• more about #marsrover more comments →
    Pessimippopotamus: Spirit's a girl? I always she was a man bot. And cosmic rays eh? Are Decepticons around Mars these days? Or is it Michael Bay's elaborate movie campaign? more »
    twophrasebark: I'm just a mean green mother from outer space and I'm bad I'm just a mean green mother from outer space And it looks like you been had I'm just a me... more »
    silver-bolt: The robotic equivalent of blanking your mind when you see an eldritch horror. Maybe the Rover stumbled onto Cthulhu's Summer Home. more »
    twophrasebark: I was able to recover the erased code: //selecting 8 nos (1-100)without repeating randomize(); a[0]=random(100); while(i!=8) { I AM BEBO. FROM MARS. ... more »
    Pope John Peeps II: Really NASA, a "cosmic ray"? That's the best you can give us? That's the explanation that the community college sci fi writing night course class woul... more »
    strider_mt2k: That thing is SO over it's rated mission time that all bets are off at this point. The rovers have done incredibly well in this respect. Here's hoping... more »
    corpore-metal: And on a lighter note. I love our plucky Martian robot rovers but don't the names Spirit and Opportunity sound incredibly lame? They sound like school... more »
    corpore-metal: Well, I suppose it would be pretty cool if it was a prelude to alien invasion (Or just simple alien sneaking around and hiding their tracks.) at least... more »
    Andrew Liptak: No disassemble! No disassemble! more »
    Belabras: Classic symptom of Old One exposure. It saw that which was not meant to be seen. more »
    Anekanta - Go Play!: Sounds like old Spirit saw something it shouldn't have seen, and its memory conveniently "malfunctioned." The Martians only want us to learn about th... more »
    Andrew Liptak: Maybe they should defragment its harddrives. Yeah, I got nothin'. more »
    crashedpc - Haifisch: I'm assuming that right now Spirit is setting up the foundations for the first Mars colony? Like, literally paving the ground and raising up barns, Am... more »
  • #marsrover

    Mars Rover Hit By Cosmic Ray, Gains Amnesia

    It's not exactly the secret origin that Marvel Comics promised us, but a cosmic ray may have given NASA's Mars rover Spirit the superpower of... forgetfulness. Are strange things afoot on the red planet? More »
  • #marsrover

    Will Phoenix Mars Rover Disappear Like the Last Mars Polar Lander?

  • #marsrover

    This Just in: Mars Rovers Will Not Be Shut Down

  • #marsrover

    Spirit, the Mars Rover, Left to Die Before Its Time

    The brave, unflagging Mars rover Spirit, who has lived on the Red Planet for almost four years, has been given a death sentence by the U.S. government. Right now, the little robot is resting on a sunny slope, waiting out the winter and preparing to do more tests on the Martian atmosphere. But now it looks like Spirit has rolled on its six wheels and done science experiments for the very last time. The U.S. government has forced NASA, this country's national space agency, to cut its budget by 4 million dollars. And that means only one rover, Opportunity, will survive. To say that this is a tragedy is an understatement. More »
  • #scienceporn

    The Next Mars Rover Needs A Mega-chute

    NASA tests the next generation of space parachute inside the world's largest wind tunnel, built to hold a Boeing 737. The 165-foot-long parachute opens to a diameter of nearly 55 feet, holds more air than a 3,000 square foot house, and can survive loads of over 80,000 pounds. NASA hopes to launch its new Mars Science Lab in 2009, which will put the next generation of rover on the surface of Mars in 2010. Click through for a couple of images of the new rover in progress. More »