Such a great collection of photos. It's nice to see this rover finally coming together. It's just massive in size. And what a complicated piece of machinery it is!
I sure hope the descent module performs as expected when the time comes...
I can't wait to see this rover on Mars!
I wonder if it comes with 12 months roadside assist, a fantastic piece of engineering, I can't begin to imagine how they'd decontaminate it before sending launch.
I wonder if it comes with 12 months roadside assist, a fantastic piece of engineering, I can't begin to imagine how they'd decontaminate it before sending launch.
Somehow, I don't think the automobile clubs are going to send repair teams quite that far if the tyres blow out!!!
I could never understand the clean room thing myself you'd think they'd not bother considering the enviroment it's designed to operate in, look at all the other devices designed to operate in our enviroment that don't go through this process, are they worried about contaminating Mars. Also look at all that gold leaf.
Check out the video of the deployment, I'd question why they didn't go with a tried and successful method.
But you don't really believe a toilet seat costs $10000 do you.
Ric is right Trevor, they don't want to infect Mars with earth bacteria which would invalidate lots of experiments. They have even taken earth bacteria to the ISS and hung them out the window to see if they can survive in space. Others have been lab testing bacterial survival following an atmosphere entry. They even found bacteria alive on pieces of the collumbia shuttle.
