Editorial: Let them rove

GHS Posted Mar 28, 2008 @ 12:45 AM

Considering all the abuse Uncle Sam takes when a government program goes wrong, it's a cruel irony that one of government's great successes is taking place - literally - on another world.

So successful have been the Mars robot rovers Spirit and Opportunity that they've outlived the money to pay for them. Launched in June and July of 2003, the rovers landed the following January.

Expected to last just three months, they've been operating ever since - 17 times their anticipated lifespan - trundling about the Red Planet, conducting soil tests and sending back remarkable images. Perhaps their greatest discovery was that Mars once had flowing water on its surface and may still have water beneath its crust.

The rovers have survived dust storms, the harsh terrain and extremes of heat and cold, but their closest call came at the hands of NASA's green eyeshades looking to save money in the agency's tight budget. They had instructed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that operates the rovers to put Spirit into hibernation and curtail Opportunity's hours of operation. Since each additional day of operation is, in a sense, a gift, it would have been quite a risk shutting one or both of them down, not knowing whether they could successfully be reawakened.

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