Shaka, thanks for the vote of confidence, but Doug's got it right. We've got differential circumstances between Spirit & Oppy, and even assuming just a single possible failure mode (open wheel motor winding) the system can't really be described in a linear...i.e., predictive...fashion any more; we're deep into unknown territory here, and there are a <clink>load of variables to consider; any model would yield a portfolio of results that would be all over the place.

After all, the MERs have already far outlived their design lifetimes; they could last five more minutes or five more years (though I'm betting on the latter, and still think that statues of the design team members should be erected at all engineering schools... )

Well... we're still in predictive territory, in that we seem to be able to make the definitive statement "increased power draw means the wheel *will* fail at some point in the future." In other words, what we *can* do is infer from Spirit's example that the behavior we're seeing on Oppy means we've begun a failure mode; what you're saying we *can't* do is apply the Spirit example any further than that, to determine how that failure mode will play out in terms of time and use.

I understand your points, Doug and Nick. I will also say that they remind me of a basic argument that occurred during Apollo, the grand debate as to whether you could ever test flight hardware enough to ever determine its failure modes. There was one camp that believed it was insane to commit humans to systems that hadn't been tested hundreds of times, and another (the winning camp) that said you test to ensure the design is correct, but that there is no way to economically test every system enough times to get enough data points to make accurate failure mode predictions based solely on your test results. That second camp, the ones who invented and championed the "all-up" testing philosophy, understood the physics of their systems so well that, in some cases, they could use *single* data points to accurately define and predict failure modes in all sorts of booster and spacecraft systems.

I've seen many, many examples of accurate failure mode predictions based on only a few data points (but also based on a firm understanding of the physics of the situation). They ought to bring Mad Don Arabian out of retirement -- he used to do this kind of thing six times before breakfast... *grin*...

-the other Doug

Okay, let's look at it from another angle. The Great Genie of Mars pops up from beneath those rippled dust dunes on the floor of Victoria, spins over to Oppy, and with a huge flash and a manic laugh magically grants Oppy another year of "life", guaranteeing that her wheels or steering won't fail, her computers won't crash, her cameras won't dim and die, etc. She's in fine fettle.

You now know you can get to Ithaca...

...but is it worth it? Is there anything to see, or do, once you get there? I can't see any outcrops there, I can't see much at all. The first landforms she'd come up against would be those mountains on the western edge. She's not climbing those, is she? If she heads north, skirting around the mountains and into the crater, what's there?

So, it comes down to a simple choice I feel, if you push these engineering and lifespan issues aside. Would it be scientifically useful and rewarding to trek to Ithaca, even if Oppy could? Is Ithaca a more attractive scientific target than the opposite side of Victoria, where we have, if you recall, such as yet unseen and unexplored attractions as Sofi's Crater, Soup Dragon, numerous ridges and slump features, etc?

Personally, I'd much rather she finishes up at Gilbert, comes out, and drives on around the edge, continuing and completing her survey of Victoria Crater, than head off towards a destination that looks - if I dare use the word I always hear in my head whenever I look at a photo of it - boring.

And if I was Steve S or Jim B or any of the team, if I started to think that Oppy was nearing the end of her days I'd much rather drive her down to the crater floor and becalm her in those dust dunes, where she could end her days with dignity, taking beautiful panoramas, at different times of the day, showing the outcrops and cliffs surrounding and looming over her, beautiful images that would crown the Opportunity mission appropriately, than just monitor her dragging herself south, sol after sol, until one of those sols was eventually her last and she ground to a halt out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do except look at the clouds scudding overhead and the impossibly faraway horizons all around her.

I say when her mobile days are over, park her in the dark streaks
on the north rim. A couple years of Micro and Pan Cam studies should
settle the deposition vs clean sweep debate.

edit: Alternatively, park her on the "Beacon". A fitting memorial station
and a good lookout for a one-year time lapse, 360 degree movie of the
area's cloud and dust devil action.

But, at least, she would have tried.

