Roving Mars Page #3

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''Spirit'' was our troublesome firstborn,

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Every test we ran,

it seemed we ran on ''Spirit'' first,

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and the first time you try,

it usually doesn't work,

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We'd run tests on ''Spirit'' and they'd fail,

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and we'd try to fix things, run

another test, and that would fail, too,

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By the time we got to ''Opportunity,''

we'd learned stuff,

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and things went much more smoothly,

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The biggest problem was underestimating

the size and weight of the rovers,

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Once we realized

how big they really had to be,

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we also realized that

the landing system we planned to use

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couldn't get them to the ground

in one piece,

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As the rover got heavier, the lander

got heavier, the aeroshell got heavier,

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The whole thing got heavier

and heavier and heavier,

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From the very beginning, on this mission,

it seemed like nothing was going right,

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i( Squyres)/i The air bags are like the air

bags in your car, but way more expensive,

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They inflate explosively around the vehicle

and they cushion the landing,

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The first time we tested them,

they tore open and deflated,

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Setbacks - we know

they are going to happen,

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l always tell people,

when you start these projects,

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the same thing probably happened

to Lewis and Clark

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and Captain Cook in their exploration -

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what is guaranteed

is there will be setbacks,

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i( man over radio) 3, 2, 1.../i

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i( Squyres)/i These rovers have to land

using a supersonic parachute,

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The parachute design we thought

would work ripped to shreds,

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The lander had gotten so heavy

that the chute just couldn't handle it,

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We were practically out of time,

and all we had was a chute design

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that would destroy the spacecraft

when we tried to land,

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i( Manning)/i We had to build

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