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I was one of the optimists that felt the

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Rovers would survive the first winter

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and that we would have an extended

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mission but I never thought they would

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last through three Martian winters and

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continued to explore for five years we

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thought that you know we we were gonna

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be lucky if we got three months out of

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these Rovers we've got five years out of

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these Rovers and they just keep going

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and it seems like every day is better

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than the day before the mission just

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keeps getting better and better and

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better the longer it goes how do I feel

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about the fact that it's going on for

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everyone on the planet Earth is sharing

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in the experience of exploring the

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surface of Mars through our two

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surrogate children Spirit and

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Opportunity you're seeing Mars with with

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3d color stereo vision just as if you

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were standing there yourself the Rovers

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are just about your height and so they

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see the world from your perspective and

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and just as you would see it if you were

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there now they are well-named

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opportunity really has been incredibly

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opportunistic and lucky it basically

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found water from its Lander found its

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own heat shield we were able to examine

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for the first time a heat shield that

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was used on another planet cuz it

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happened to land nearby spirit really

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has had to have a lot of spirit to to

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keep going when we were hit by dust

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storms we get cleaned off and that's

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what's enabled the rover to survive this

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long when we broke the right front wheel

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we've made one of the major scientific

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discoveries by dragging this wheel

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behind us we're digging this trench and

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we're seeing what's under the surface

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and what we're finding every

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look are these salts and minerals like

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silica and sulfur that had to have been

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put there by hot water this last winter

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when we had to park for more than nine

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months in the same location because we

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just didn't have enough power to to

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drive the one thing we could still do

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was take pictures and we did take over

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the course of many many weeks sort of

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one frame at a time this beautiful high

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resolution full-color image of the

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location around spirit and it's one of

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the most detailed highest resolution

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images we've ever taken from the ground

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Kenda Victoria was great I mean it was

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21 months of trudging endlessly across

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these Plains and hardly seeing the

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scenery change at all I mean you know

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Victoria is out there we've got the

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orbital images we know where it is we

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know how far it is we were measuring

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distance to the nearest meter and then

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one day we're right at the rim of it

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there's just this spectacular scenery

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this fabulous geology laid out in front

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of us and yeah the combination of just

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what a glorious view it was plus so much

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effort that went into getting there

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pulling up to the rental Victoria it was

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to me one really special moments in the

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whole mission one of the most memorable

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and poetic images from the entire

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mission is an image that spirit took of

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the earth it was the very first picture

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that has ever been taken of the earth

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the surface of another planet earth is

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the evening star

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Mars is such a complicated place and

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these are such capable vehicles that

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there will never come a time regardless

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of whether when this mission ends

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whether it's tomorrow or five years from

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now there's always going to be some