Last week NASA landed the planet rover CURIOSITY on Mars. The nuclear-powered vehicle suffered little damage to its recording and testing devices, however the scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab have set the CURIOSITY on ‘dream’ mode during a four-day upload of software for its initial exploration of the Gala Crater. The mission system manager didn’t say what kind of dreams the rover was experiencing in the shut-down, but I guess that they would have to be almost seering visions into the future and past with each update to its brain.
Once awake then the JPL will program the CURIOSITY’S destination as Mount Sharp
Scientists have been poring over pictures of the landing site snapped by Curiosity and spacecraft circling overhead. The pebble-strewn terrain where the rover landed appeared easy to traverse but the landscape gets more rugged the closer to Mount Sharp.
The base of the mountain is five miles away.
The rover will arrive in the foothills by Christmas.
Its top speed is 300 yards a day.
Slow, but not going nowhere is slower.