Posted on 08/19/2014 3:39:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The 1-ton Curiosity rover had been heading for Mount Sharp - a 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers) mountain in the center of Mars' Gale Crater - via 'Hidden Valley' - a low-lying sandy landscape about the length of a football field.
However, Curiosity turned back shortly after entering the valley's northeastern end earlier this month after finding that the sand surprisingly slippery, NASA officials said.
'We need to gain a better understanding of the interaction between the wheels and Martian sand ripples, and Hidden Valley is not a good location for experimenting,' Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.
The mission team is now assessing possible alternative routes that would take Curiosity north of the valley.
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(Excerpt) Read more at designntrend.com ...
Cinder blocks on Mars?
Sand on Mars is a whole different question.
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With millions of years of accumulated dust and dirt taking a chance with the tires they chose , hoping to have a firm surface with excellent traction is not a plan and was not wise ...
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- “You didn’t build that!”
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- Looters?
The Moon surface appeared to be soft.
LOL,..lol,...lol...
They should have upgraded to the 21” rims.
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- I thought you remembered that Obama gave the contract to Al Quaeda . . .
somebody forgot to lock the hubs.
Are they trying to send it to where Neal Armstrong planted the flag?
"Are you saying we can't figure out how to make a cinder block?"
Here is a picture of the 'peaceful' protesters earlier in the day.
I didn’t say their design was wise.
But sand is not dust, and no accumulation of dust has been found on Mars either. Dust mingled with sand creates Road Base, which they obviously have not found in the valley.
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When was Neal on Mars?
(Better stop using that stuff!)
The vehicle is nothing short of genius.
BTW for the low information types, the vehicle is not “stuck or stalled”.
lol...
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- By 2am they will have taken the rotor out of the distributor and ripped off all the spark plug wires.
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I guess I should have put the obligatory Sheila Jackson Lee reference.
While we are on this Martian subject...was there ever an explanation for the unexplained light photo taken by the rover back in April??
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