[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

A couple of interesting MER-related stories (1, 2) on Space.com today, although it seems to me that many of the details in the first story we learned from Doug's November 6, 2006, interview with Squyres.

[MarkL]

Great articles, thanks; but aren't these the type of capabilities (go and touch; watch) that should have been developed and tested on Earth? It must add months to the certification process to have to test new capabilities remotely over such an enormous distance. Even with testbeds here, you can't afford to risk the landed vehicles so have to proceed deliberately and carefully step by painful step. I guess the question is, with all the research into robotics that has gone on over the past two decades, why could the rovers not have had these abilities (and more) before they departed our fair planet?

Maybe that's a bit judgmental, however we've been able to get so much science and fun out of these two rovers I wonder how much better a job could have been done if truly visionary robotics had been integrated into the development of the rovers. The engineering and scientific accomplishments are incredible of course, but the pure robotics element seems to lag far behind. Much as I love the two little critters, they started life as pretty dumb, although capable machines, almost totally dependent on their operators for every move they make.

Perhaps now with the advent of 80-core CPU's we can make them a bit smarter in future, but what's really needed is an Einstein-like roboticist to bring the elements together. Putting this in perspective, had NASA been able to plop a human on Mars, that lucky person would have accomplished in one week all that the rovers have in three years (at one site of course, not both). She'd have walked the 10K to Victoria from Eagle in her first half day.

[djellison]

I guess the question is, with all the research into robotics that has gone on over the past two decades, why could the rovers not have had these abilities (and more) before they departed our fair planet?

Time.

What you're really saying is - wouldn't it be nice if the rovers were better. Yes - it would be. But because of all of the contraints - power, volume, processing power, memory, time, money...they did the best they could in the time available. Did you know that the onboard software for surface ops wasn't ready until after launch? It is so very very easy to sit looking at an article about upgraded software and say "why didn't they do this 3 years ago" without having an appreciation for the genuine difficulty involved. Frankly it is a miracle that they got two working vehicles on the ground, let alone two vehicles that exceeded their requirements for a primary mission and an extended mission for 10x that duration thereafter.

An analogy. Why didn't they design the 80486 to be as good as a Core 2 Quadro? Because it takes time.


Doug