[rs79bm]

Freepmail me if you want on or/off my Sci/Tech ping list.

[bwteim]

With a little luck, they might get a picture of the Beagle2...

[You Dirty Rats]

Will these rovers be able to drive over to the Apollo landing sites? Quagmiring minds want to know!

[Piquaboy]

Will they be able to see the footprints of the guy who talked of one giant step for mankind? Sheila Jackson Lee wants to know.

[js1138]

All this assumes they finally got a programmer who can do metric conversions correctly.

[apillar]

Unlike the 1997 lander/rover this set of rovers isn't range limited by the need to relay though the lander base.

So, in theory, they could travel as far as they could get before they conk out.

In reality the plan is for them to explore about a mile radius from the landing site during their estimated three month life span.

The life span is just an estimate based on dust accumulation on the solar panels. They might only last a month or they might last six months.

But they aren't going to be hotdoging it across mars, the collision avoidance system limits the speed to a couple feet a minute

[LibWhacker]

The landers will boing around like beach balls and roll up to half a mile before coming to a stop, deflating their air bags and opening like the petals of a flower to release the rovers.

Got my fingers crossed, and it worked great last time the Americans did it. But where do bouncing balls tend to end up on uneven surfaces? In deep holes and crevices. Somebody tell me that NASA has double, triple and quadruple checked that there are none such within miles of where these bouncing landers will be touching down. I'm losing faith in that agency.

[kimmie7]

I'd like on the sci/tech ping list, please. Thanks!!