I'd've thought there's probably plenty of exposed bedrock in those Ithaca rim hills, and surely climbable routes, at least before a wheel failure. And the interior appears to have plenty of "etched terrain", which presumably means exposed bedrock. Remember that's one big crater, and we don't have very high resolution images of it yet.

But I'm not convinced that Ithaca is a viable target. As I argued before, given the difficulties of maneuvering dunes, even with hirise imagery, I'd vote for taking the quickest route back to the smooth, flat "tarmac" to our north/northeast. Once there, there are many potential target craters in various stages of erosion (some looking very fresh), and the distances should pose no serious obstacle, perhaps even with a wheel failure. This would be our best bet at learning about the horizontal variation in the geology. And if the imagery supports it, there's still the possibility of following the tarmac all the way to the north rim of Ithaca.

Stu, I'm surprized by your suggestion of ending Oppy's days mired in the sand inside Victoria. If she were to come to rest at Victoria, I've long had the secret wish that it be atop the Beacon. From the highest point for kilometres around, she could monitor most of the crater and all of the surrounding plains.

And hikers doing the Oppy trail in the 23rd century may be guided towards Victoria by not just the Beacon, but, if they're lucky, by a glint of sunlight reflecting off our little friend, the Sentinel of Victoria crater.

There's no glory in trying for something that's not worth the sacrifice my friend.

Believe me, if Ithaca was a bigger version of Victoria, with crumbling outcrops, debris fields, dark streaks, ridges and ledges, I'd be waving a "Go Oppy!" banner too. It would be worth striking out for because, once we got there, there'd be sights to see, rocks to study, laters to investigate and panoramas to take. But look at it. There's Nothing There. It's an outline of a crater, an ex-crater, not really a crater at all.

A far nobler goal for Oppy - IMO - would be to circumnavigate VC before she rolled to a halt. Then we would have a great overview of the area, its environment, and geology. That far side of Victoria looks fascinating, doesn't it? Who isn't intrigued to know what the view would be from over there? Who isn't curious to look down on Soup Dragon and see those weird rocks from above? Who doesn't want to roll up to Sofi Crater and see how its formation scuffed up the rocks on the edge of VC itself?

Ithaca isn't a Promised Land it's just Somewhere Else To Go. Victoria has secrets to reveal yet, I'm sure. And we're already there.

Still, Steve told you you might be surprised where Oppy is heading, so we'll have to wait and see!

Sorry, I meant if her demise was imminent, i.e. if she started getting creaky before she had finished exploring her current surroundings. I absolutely agree that the top of Beacon would be a fitting resting place for Oppy, and I love your closing image, it's just what I see in my mind too.

I'm with Ustrax on this one.

the small scale variability of the terrain encountered by the rovers thus far has been surprisingly high (remember the
sudden disapearance of the blueberris etc.)

So if Oppy makes use of her remaining bonus life time to drive as far as she can onwards to new horizons then we
have a small but realistic chance of discovering entirely new and spectacular scientific findings waiting for us somewhere
out in the plains bewteen the dunes ...

Ponder this chance for entirely new discoveries (even if as low as, say 10 per cent)
against another couple of hunderd sols of in-place routine observations ....

So in the beginning of the mission we would clearly opt for the second alternative, avoiding unnecessary risk and make the most scientifc use per sol out of the expensive hardware

... but now, on bonus time, 10 times beyond any initial mission expectations... nothing to lose any more ... only to win

