John Schutkeker wrote in
3:


Isn't it terrible luck that, with the Spirit Rover starting to explore
Mars, it has to compete against the Iowa caucuses and the New
Hampshire primary for news coverage? For all I know, JPL is making
huge strides forward, and I'm missing the whole thing, because all the
headlines are about Dean, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards. I'm as big a
fan of presidential politics as the next guy, but the search for life
on Mars is a trillion times more interesting. Why can't journalists
get their priorities straight?

There is very little news *of interest* regarding the rover. Its job is to
examine the geology of the area. To do this, it has the ability to drive
around, looking for rocks that differ from the basic dirt & dust that
covers most of the surface. But! To do the comparison, we need to know just
what the dust & dirt is made of. That is what the rover is doing right now.
Its not driving around, its not drilling into rocks, its not doing
*anything* exciting. What is *is* doing is staring at the dirt in front of
it, photographing the dirt, analysing the dirt. I expect this will be
followed by an in-depth examination of the rover tracks in abovementioned
dirt. Boring!

Later on, once the basic mars-dirt is understood (and all the instruments
on the rover checked out & calibrated), we should get some more exciting
happenings. Just keep in mind that the rover can complete some 50+ percent
of its job right where it is now, just off the lander. No need to do any of
the glamorous stuff, before the first set of objectives are met.