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for a 90-day mission I remember when we

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landed we're excited we have three

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months to explore this region around our

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landing site and we basically blown the

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doors off that you know for six years

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now we've been doing classic field

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geology on Mars learning about the

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planet and its ancient past and it's

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been there been powerful revelations

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that have come well after that prime

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mission this experience of spirit is

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something that I've really kind of

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integrated into my whole identity you

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know this has become part of what I do

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and it looked at the very beginning of

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the mission like this was going to be

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something that I got to do for very

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brief time for three months and that was

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terrific and it was meek and was special

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i was really looking forward to it and I

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never in my wildest imagination believed

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it was going to go on here's Spirit

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really has had to have a lot of spirit

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to to keep going it's been the little

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Rover that could in a way it's had to

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work very hard for all of its

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discoveries two years into the mission

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so well past the prime mission the right

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front wheel stopped working and the

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wheel isn't spin so when we drive we

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drive backwards dragging that wheel and

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it would cut a furrow and so it actually

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turned out to be yet another scientific

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instrument or scientific investigation

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because it now trenched as we would

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drive along revealing was just beneath

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the surface one thing that we seem to be

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finding almost anywhere we're digging

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trench are these widespread deposits of

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various kinds of salts and minerals they

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look this brilliant white or yellow and

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the color images and that's because

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they're either sulphur or silica or

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salts of various kinds and the really

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important thing about these minerals and

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salts in particular is that that the

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only way they form is with water so the

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fact that we're finding these salts is

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real evidence that there was hot water

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over a very widespread area not just a

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little isolated pockets Mars really

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could have been a place that supported

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life and without these Rovers driving

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over these vast distances far beyond

55
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their expectations we would never have

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known that that's one of the great

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discoveries it's bear did well after its

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prime mission and as a result of one of

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the most serious mechanical failures

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we've had on either rope Mars is pretty

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harsh place we've had dust storms before

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we have really low power situations in

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winter we've had other small glitches

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that have caused us some tense moments

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but spirit seems to always find a way of

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turning some kind of adversity

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april of 2009 we were driving on the

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west side of home plate after we were

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unsuccessful in trying to go other ways

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around home plate and the rover broke

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through what I would describe as a

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perfectly camouflaged tiger trap and we

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were driving on terrain that we had

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successfully driven on before but

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suddenly the rover broke through a crust

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and was now embedded in some loose soft

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material it's almost like quicksand for

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the rover and with just five wheel

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spinning the only thing that was

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happening was the rover was sinking

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deeper into this material so we stopped

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and we did a very ambitious ground test

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campaign were built a sand box in the

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ground use one of our engineering Rovers

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and experimented with techniques to try

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to get the rover unstuck the reality is

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is it's very difficult with just a five

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wheel Rover to get it unstuck from this

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we have a very ambitious stationary

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science campaign for the rover I mean

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for six years we've been driving both

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Spirit and Opportunity not really taking

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any time to stop and smell the roses

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there's a lot of Lander science that one

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can do and we plan to do that with

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whispering spirits continued triumphs

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absolutely amaze me just the fact that

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we've had so much more of this mission

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than we ever thought we were going to

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have what these Rovers have done is that

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they have made Mars a familiar place

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Mars is now our neighborhood my team

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goes to work on Mars every day and that

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I think is the the great in tangible

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contribution from these Rovers is that

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Mars is no longer this you know strange

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unknown world I mean yes it's still

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mysterious but much of Mars is now known