I am surprised by the fact we are establishing already a resting place to a rover that came all the way from Earth bumping into a small crater in Meridiani, then, enduring, reached a bigger one, and, victoriously, managed to, in spite of all the adversities, reach where we are now.
I'm all for the deep study of Victoria, but I'm eagering for the open spaces again, for the horizons gaining a contour.
I'm all for a new destiny, that does not mean necessarily Ithaca but others on the way to it.
And Stu...nothing to see? Have you see those peaks stretching from Oppy's line of sight at Victoria? That would be the same to say, when Spirit reached Gusev, that those hills weren't worthy, or unreachable as they were supposed to be.
Of course people have different ways of thinking, the Beacon image is quite romantic, but I'm more "Onward!" than romantic...I'm more of the kind to cross the Adamastor's cape and turn it into a Good Hope one than to sail on Africa's west coast's calm seas...I want to make it to India all the way, even if I do die trying so.
Magellan, who we honour at Victoria died pursuing is goal, never made it to Sevilla.
I would rather feel, when I become an elder man, with eyes wide open looking at the ceiling, that a certain rover tried the impossible and, bravely, fighting against age and an alien planet, ceased its journey exactly there, as you described it, among no and where. That no and where has a whole different meaning for me, it means that we went beyond what was expected, we have reached never seen lands, we have honoured our nature: To go Onward, against all odds.

I am not ready to sentence Opportunity to end its days at Victoria.

I want to see more, I want to rove more, I want to learn more, here I'll make mine Nirgal's words...new and spectacular scientific findings waiting for us somewhere out in the plains between the dunes...

The dunes...Opportunity's sea...if it has to be that way may our descendents find the brave wreckage of a mythic vessel that Tried to challenge the Gods...Prometheus comes to mind...

And all the hypothetical path towards Ithaca may, itself, be full of amazement and knowledge...we have several Victoria-sized craters on the way...we may increase our navigational skills for missions to come...we may learn a lot more about Meridiani...we may beat the horizon...

I am for the Ithaca dream, even if we wake up from it before its over.
I am for the Beyond. May we supply ourselves here, at Victoria, with all we need for the journey, the journey that I hope to be "a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery."

To address the "nothing to see, so why bother" - I'll quote one of my older (May 2007) posts on the topic:

"...Boring? I think not as bad as prior to Vicky, and the destination is already visible. There will be various outcrops and craters along the way, and lot's of entertainment in projecting where Oppy will go next. Plus Oppy ought to be moving quickly enough to guarantee some regular changes in scenery.

As to scientific value, this takes us into an entirely new geological realm, not only the Ithaca rim peaks themselves, but the interior of Ithaca as well - which the MOLA maps indicate is substantially (hundreds of meters, as I recall) lower than than Vicky, and thus having the potential of having once contained standing water. Taking Oppy in any other direction would just see more of the same fractured/layered evaporite - talk about boring..."

Likewise, with regard to navigability, I once (June 2007) looked into this in rather more depth than I have time for now:

"...Getting back to the question of whether the region between Victoria and Ithaca is traversable... I just spent some time measuring dune sizes in areas where Opportunity was able to A) Traverse irrespective of dune direction (for example, a point midway between Endurance and Purgatory, Traverse between dunes with care (for example, a point midway between Purgatory and Eagle), and C) Not traverse (Purgatory 1 & 2, or crossing dunes between them). I then spot-checked the HiRISE image to the south and east of Victoria and compared. Not surprisingly, there is a big non-traversable region to the east of Vicky, and another rather far towards the south, but much (most) of the remainder of the region falls in the traversable realm, either resembling the vicinity of Eagle crater (scattered dunes over open stretches of evaporite) or relatively small dunes which Oppy can just roll over without worrying about getting stuck, with the occasional exceptional big dune scattered about which would be easy to navigate around. In other words, it may be far more easily traversable than our earlier cynically optimistic assumptions. When I compare this "ground truth" with the Themis day/night infrared images it looks to me like there may be a nearly direct route between Victoria and the western rim of Ithaca, much of which can be covered in hundreds of meter safe drives. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic

To get a sense of this, use the fully-zoomed-in HiRISE image viewer to capture a view of the dunes (at the same scale) mentioned in A & B above, then scan around in the image viewer and compare with the captured images. The terrain gets progressively easier to navigate as you move to the southeast..."

I can't agree with you more, Fred. In fact, there is a post in here (likely in this very thread) in which I argue fairly strenuously for heading north-northeast and visiting a set of three craters that are relatively close to each other, but which have very different apparent morphologies. (Being the imaginative fool that I am, I named them A, B and C, if I recall...)

