[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Having survived two years on Mars, obviously both MERs have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams... but I'm curious. What did everyone expect/hope them to go on to achieve on those heady landing days? How far did you think they'd get? What did you think would be their "best picture"? How long did you think they'd survive?

Might be interesting to compare our hopes and dreams with the reality...

[dvandorn]

When Spirit took a look around, I figured that, if we were very lucky, we might get all the way to the rim of Bonneville. Spend a month or so exploring the ejecta, hopefully find some lacustrine materials to make the mission worthwhile (to its "follow-the-water" goal), and die with a breathtaking view of a decent-sized crater. The hills on the horizon looked enticing, but I figured that, being several km away, there was no way in the world we'd ever actually be able to drive to them. (When they did annouince they were going to try and drive to them, I wished them luck and decided you have to have impossible goals in life... but that's what I thought it was, an impossible goal.)

When Oppy landed and spent sol after sol, week after week, puttering around that tiny little crater, I got distinctly edgy. I figured that, no matter how interesting the sediments in the walls were, we were completely ignoring the possible diversity we would find out on the plains. I was certain that there were interesting things to discover out on the plains -- and I despaired that Oppy would die before she ever got out to look at them! As much as I enjoyed the results we got from the rocks in the walls of Eagle Crater, I felt it was disastrous to spend so much time inside of it, when there were vast plains out there to explore.

I am gratified, to say the least, at how much more each of these brave girls has managed to do than what I expected. May they be like the Energizer bunny, and just keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going...

-the other Doug