NASA'S test rover, 'Scarecrow'
The Mars rover (named Curiosity) is still en route to Mars and won’t get there until August, but NASA wants to be prepared for that moment. So, it’s been holding training exercises in one the environments which closely resembles the red planet; Dumont Dunes in Death Valley.
Because it doesn’t have the ‘brain’ that the real rover has, the test rover has been called ‘Scarecrow’, referring to the character from The Wizard of Oz, who wanted so much to have a brain. Scarecrow only weighs about 750 pounds, far less then the 2,000 pound behemoth which will be landing on Mars.
The real rover will be brought down by a sky crane, a sort of hovering rocketship, and the rover will be exploring an area called Gale Crater, from which the 3-mile high Mt. Sharp rises from the middle. Its main mission will to be to examine the layers of Mt. Sharp and also determine if Gale Crater was ever able to support microbial life. It is reported that the real rover has 10 instruments to help it identify organic material, even a laser that will used on rocks.
This scenario reminds us of the Desert Dogs last trip to Beveridge City, where we witnessed an UNIDENTIFIED Flying Object. One of the possibilities we discussed was a rover. The hovering and erratic flying we witnessed could be explained by the sky crane, and the much closer to the ground strafing and light show could be a test rover using its test laser. Again, we don’t know what we saw, but parts of this story definitely reminded us of what we saw!
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