As for Ithaca / Big Crater, this thing looks big enough to have been formed at the end of the LHB. It has undoubtedly raised a lot of the strata that underlies the evaporite paving of Meridiani Planum into its rim hills, which would provide incalculable insight into the history of the region. But -- and it's a big but -- that material will have been heavily shocked and jumbled, covered by subsequent deposition, and difficult to find windows into.

Ithaca might be a very good target for a brand-new rover that lands within a km of its rim hills, but I doubt Oppy, even if she could get there, will have enough left in the tank to scrabble around and do a good job of characterizing the geology of the place.

So, my vote would be to exit the area (if that's what we feel we need to do) on a north-northeast vector, find the flattest tarmac we can, and investigate as many different crater morphologies as we can before she becomes a stationary lander mission.

-the other Doug

It may not be exciting, it may not be visionary, nor will it fire our romantic spirit, but post-Victoria, if Oppy's moving, surely the most info-per-metre route will be to backtrack at least some of the way she's been. We know the way and the terrain.

The Meridiani science to date has largely been snapshots of the planet. There's little to relate how Mars looks now to how Mars changes over a month, a year, two years. What processes occur over timespans we have no experience of? What state are old tracks in? Did the duststorm alter sites previously visited? On what scales?

Real world data of Mars' dynamism, and practical engineering data relating to the development of future, better rovers must be more worthwhile than some trek into the unknown with a certainly unattainable goal - or the parking of a still-mobile rover for little more than symbolic purposes.

Andy

How could have I missed this post?...
Thanks for those links marswiggles!

While there's no HiRise images we have almost all the terrain covered, what permits us to wildly, wildly speculate about possible routes and timelines...here's my take on reaching Ithaca in 16 months...OK, I'm will to push that into 2 years, not more than that...

Click to view attachment

Too unreal?...

Endurance to Victoria was a sprint. It had technical halts, but so would the drive to Ithaca. It had very very few science stops of any significance. Over long distances of mixed terrain - that's as good as it gets.

It took 22 months to reach Victoria. There is no reason to suggest a more rapid rate of progress could be made on the way to Ithaca. 40-50 months (or roughly 3 to 4 years) is far more realistic. Give the likelihood of one or more serious mechanical failures on the way, a conservative estimate could be at least double that.

That route in particular isn't great. South East isn't really a nice option. NE is far more navigable.

Doug

Thanks for the reality check Doug.

Now, for something different, did anyone noticed this feature (roughly 100 mts wide) on the image marswiggle provided the link?
A fresh impact?

Click to view attachment

Sure looks fresh to me, Rui; nice find! Anybody know how far away it is from Oppy?

About 15 kms up North...
Here:
Click to view attachment

I sure did notice that "fresh" crater out towards the NNE. It appears to be on the "tarmac", and it's one reason I want to get back on the tarmac. And to AndyG, once we're back on the tarmac it would be easy to revisit Endurance and the lander if desired.

(And just to be clear, I'm not at all in favour of the "parking of a still-mobile rover [on the beacon] for little more than symbolic purposes." I only think it would be a great place for an immobilized rover to carry out its final lander phase. The trouble is, we likely won't have any say where she'll become immobilized.)

15 klicks...argh, tantalizing. That's a LONG haul, though, and sure looks like Oppy would have to traverse some mean dune fields. Still....an option. That crater's probably less than a century old (maybe much less, actually); would be damn interesting to study the dark ejecta enroute as well as the recently excavated substrate.

