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#1361
Watched a Nova Programme on PBS America (recorded) today on Life on Mars, the story of Percy and the equipment on board. Its amazing. It has arms inside the main body when carry samples to a tester, checks them, then carries them to a storage unit. At the time of the programme it was not certain if the rover would deposit the capsules on the surface. If so a rover will come along 8-10 years from now, with two brains, one searching for the location, known to within a metre, and a retrieval brain to sort and pick them up one by one and deposit them on a rack on the outside. It will then return to a small rocket waiting and load them on board. When the rocket blasts off, it will rendevous with a orbiting satellite and 'shoot' the baseball size container into the open mouth of the sat. The sat will store them directly into the earth bound capsule which will then be fired at earth!!! Amazing technology indeed. And here's me thinking it was lego!!!
My immediate question when watching how the cylinders will be left on the surface; what happens of a dust storm covers them up???
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