Word: martianize
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...rover on the surface of Mars. If the deer wander back this week, they could see more of the same, that is if Spirit--which has been operating splendidly but has not yet budged from the safety of its landing platform--at last rolls cautiously down onto the red Martian soil, preparing for three months of rambling the alien terrain...
...week both in Pasadena, where the rover was birthed, and at Gusev Crater, Mars, where it now finds itself. NASA has been in need of redemption since the explosion of the shuttle Columbia last winter, and Spirit--to say nothing of its sister ship, Opportunity, heading for its own Martian touchdown at the end of the month--is it. The space agency's website recorded 1.45 billion hits in just over five days last week. The White House, perhaps sensing an election-year winner, announced that the President would soon deliver a long-delayed speech about the future...
...mile-wide Gusev Crater--located about 15° south of the planet's equator--resembles a dry lake bed, one that could easily have been drenched with water from what appears to be a 559-mile-long river channel entering it from the southeast. If there was once Martian water, it should have ponded there. If there was once Martian life, it might have called this great lake home...
Before Spirit can actually start to dig in the Martian sandbox, however, there are a few technical obstacles to overcome. Last week, mission managers discovered a worrisome spike in temperature within the guts of the rover during the Martian daytime, requiring them to periodically power down some instruments to give the machinery brief cooling naps. An electrical surge in the main antenna also caused concern, but so far it appears to have been a harmless hiccup...
...last week, and engineers are planning to have the rover exit down a rear ramp. Even if that one proves to be blocked too, it would still be possible to drive over the bags, though that is a risky move since the fabric may have stiffened in the extreme Martian cold and could damage or interfere with the craft's solar panels. In either event, no one at J.P.L. is remotely calling these problems mission-enders--though no one expects the rover to be able to move off the lander much before the end of this week. "We have some...