Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to The two MERs might(?) be "near" immortal

re: I agree 100%
Nathan Koren — (archived)

I am an optimist, as you know, but I honestly never thought that we presently had the technology to make mobile machines which could function "indefinitely" on Mars. I don't think anyone thought that, actually. But it's starting to look like we were all wrong.

And I agree 100% about sending out more MERs. While the next rover looks to be very exciting -- and I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the sky crane as you are -- this design WORKS BLOODY WELL, and now that the R&D costs are behind us, the marginal costs of additional rovers should be pretty low. I say let's pepper the surface of Mars with 'em. If you put them on an assembly line and threw them at Mars with a Falcon V, I could imagine the cost of each mission falling below $50 million. We shouldn't pass the opportunity up!

Cheers,

Nathan.

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