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Re:Breaks Observed in Rover Wheel Treads by passivepinetree on Wednesday March 22, 2017 @11:55AM (#13931931)
Well, regardless of how well an Earth car would perform, it'd likely be far too heavy/expensive to get to Mars in the first place. It's impressive how NASA can solve problems with the resource constraints they have.
Re:Breaks Observed in Rover Wheel Treads by jonknee on Wednesday March 22, 2017 @12:01PM (#13931996)
It would obviously be a dumb idea, but Curiosity is in the same ballpark as a car in both size and weight (1,982 lbs). A Smart Car is ~1,800 pounds, so it's actually heavier than some Earth cars!
Re:Breaks Observed in Rover Wheel Treads by passivepinetree on Wednesday March 22, 2017 @02:53PM (#13933633)
Interesting, I didn't know that Curiosity was that heavy! It's a ways away from Jeep Wrangler/military Humvee territory (especially if you loaded one of those up with the required scientific instruments) but it'd be cool to see NASA go with something heavier-duty for longer-range missions in the future.