On The Way To Home Plate, a possible route and calendar Options

[ustrax]

As one year ago the question is launched:
Will Spirit make it?

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/hip.jpg

If Ultreya reveals to be nothing worthy then it would be faster, but...

Any other guesses?

[dvandorn]

One of the greatest conundrums of exploring Mars via solar cell is that the times of highest planetary insolation (SH summer) are also the times of highest atmospheric tau, because the greater insolation drives greeater atmospheric instability, which kicks more dust into the air and raises tau.

And yes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the prevailing winds at Gusev were to shift from southerly to northerly as SH fall and winter approach. On Mars, the seasonal variations see the *air itself* precipitating out and forming the polar caps, so the theoretical highest volume of gaseous air on the planet occurs when the total extent of both polar caps is at a minimum. Which ought to happen at the equinoxes. However, as one cap sublimates down and the other builds up, the CO2 that forms the caps *must* travel, as flowing air, from one pole to the other -- so that would tend to drive northerly winds as the northen polar cap forms and the southern sublimates, while the reverse should be true when the northern cap shrinks and the southern cap grows.

-the other Doug

[helvick]

...On Mars, the seasonal variations see the *air itself* precipitating out and forming the polar caps,...

Doug - this is both a very sobering reminde of just how different a place Mars is and a fantasically evocotive description of an alien world I would give almost anything to experience in person.