Who was it who was saying we don't need people on Mars, that machines can do just as good a job?
It's taking a week for them to gear up to examine something that's a half dozen steps away.
I'm not against sending astronauts to other celestial bodies, but if we sent people to Mars and they arrived just a couple of days ago I'll bet it would be weeks before they started walking around outside. You don't simply send an elaborate piece of equipment on a multi-million mile journey to another planet and have it start "doing its thing" before you thoroughly check-out all of its systems. After all the time and money NASA has spent on this mission, doing anything other than this would be foolish. Besides, if anything were to go wrong I'm sure one of the first things a critic would ask is, "Well, didn't you perform a system test before the rover left the landing site?" :)
Who was it who was saying we don't need people on Mars, that machines can do just as good a job?
It's taking a week for them to gear up to examine something that's a half dozen steps away.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. And if the thing sinks into the sand, who's going to get out and push?
It's interesting that the probe is there and all, but I still find it very frustrating. It's no substitute for a human expedition.