A reader sends the above cartoon:
Your post about the Jade Rabbit rover and the comment at the end about Curiosity on Mars made me think of this strip by xkcd. I know it’s just human projection, but somehow, these amazing machines take on their own personality in our minds. How can we not feel affection for them, and sadness at their ultimate fate? Maybe we recognize a bit of our own story in them. Go rovers!
Others offer some love for a veteran explorer:
If you think the Curiosity rover is awesome, I would like to remind you of a little rover named Opportunity.
Opportunity landed on Mars on January 25, 2004. It initially had a mission duration of 90 (Mars) days, and is still exploring Mars today. You should check out the launch patch on Wikipedia [seen right]; it
has Duck Dodgers and the words “Red Planet Gladiators.”
What’s even worse for Jade Rabbit’s is that the technical difficulties were announced on January 25, 2014, the tenth (Earth years) anniversary of Opportunity’s arrival on Mars.
Now I don’t view this as an “America, fuck yeah” moment because I think that any rover that manages to land successfully has exceptional scientific value and hopefully has a long operating life. I feel the loss of Jade Rabbit is a loss for science which is more important than any amount of nationalism.
But I do agree with the idea that NASA is awesome.
Opportunity celebrated its 10th anniversary by taking a selfie. Meanwhile, another reader chides us for going all “America fuck yeah”:
You were comparing apples to oranges when comparing the different unmanned probes. Mars has an atmosphere and has no dust like the moon dust, which gets into everything and clings there with sharp edges.
Another nods:
“Abrasive lunar dust” is redundant. Unlike dust on Earth and Mars, where there are erosion processes to wear the particles somewhat smooth, on the moon the dust retains its knife’s-edge sharpness forever. By the third day on Apollo 17, astronauts Cernan and Schmitt were having a lot of trouble with the abrasive dust getting into the zippers and joint seals on their space suits. Moon dust will mess you up, man.
The Dish 