I'm very surprised by your assesment, Stu : "there's nothing there"! I guess that if we've landed in Ithaca, Oppy would have made discoveries : better there than missing Mars altogether !
I say : Let's leave Victoria's orbit and go explore because we do NOT know what we'll find in Ithaca or at the fresh crater and on the way to there.
Oppy is ALREADY the most succesfull spacecraft on Mars, I do NOT want her to be turned as a monument that will be visited in a hundred year, I want to explore NOW. Pedal to the metal and no turn back.
As for science, let's compare Oppy going to Ithaca or elsewhere with NH going to Pluto : give most of the scientists a break and bring them back when we'll be there.
Note : I didn't say I want SS to replace Alan meanwhile

I'm really enjoying this debate, even tho I'm feeling a bit bruised under the eyes and sore in my ribs...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wanting to turn Oppy into a monument anytime soon, but the time might well come when the controllers begin to realise that her days are numbered, and if that day comes SOON then sure, park her up on a high place, and let her end her days watching the sun rise and set, the clouds drift across the salmon-hued sky, the shadows sweep across Victoria's floor, and show us everything in Pancam colour for as long as she can.

"I guess that if we've landed in Ithaca, Oppy would have made discoveries"

Of course she would; she'd have been a new rover, with fire in her belly, ready and able to explore her new surroundings. Wherever Oppy landed she'd have made discoveries simply because she was seeing and exploring a new place, a place never before seen. But think of it this way: if she'd landed halfway between Ithaca and Victoria, and you were in the driving seat, where would you have headed? For the smaller crater to the north, with visible, dramatic outcrops and intriguing sprays of dark material spewing out of it? Or south, to the ghostly remains of a more ancient, eroded-to-the-point-of-vanishing crater, with no immediately obvious geological attractions? I think you'd have chosen to go north. Well, we're at that crater already, with more of it to explore and, what, a good year's drive away from Ithaca...?

Having said that, if Oppy is in good health after exiting Victoria, her demise is nowhere in sight, and the science team decide that there are no more obvious targets further around the rim, then I'm in the I'm all for striking out again - but not to Ithaca. I still think that it's just not worth the drive.

I'm thinking that there must be something, somewhere, more interesting closer to Victoria, somewhere that Steve and the gang have in mind but haven't let on about yet.

Opportunity didn't continue past the dark streaks to this area,
instead returning to Duck Bay for entry. Perhaps at the time
it was considered more prudent to end further investigation of
the rim and enter the crater while Opportunity was still in good
health. Now that Duck Bay has been studied, they may want to
go take a look at those fractures.

Click to view attachment
"This enhanced-color view of the eastern rim and floor of "Victoria Crater"
...shows ridges that may be fractures surrounded by chemically cemented
sedimentary bedrock. The ridges are therefore potentially fruitful targets
for analysis by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity...."
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/mult...a/pia09191.html

I was hoping someone would bring that up. I thought I was the only one who was
disappointed when the rover was turned around.

Jack

The Agony and the Ecstasy!
If the masses aren't getting your message, Stuey, you may be using the wrong genre. From our Poet Laureate we expect a sonnet!
Ustrax has his pro-Ithaca poem; we need an anti-Itheca poem to weigh in the balance!
HTH
Shaka

Ahhhh I was looking for that image and the story that goes with it. This would be a better short term plan than wandering off into the dunes Lawrence "Titus" Oats style.

Stuey?!?! I haven't been called that since I was 6!!!!

Okay, I'll work on it...

Here you go Shaka...


("Stuey"... shakes head...)


TO ITHACA?

Oh how soon you forget!
When this gaping dust- and grit-filled eye socket
shocked you with its size you cried
“We are here!” and after peering over my shoulder
for months, watching the hump-backed horizon
crawl closer, suddenly you found yourselves
tumbling through a hidden door and falling
into a magical martian Narnia, where crumbling
cliffs and outcrops bathed in syrupy sunlight
promised wonders without end!

Now, before my fine-scratched digital eyes
have gazed at Great Victoria’s ragged eastern side
you would send me south - towards a
Time-worn hole that is barely even there?
Do you care nought for me? Have I not breathed
new life into this bold, cold New World of yours?
Would you despatch me to a distant shore
you all suspect in your conspiring hearts
is much too far for me to reach?
Has Barsoom bored you all so soon?

Fine. I will go. Ithaca shall be my goal,
my final “Holy Grail”. But when I fail,
when my worn and weary wheels cannot free
themselves from some unseen, undulating
dune you’ll rue the day you made me
turn my dusty back on Beacon and its company
of cliffs, and will admit that you were rash
to order me to dash towards a coffee-cup stain
“crater” so many crazy K’s away,
and watch me die.

