Thanks for that link. I think I have read something similar in the distant past but read through it again.
> There are [places] on Earth that do have these sharp ventifacts, but we hadn't seen them on Mars and we didn't test against them
This is whats so curious. In their testing on Earth after the fact, they found:
> Bedrock with lots of rocks: ~8 kilometers
> Lots of rocks, not on bedrock: 13-14 kilometers
> Bedrock with few rocks (think flagstones): 30-40 kilometers or more
It's just very surprising they didn't think to test on more varied Earth terrains, looking for worst case scenarios, where they would have clearly found this limitation. It is my understanding that the wheel damage became a major limiting factor of Curiosity's mission.
bmitc|5 years ago
> There are [places] on Earth that do have these sharp ventifacts, but we hadn't seen them on Mars and we didn't test against them
This is whats so curious. In their testing on Earth after the fact, they found:
> Bedrock with lots of rocks: ~8 kilometers
> Lots of rocks, not on bedrock: 13-14 kilometers
> Bedrock with few rocks (think flagstones): 30-40 kilometers or more
It's just very surprising they didn't think to test on more varied Earth terrains, looking for worst case scenarios, where they would have clearly found this limitation. It is my understanding that the wheel damage became a major limiting factor of Curiosity's mission.