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'Tis But A Scratch!
Still plenty of miles on these wheels
that wheel
For Whom the Bell Tolls
We must go to mars to save them. I don't care if the endeavor is otherwise entirely pointless. Bring our boys home
I like that humanity has advanced to the point that they need no security guard or fence around it.
We must go to mars to save them. I don’t care if the endeavor is otherwise entirely pointless. Bring our boys home
Could not agree more :) I hope they bring all the rovers and landers home one day in the future
I hope we can go there and visit a museum with them inside
Just call for a Goodyear service truck — they'll replace it onsite!
Is it mostly asthetic damage?
I find it hard to believe NASA didn't think of everything.
Is it mostly aesthetic damage?
I find it hard to believe NASA didn’t think of everything.
There is a risk that partial splits of the wheel could damage the rover's wiring, but they have a cunning plan to rip the affected part off before it can cause damage. The stongest part of the wheel would survive (the central rim) they could drive on that for years
They did think of everything they and everyone else knew at the time, but Mars rocks were more embedded in this part of Mars compared to those seen before. It was designed to last 2 Earth years, it's been running for 14, so all is good. It'll run for many more years :)
I recall when the first holes appeared in these wheels, all the doomsayers were telling the world its be unable to drive etc etc... that was a decade ago, and it is still roving, and climbing a mountain :)
NASA didn't think the surface of Mars where they landed the rover would be so hard and rocky, basically.
They need all-purpose wheels that can traverse sand/gravel/bedrock, and to go through sand they need to have a large surface area to distribute the weight and stop it from getting stuck.
But when you drive over bedrock sprinkled with the occasional bit of gravel, the point contact pressure of the gravel is high enough to break through the parts of the wheel designed to sit on sand, in the same kind of way that you treading on a little bit of Lego hurts, you're putting your whole body weight on a very small object.
Then you add in the fact that they need to be as light as possible, and also need to withstand -60 to -80 degree C temperatures and a lot of UV (so rubber/nylon/plastic wheels are out) and you end up with the compromise wheel that they have that can be easily damaged.
Well I think it's more so to the fact that NASA only planned on a 1-year mission for the curiosity rover. After 14 years it's far exceeded any plans that they had and as far exceeded the parts that were built for that specific mission. The fact that it's still can provide useful data is absolutely phenomenal.
I would love to know the mileage! Keep on truckin' lil buddy!
Unless you include distance traveled while in storage, in which case 560 000 000.
Thats impressive to say the least! Keep on keeping on lil buddy!
For we Americans thats 23.3 miles (123031.496 feet).
I'm still one of the few Americans that wants us to convert to the metric system for measurement.
As an American who has lived in the UK, I too am for metric measurements for everything; except cooking.
Even after two years living in East Sussex and travelling throughout the EU for work, I could never get used to metric cooking. It's just weird, stressful and unintuitive to me...
A pinch of oregano vs 0.1 grams of oregano, but if I'm cooking for one more person than the box says, how many more grams do I add? Do I need an atomic scale and a microscope yet?
It will always be just nuts to me how anyone can find cooking with grams, trying to get exact every dang time is fun and relaxing.
I'll take all the metrics but that.
I'm from Europe and I've never heard of someone measuring herbs
It's usually also just like a pinch, a teaspoon or a buttload
Most of the ready meals tasted like moosh to me, so I never bought them. And I can't remember if they were asda or tesco brand, but there were a few prepackaged box meals I used to buy to make at home that measured herbs, which is where I got frustrated.
Ah, ok
I pretty much never buy anything ready made
I just look up a recipe, buy stuff and cook - and herbs and spices come in as we like
Usually I take a receipt only as an option and orientate myself with that. Like how long stuff needs to be cooked, and at what point which stuff needs to get added.
But I don't follow them on point - maybe the first time I'm trying something, but usually I already have an idea on what I like it to taste, and just follow it roughly
Takes some experimentation what works and what not, but imho that's exactly where the fun in cooking is
(And until the last sentence I wasn't sure, if you answered to the wrong comment, because ready made meals usually taste like shit and I never promoted them - not on purpose at least)
When you start using it to bake and you just set the bowl on the scale and just put all the (hopefully rounded) amounts of ingredients in there, it starts to feel so easy!
It even goes for liquids, because the volume difference for most is negligible
For baking metric is the only way.
Also you can tall the people that never did coke as they don't know what a gram of powder looks like... So I'm told...
It's not like I haven't found a very dusty tiny scale on the street that I still use to measure baking powder
Do you actually put herbs and spices in your cooking by measurement? No shade, just genuine interest.
When you grow up cooking a certain way and then get forced into doing it a different way, it's hard to just 'do' it without measuring first.
Growing up, I learned using imperial measurements and can eye just about anything needed. However, when I transitioned to living in the UK, I couldn't eye what was needed because my brain just couldn't measure it the same in my head, so yeah, I had to measure it.
The same holds true in reverse btw as my mates have told me when going across the pond.
Interesting
When I cook I barely ever measure anything and just cook by feeling. I read a recipe and then do what feels right for me with it.
Herbs and spices I add very little first and then taste it and add more and so on.
How many football fields is that?
410.104987 football fields
Just so little? Is Mars' surface so corrosive then or why are the wheels knackered?
The wheels are built extremely thin (0.75mm aluminium) to save on weight. The rover is incredibly heavy (340kg/750lbs in Mars gravity) on those paper-thin wheels, I'm really amazed it held this far.
I would love to know the mileage! Keep on truckin’ lil buddy!
Before the drive today it was
37.50 km - (23.30 miles)
Today's drive was around 30 meters
37.5km was what I was looking for considering the state of those wheels.
But lets be honest it's a rover on Mars we are operating 154 million miles (248 million kilometers) away. 30 meter is huge considering, the latency of the transmission/response must be mind blowing.
the latency of the transmission/response must be mind blowing.
They send up drive commands for an entire drive. The onboard computer initiates the drive the next day, it has set parameters for tilt and roll as well as wheel slip, it stops on a regular basis and takes images to assess for hazards, if found it can drive around the hazard if the path is clear. if the hazard is too difficult considered to drive over or around it stops and acquires a complete set of images and calls home for a new set of commands. After the drive it sends home the drive data and a full set of images. The rover planners use the new images to plot the next drive
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover
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