I am just going outside… and may be some time…

© Stuart Atkinson 2008

God, what can Portugal offer to beat that?

I look at those "mountains" sticking up on the rim of Ithaca and I'm 4/5ths convinced they're pre-evaporite terrain or at least something substantially different from the sulfate and basalt-sand (with or without blueberries) we've explored so far on Meridiani Ithaca is a pre-mantling crater and was largely mantled itself. But the rim topography was high enough that isolated ridges of the original rim material appear to stick up through the eroded Meridiani layers draped over the rim. That's why I think the rim REALLY has a chance of being something different. If it's old crust, it'd be lile another stab at materials like those in the Columbia hills, only from deeper down, then eroded and modified before <and during> mantling before they were re-exposed as mantle over the topographic high of the rim was slowly stripped.

Other than that fresh impact, which would be "kewl" but probably not that informative on "follow the water" Martian geologic history levels, Ithaca offers one chance of really different geology that would be worth trying for. I have deep doubts about reaching it, but...

Man...putting some fuel to the fire?...
This is Stu's ground but I took the challenge.
This is it for now...I remembered some verses from a poem I truly like and follow from there...
I dare you Stu, to play the next card...

To trap the journeyer?
To silence the song of the quest?
To curtail the pilgrim’s step?
To cease?

Cease the one for whom life is only death delayed.
For whom the horizon is to contemplate, not to reach.
Not to challenge, not to smell, not to touch.

But you,
The one created by Man,
Bearing His mortality but also His will,
You have defeated the distance,
You, that are Us on another planet,
You, even tired of the roaming,
You, even missing Home,
And the Ones who gave you life,
You dare not to cease but to follow,
Freely, Beyond yourself,
Beyond us.

Until the end a Rover,
From the shiny Alfa to a dusty Omega,
Chasing, for Us, the Impossible,
Beating, for Us, the improbable,
Dreaming, as Us, with the far mountains.
Ithaca awaits,
not your arrival,
neither your triomph,
but your will to reach it.
Your will to move Onward.

Move,
Onward and do not cease,
Faitful, until the end,
To your pilgrim nature,
To the Human sparkle in you,
Your wheels, our feet, over the ground never walked,
Your eyes our eyes, beholding the never seen,

Faitful.
Until one final step, until one final look.


EDITED: I love the smell of Ultreya in the morning...

Poet Laureats all, but perhaps a touch of realism is in order? We have one crippled robot at Home Plate (sorry but she is already in hunker down mode mode in early autumn- not a sign of a healthy rover) and an ageing robot in Victoria. What these robots have achieved is amazing, but the laws of physics dictate that at some stage, and probaly not too far distant, one or both of these vehicles will expire. Forget fantasies about Icatha. What is the best return on say a three month (original mission_ 90 day venture). Heading fdown towrds the Victoria dunes seems a damn sight better than playing on the ejecta blanket!!!

I won't forget it until there's a possiblity.
I want to see this...:
Click to view attachment
...Closer...

The was an old rover called Oppy
Who's Rat mechanism was choppy
She was stuck in some dunes
Just running of fumes
For long term drive planning, that's sloppy.

I ask myself, if I were there in person would I really turn my back on this crater before exploring every bay and every cape, searching every available square metre of cliff face for something new and different (however small) that might later turn out to be an important clue? I don't think so. Just imagine the scene in 50 years' time:
"Good grief!! How did they miss that with the MER?"
"Guess they didn't look round this side."

All the hints and clues say I'm on the wrong track, I know. They'll probably retrace old ground as various team members with unfinished business at earlier locations stake their claims.

Genius. Cleverer than a fox on Mastermind, whose specialist subject is "Killing Chickens".

