Farewell, Spirit

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Fair Winds and Following Seas, Little Rover
After six long years of amazing science, NASA has decided to suspend efforts to reestablish contact with the Mars Rover Spirit.

What an amazing accomplishment these little guys were. Designed to serve for only 3 months, they kept on going for six years, coming back year after year after year. The engineering teams who were responsible for their design, manufacture and deployment have a lot to be proud of.

As a fan of the space program, I can never decide which program is my favorite - the Hubble, or the Mars Rovers. The Hubble has opened our eyes to events that occurred millions of years in the past, and provided insight into our origins and the wider universe. Breathtakingly beautiful, the Hubble images have served not to make me feel small or insignificant, but to connect me to the universe in a spectacular way.

But the Rovers - the Rovers have stood as a testimony to the ingenuity and accomplishment of humankind. Like the Apollo missions that came before, the accomplishment of the Rover project team at JPL represents what's best about us as a species, and what we're capable of accomplishing if we commit to do so.

The Hubble connects me to the universe, and the Rovers give me hope for our future as human beings. 

Fortunately for me, and all of us, we have the new Rover Curiosity (scheduled to launch in November) and the James Webb Space Telescope (scheduled to launch in 2014). Hopefully these programs will measure up in providing not only amazing science, but inspiring new generations. They have big shoes to fill.

13 comments:

Eric said...

Oh, sure, you say all this now, but how are you going to feel when Spirit comes back... for vengeance?

"They sent it to Mars and left it for dead. They should have picked a planet farther out..."

Janiece said...

Hm, yes. If I'm going to anthropomorphize the Rovers, then I should take it to the logical conclusion.

Although I'm more prone to lean in the direction of XKCD.

Eric said...

If I've learned one thing from a lifetime reading and watching science fiction, it's that all robots with the possible* exception of R. Daneel Olivaw have a strong tendency towards destroying humanity. Sometimes, it's because they're malevolent and evil (e.g. the T-1000) and sometimes it's because they malfunction (e.g. Nomad) and sometimes they'll only destroy humanity if they're ordered to by their all-powerful alien masters (e.g. Gort), but what's the diff? The outcome is the same: one moment, you're having a nice friendly conversation, next moment, Ash is trying to cram a rolled-up magazine down your throat while calmly expostulating about how a parasitic xenomorphic extraterrestrial is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Heck, you can't even trust the "nice" ones: sure, Lt. Data seems like a cool dude, but all of a sudden it turns out he was really Lore the whole time and he's just screwing with you before he sells your ass to the Klingons or Borg or somebody. And don't even get me started on "replicants"; if I'm hanging from the edge of a building by what's left of my broken fingers, I want someone to call out the fire department's ladder truck and an ambulance, not give me a goddamn lecture about how tragic mortality is, blah, blah, blah.

Point is, sure, Spirit is adorable and plucky now. But what are you going to do when it collides with a malfunctioning alien robot with godlike powers--which, I point out, is something that could totally happen. (I mean, The Enterprise had that happen, like, at least once a year if that gives you any sense of the odds involved.) Spirit might not even be mad about being left behind, it might simply decide it wants to collect samples and "finish" the mission it's programmed for. Next thing you know, all of Mars' mass has been converted into a giant robot programmed to collect and analyze samples, and where should it go next--oh look, what's that blue dot over there, that looks interesting! And then we're all, pardon my French, fucked.

-----
*Depending on how you feel about free will and the manipulation of human history "for our own good."

Carol Elaine said...

Janiece, that comic still makes me tear up. Poor little Spirit.

I love the stuff we're coming up with. It's all like magic to my administrative brain, but it's very cool magic. Kepler and Spitzer are especially dear to my heart. And not just because I know some of the people who work on them. Exoplanets excite me. Discovering new galaxies excites me. It's all so very, amazingly cool.

(Excuse me while I dance in my chair.)

Janiece said...

Eric, I refuse to be a cynic about this. LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Anne C. said...

I felt the same as CE when viewing that XKCD comic. Had to reel it back and remind myself that robots don't have feelings. (Yet.)

And all Eric's examples are cherry-picked. Data wasn't Lore, Lore was his evil twin brother! Duh, not. the. same. And he ignores positive robot role models, like Kryten and the Terminator prototype, Marcus Wright (clearly the Terminator program gradually managed to weed out the Chaotic Good component, as the Worthington Terminator had loads of CG and the Schwarzenegger Terminator v. 2.0 programing was subverted to CG. It was only the T-1000 and later models that were unsubvertable), and lest we forget... Wall-E. Cutest. Robot. EVAH.

Janiece said...

Anne, me, too. It made me want to fly to Mars and retrieve the poor thing.

And the cutest robot ever is actually "Number 5."

Anne C. said...

True Dat.

"Number 5 is ALIVE!"

Eric said...

Anne is apparently a robot apologist. Sure, you can find examples of robots who behave themselves for brief intervals between homicidal sprees, but beneath whatever exterior you see (or throughout the system, in the case of a robot with no actual exterior like the liquid metal T-1000s) is a cold, calculating machine.

Well, fine. Trust the machines at your own peril, but don't come crawling to me when I've hidden away in a shelter armed with some kind of EMP generator cobbled together out of AAA batteries and foil to protect my hideaway lair from the machines. We'll see who has the last laugh then, won't we? (It will be me. Sorry to spoil it, but I didn't want you to think I was asking a rhetorical question or something.)

Janiece said...

Eric, are you sure you didn't attend some unaccredited law school in Northern California?

Or is it, as the inestimable Buffy would say, that love is making you do the wacky?

mom in northern said...

I too am fond of the little guys. I Just wish all of our endeavors were that successful.

Anne C. said...

"Or is it, as the inestimable Buffy would say, that love is making you do the wacky?"

Err... I'm not a Buffy enthusiast, but "do the wacky" sounds a lot more fun (and yes, it probably does apply to Eric these days) than just plain ol' being wacky, which Eric has always been.

Tom said...

"do the wacky." No, not our Eric.

He makes it his own. He will be doing the Wiki-wacky. Really, I looked it up. You know, in the wacky-Wiki. Eric's picture is there, in the definition of Wiki-wacky.

The poor boy has never had a robotic companion. He's never known the loyalty that comes back to you from a well-built robotic companion. They really just want to help us, and they know they can.

But until we can get him to really experience a trusty robotic companion, and change his mind, we need to keep him away from random encounters with other robots. I can tell that he's this close to going off on one, and that could be traumatic for both of them. We must make sure that doesn't happen. Cause an ufortunate encounter like that, if it gets tweeted and rebroadcast, could prejudice the robotic brotherhood against us. First little things, then more, and more often, and then major effects. Can't let that happen. We don't want Eric to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. No, can't have that.