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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Is Able to Drill Holes into Rocks Again

171 points| wglb | 7 years ago |gizmodo.com | reply

34 comments

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[+] usermac|7 years ago|reply
The engineer(s)/tech(s) name was never mentioned or the group members who came up with this. Why no credit? I'd be nice to read about a human with a name, a history, a story. I see that a lot in stories.
[+] Anzate|7 years ago|reply
It is actually quite deliberate. NASA and JPL are big on always communicating their work as a team effort, rather than highlighting individual contributors. As a practical example, notice how, during critical events (anytime you have a live-stream from Mission Control), everyone in the room wears the same shirt. Another fun anecdote on the "one NASA" philosophy (albeit at a different scale) is that the Pathfinder lander (if memory serves me right) had a JPL sticker visible from the cameras at landing. NASA was not impressed: although designed, built and managed by JPL, this was a NASA mission. So Curiosity (also designed, built and managed by JPL) only has NASA stickers - but the wheels have a pattern that spells out "JPL" in Morse code and is visible in the rover tracks.
[+] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
I am ambivalent about this. You often see people getting public credit for something that was actually done by a lot of people working together which is also not good. Maybe a team photo would be nice. My favorite stories are where you hear the perspective of the different contributors.
[+] duxup|7 years ago|reply
It never ceases to amaze me when I see pics that look like they could have been taken anywhere on earth, but no that's on another planet and humans put a little hole there!
[+] JonDav|7 years ago|reply
I am amazed how quickly and how many images we get from another planet....

For those that might not know, http://www.curiosityrover.com is a great site for the image feed, if you scroll down you can see the CHEMCAM images of the most recent drilled holes.

[+] jobigoud|7 years ago|reply
I also had to double check the picture wasn't just for illustration purposes of a hole. The structures really looks like dried mud.
[+] tachang|7 years ago|reply
It's a testament to humanity's ingenuity that we managed to put a rover on Mars. I sometimes wonder if in 1000 years we will look back and think how primitive we were and curiosity will be in some museum.
[+] TangoTrotFox|7 years ago|reply
On the other hand, for all the marvel that Curiosity has provided, a human on the surface of Mars could have achieved vastly more and vastly faster. Rovers and especially probes are ultimately very limited technology. If we continued on the trajectory we were on in the 60s we'd likely already have human outposts, if not civilizations, on the Moon, Mars, and perhaps even some of the outer planets' moons.

Just imagine all the amazing discoveries and economic potential we've missed out on due to myopia mixed with a bit of conservatism. The entire space race was ultimately just a global level dick waving contest, and what space exploration we have had since has been hamstrung by fear of failure. That people will die in human space endeavors is hardly a reason to avoid them. Columbia was named after the ship that first circumnavigated the globe. And unsurprisingly that voyage came with immense risk. Nearly every seaman associated with that mission, though successful, would go on to die in sea related voyages and I doubt they would have had it any other way. Exploring new frontiers always comes with risks and it has never served as a deterrent to the right sort of people. That one of the biggest advocates for Martian colonization today is Buzz Aldrin, is not a coincidence.