This is why we wanna go to Ithaca

Just feeding the myth...
Did you guys knew that one of the possible translations for Odysseus or Ulysses, the one who took ten years to reach Ithaca...the "resourcefulness" Odysseus...is "leg wound"?...
Oppy...
Oddy...
Things come always into place...

EDITED:
There will be, not so soon, a mission like this one...with such a passion, such an intense debate, where humans battling with poetry for a machine's destiny...
Not so soon...the MER mission is an anthem to Mankind itself, to the nature of each one of us but, more than that, to our nature as a whole species. Beyond...beyond ourselves...
I truly believe that.

This is something that both Jim Bell and I think, which typifies just how much a part of our lives those two machines have become.

I can't remember what my life was like before them.

Doug

Lovely words, ustrax. Whenever we do something great like this, I feel proud to be a human.

"For All Mankind"

Back in january 2004, when Spirit was not responding anymore and Oppy was a week to landing, I realised that we could loose both of them and the mission would be over before it ever realy started. I felt so bad during a full week.
Our life would have been so different...

Before I say anything else, congrats to our esteemed poets...I'm not even gonna try in the face of such emotion & inspiration, thank you!

Yeah, who'd've thought that we'd be cheering the MERs on in 2008? This epic journey may well mark the first genuine 'old-school' human exploration of another world, even though our presence has been virtual. We've seen what's beyond the next horizon, again and again; what a remarkable experience, and it ain't over yet! The bar's been set damn high for the future, to be sure.

Just curious, is there anyone here that would have Opportunity head for parts unknown
without first checking out these intriguing features on the East rim of Victoria? Show yourself.
Click to view attachment
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/mult...a/pia09191.html

T'would be interesting to get a close-up view of x-sections of the anatolia-features.

---Bill

I'd love to check them out, and I was surprized we didn't take a closer look when we were out east. But it might be a question of accessiblity. The bays may be too steep to enter over there, and it's tough to examine a cliff from the top of the cliff. Indeed, it looks like we actually were above one of those "linear features" on sols 1153 to 1157 atop Tierra del Fuego. Still I think there are a couple of spots where we could get a decent view of the features.

I'm particularly looking for one of the "Ithaca or bust" gang to step
forward and say that they value heading to the horizon above checking
out East Victoria, given the unique features over there.

On the other hand, I wonder what the chances are that those
"linear fractures" are not really unique, but are just a coincidental
weathering pattern on the layers already being studied by Opportunity.
The only way to know for sure may be to go and see.

November 2006 - 03:08 and I couldn't agree more with you...

I`d like to propose a route for Oppy after Victoria... This route could allow it:1.pass through difficult but accessible and already passed dune-field, so we could drive safe on the rover`s old tracks, 2.give a second look at Erebus as most of the MER team menbers feel they have unfinished business there, 3.possibly re-visit Endurance crater (although I don`t think it worths), 4.study two Endurance-sized craters (Triumph and Emprise), 5.pass near five small craters (Mettle,Nigh,Pathfinder,Sojourner and Trek), 6.study a very fresh crater (not many years old) and 7.study an old, Erebus-style crater (Ipparchus). The most interesting target of all is, of course, Junior crater because of it`s dark ejecta and the recently excavated substrate .The 17 km we need to go there may look a lot, but I think we have a very interesting and rare target there waiting us to explore it! Please, tell me what you think about my proposed route, targets and names of the craters!I specially ask for the opinion of Doug and the other Doug! :wheel: :pancam: :mars:

Intriguing Ipparchus. I infact had no idea that there was a fresh crater nearby!
But I must say that from an engineering standpoint Opportunity may not be able to last all the way.
Nonetheless your route map is worthy of consideration.

My thoughts exactly. In fact, I'm pretty sure what you label Triumph, Emprise and Pathfinder are the craters I was labeling A, B and C. In other words, the destinations I had pointed out a year or so ago.

Taking a trip up to the fresh crater would be a bonus in this traverse concept.

I will note that you can jog to the east of the old track we took south and avoid most of the soft ripple country. Assuming the wheel holds out, you could get up to the general area we're discussing in only a few months.

-the other Doug