How JPL keeps the 13-year-old Curiosity rover doing science

rented_mule•about 2 hours ago

The total cost of Curiosity to date is well under 5% of the cost of the recent trip humans took around the moon (something like $3B vs. $90B, or $20 vs. $600 per US taxpayer). Imagine the amount of science that could get done if we gave even half the budget of crewed spaceflight to rover / probe style exploration.

andyjohnson0•18 minutes ago

> Curiosity [...] has traveled nearly 37 kilometers, drilled into and sampled 42 different rocks, and as of publication has snapped nearly 763,000 photos.

Without in any way minimising the amazing scientific and engineering achievements of the team and the rover: we need crewed space exploration because people on Mars would be able to do the above in significantly less than thirteen years. Or, to put it another way, would do much more science in the same amount of time.

Thrymr•7 minutes ago

> much more science in the same amount of time.

I'm not convinced by the time argument, as astronauts would have limited time on Mars dictated by orbital mechanics and return schedules, but the bigger problem is cost. You are replying to a comment about how rovers and probes are cost effective; there is no way that crewed exploration could accomplish more science than Mars rovers without orders of magnitude more cost.

rented_mule•3 minutes ago

And if we're keeping costs proportional, send orders of magnitude more rovers and that helps the time argument for rovers as well.

zbendefy•about 1 hour ago

Maybe we would get a microphone on mars. Just kidding i know air pressure is vastly different, but still it would be cool to listen to ambient sound from there

boxfire•about 1 hour ago

Mars 2020 has a microphone. You can probably find audio out there but here’s some:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/soun...

ceejayoz•about 1 hour ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHenFGnixzU

ezst•about 2 hours ago

Curiosity is a teenager now? Damn, I didn't need to feel this much older today..

beastman82•32 minutes ago

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for those who are missing basic writing standards.

xp84•7 minutes ago

JPL has been around for over 80 years now -- I'm not sure that assuming basic familiarity with it, among people who would care about the Curiosity rover, is even a controversial choice, let alone 'substandard' writing.

I think especially for an organization like JPL, where the name is far from a full description of what they're currently about anyway, people tend to just think of them as 'JPL' rather than how we think of, say, the United Nations.

MinimalAction•about 1 hour ago

I am happy to know this emblem of knowledge stream keeps coming until 2035. It is wonderful to know our innovations have flown 200 odd million miles and work for so long!

How JPL keeps the 13-year-old Curiosity rover doing science

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