These things are still roving! Designed for only 90 days they’re still roaming Mars and sending back amazing pictures and data. To date one of them has gone 2.70 miles.
Simply amazing…
They figured the solar panels would get covered up with dust and wouldn’t be able to charge the batteries. The dust apparently isn’t that big of issue. One of the robots got caught in a martian dust-devil which cleaned the dust off the panels. They saw the watts rise immediately (though I’m sure not as high as Bjorn’s)
Voyager (launched in 1977) is still sending back information. It is about to leave the solar system, traveling about a million miles per day. It’s power plant is good for another 10-15 years.
I thought Voyager, later known as “V-ger” actually survives for thousands of years and ends up living in the hull of some great mechanical death star which mistakenly thinks it needs to destroy the earth, which is saved by Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise?
That is what I was thinking…sending that thing out is kinda like trying to tickle a galactic snake den…does not matter what your intentions are…the snake will bite you
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The space program, what a monumental waste of money.