at a less favorable angle.

Worth a test now and again to straighten it those last few degrees I suppose. But I wouldn't bet on any motion apart from that, it's not worth the risk.

James

Opportunity didn't changed location in the last 9 Sol, but now I added partial PanCam color panorama from Sol634, showing probable movement direction in immediate future (South). I deliberately removed the tall ripple on the west side because was hidding the features behind it.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've had my fill of this place. It reminds me of when you're on a driving vacation (holiday) and you get off the highway at some obscure town to have lunch. Your lunch is terrible, your car breaks down, you get lost looking to get back on the highway, and all you want to do is get moving again. When I write my Martian tour guide, Vostok, Viking, Voyager and Erebus will be in the "Places to Skip" chapter.

Can we go now?

Obviously not a geologist then...

Hehe! I know what you mean, because it really has been a long time in one spot. But this really is a scenic place. Look at the view, take in the local culture. Brush off a rock and sit down for a while, run some long Mössbauer integrations, APXSs, and don't forget to take some MIs. Not to mention the recently successfull Mini-TES test.

There was just a lot to do here, and I'm afraid it isn't over yet. This is quite an expansive outcrop with quite a few interesting things to look at. It looks like Opportunity will do a bit more with it's robotic arm through sol 643 according the the latest Opportunity update.

I hope to get moving soon, because I see some even more interesting places to stop again, just down the road. I'm eager to see what lies south of us, as we all are, but it looks as if there are just too many opportunities to ignore around Erebus. I don't kow about everyone else, but I still don't understand many of the things we've seen since arriving at Erebus.

Is it better to be in a situation like Spirit, with rocks everywhere, or Opportunity, with hardly a rock to be seen? Well, you see, in the one case, you have a ridiculous number of things to inspect, which on the one hand is good, and on the other makes it harder to find the really interesting things, but then with the other case, those rare things you do find might not be all that interesting, but if they are, they seem all the more interesting for the lack of anything most of the time otherwise, and while I personally would like it if Opportunity headed to the massive crater to the southeast, I doubt they'll return to this weathered crater any time soon, so why not poke around a little? In other words, gimme a G, gimme an O, gimme a J, gimme a P, gimme an L, what does that spell? GOOOOOO JPL! <jumps up and down energetically, causing the air to lift my skirt ever-so-alluringly>

EGD, sit down, fire up the Gameboy, plug in the iPod and relax. We're going to be here with the rock hammer and handlens for a few weeks. It must be a genetic thing, geologists do this.

Agreed, Tom. This a very rich area, there are so many pieces of the puzzle spreading out on the table. They are starting to piece together into a nice vista, but it's hard to tell whether they are toasters, windmills or contacts at this point. But I do think it safe to say that we've not seen a blender, yet...

--Bill

Actually, I have a massive interest and background in geology. My posts will bear that out. Endurance was nirvana for me. I never wanted to leave it. Sure we're going to see something interesting at the exposures we are maneuvering to get a look at. But I'm also a traveller and an explorer (or I was before I settled down to have a family). I want to get to Victoria which I believe will blow our minds when we get there.

I think ElkGroveDan is reflecting a concern that has been growing in my mind at least that we could get a mission-ending failure at any time, and it would be just too bad if we don't get to see Victoria.

The odds of seeing anything new right here at Erebus are darn low, especially on this Olympia plain. I doubt if there is anything here that would change our view of Martian geology.

So, get over to the cliff on the south just in case there is a dark layer to be investigated (I don't think there is), and then thread the dune maze to Victoria, where we just might find something Mars-shaking.

Scott

I'm with sranderson on this !
Although I do understand the geologists very well: this is, after all, a scientific
exploration and not a sightseeing trip: and of course, the geological studies are the most important thing of the mission

But the problem is, that we just don't know how much time we have left.
It's just as sranderson wrote: the probability of discovering something really new
is higher the more kilometers we move from the already well-studied location.
So it's a tradeoff between quantitatively more of the same or very similar
science at the same location (stopping at every possible outcrop etc.)
on the one hand and the prospect of really new discoveries when reaching different kind of terrain (i.e. priority on driving on and only study the *significantly* new things)

It's just the same as with Spirit's descision to climb on top of the Husband Hill
which, too was controversial between the geologists and the mounteneers but in the end we all agreed that climbing the top was the best descision that could be made !

So I'm quite sure that if/when we ever reach Victoria it will be the same and frankly I'm a bit afraid that by then, we will have reached about the end of Oppys life time, at a time when many interesting geological investigations sould only begin ... So I think every remaing day in the rover life time could potentially be better spent at Victoria than on intermediate targets ...

of course, there is no guaranty and maybe even Victoria turns out to be geologically not so intersting ... but that's the inherent risk of any exploratory and scientific endevour ... or, to summarize and put this with the word of Steve Squyres:



(Steve Squyres, October 4 Opportunity Mision update)

I'm confident that Oppy will still be in the Erebus area until late in January. There is plenty to look at here and best of all it's so accessible. We can poke around Erebus for a couple of months and we know we'll be taking readings of interesting rock almost every day if we want to.

Travelling to Victoria will be exciting I'm sure but let's take the bird in the hand first. "We don't know how much time we have left..." - now wouldn't dying halfway to Victoria be a waste of the chance to examine the pretty decent rocks around this humbler crater?

Also, for those who have forgotten, these big craters can be hard to get into (and out of). We may get nothing more from Victoria than a great panorama and other remote sensing (if we can get that close). Not a waste - but not the most valuable thing that Oppy can possibly do either.

yes, I agree: that's the "exploratory risk" I mentioned.
But the reasoning could also be like this: while I think the more prudent approach was totally justfied in the beginnig and main part of the mission .. we are now long into the extended phase and, after having already achievd several times the initially expected (scientific) "return on investment", couldn't we now afford taking a little bit more risk than in the beginning ?
And of course, by "taking risks" I do not mean "recklessly breaking new driving records or so" but just a shift in priorities from "stopping as much as possible and driving as much as necessary" to "drving as much as possible and stopping
only for the really new discoveries"

I'm confident that by christmas we are already on our way to Victoria, covering
about 40 meters per sol with 4 or 5 driving sols per week ...
at least that's how I interpret Steve's October 5 comment



And by the way, I like sranderson's comment that the biggest discovrey might just be waiting for us somewhere in the dune maze on the way to Victoria ...
... the journey is the reward ("der Weg ist das Ziel")

Someone mentioned in the Spirit route map discussion how the official Spirit route maps recently have adopted a similarity to Dilo's, by including an inset of a nearby vertical projection.

Interestingly, I've also noticed a recent change in the Opportunity maps, with those including a shaded area highlighting the larger drifts, similar to Bill's maps.