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green board green green

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five five

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four four four three three

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two one engine start and liftoff of the

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delta ii rocket carrying the spirit from

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three

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two

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main engine start

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zero and liftoff of the delta rocket

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with opportunity a chance to explore and

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unlock the secrets of our neighboring

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they're on mars everybody

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is

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the two landing sites are very different

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and we've used the two vehicles very

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opportunities landing site is smooth and

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flat you can drive for miles it's all

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spirits landing site is very rugged

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very rocky moving around is much more

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difficult

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a spirit's landing site is at a higher

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latitude so the winters are much more

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severe and so coaxing that vehicle

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through a cold

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uh dark martian winter is is is a much

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tougher job than it is for opportunity

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now they are well named opportunity

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really has been incredibly opportunistic

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and lucky it basically found water from

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its lander

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it's been able to do all kinds of things

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like being able to drive into these

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craters

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it found its own heat shield and we were

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able to examine for the first time a

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heat shield that was used on another

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planet because it happened to land

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nearby

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spirit really has had to have a lot of

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spirit to to keep going it's been the

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little rover that could in a way it's

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had to work very hard for all of its

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discoveries these are phenomenal

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vehicles so well engineered and designed

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and built

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that they've been able to last but

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they've been able to do this very

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challenging dangerous

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uh exploration of the surface i mean

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they are very much intrepid explorers

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you know are proxies on the surface of

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mars

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um you know going forth to explore this

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mars is a nasty place

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and one of the things that mars does

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is every so often

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blows up into a global dust storm our

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third summer on mars it happened

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storm went global

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you know blocked out the sky

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if you were sitting at the surface of

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mars where where opportunity was the

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amount of direct sunlight

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hitting the solar panels was less than

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one percent

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of what it would be with a clear

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atmosphere you could barely tell where

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the sun was in the sky

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this is a very scary thing if you're a

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solar powered vehicle obviously

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and uh yeah it was it was this kind of

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helpless feeling you're sitting there

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and mars is doing what it does and it's

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you know you sit there feeling like the

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planet's trying to kill our rovers

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and we

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had this very challenging job of

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managing this this tiny amount of power

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the bad wheel on spirit has been

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both a curse and as it turns out a

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blessing

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the curse part is obvious it's very hard

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to drive that vehicle now it's spirit's

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in some pretty tough terrain anyway and

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now you're dragging this dead wheel

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through the dirt uh you know 10 meters

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is a really good day for spirit

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these days but

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it's had a wonderful silver lining these

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trenches that she would that she was uh

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uh digging that just sort of naturally

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happened by dragging a wheel through the

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dirt um had these bright patches at the

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bottom some of those patches turned out

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to have a hot very high like 90 silica

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content and the way you get a high 90

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silica content is lots of water activity

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so by dragging spirits broken wheel

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around she actually turned up some of

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the best evidence we found

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of water on either vehicle so far on

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get the victoria was great i mean it was

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21 months

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of trudging endlessly across these

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planes and hardly seeing the scenery

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change at all and then one day we're

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right at the at the rim of it and

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there's just this spectacular

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scenery this fabulous geology laid out

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in front of us and

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yeah the combination of

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just what a glorious view it was

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plus so much effort that went into

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getting there

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pulling up to the rim of victoria was to

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me one of the really special moments in

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how do i feel about the fact that it's

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going on for five years exhausted

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i mean really tired uh you know i

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thought we were gonna get maybe six

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months out of these things

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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

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but i never thought they would last

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through three martian winters

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and continue to explore for five years i

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never in my wildest imagination believe

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it was going to go on for five years and

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give me this opportunity to see so much

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of mars and for so long and to learn so

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much about not only about the vehicles

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but about the science of mars and about

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you know the the area in which they

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landed and to just have this opportunity

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that that i thought was going to be a

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terrific little kind of short honeymoon

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just kind of go on and on and on and on

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and on and just and just get better all

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the time we're going to push these

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rovers as

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hard as we can for as long as we can

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you know as long as they keep on moving

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as long as they keep making discoveries

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it is our responsibility

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to push these vehicles until they drop

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the rovers have made mars familiar to us

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you know

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prior to their landing it was this

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mysterious place and even though it had

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successful orbiting

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missions we didn't have a human

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perspective on mars it was always a very

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distant perspective the rovers have

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given us that human perspective and now

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it is familiar to us

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mars is such a complicated place and

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these are such capable vehicles

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that there will never come a time

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when we're done

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regardless of whether when this mission

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ends whether it's tomorrow or five years

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from now

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there's always going to be some

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wonderful tantalizing thing just beyond

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our reach that we didn't quite get to

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when our children and grandchildren

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bring home that science book where it

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says you know there is evidence

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of liquid water on mars

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to know that you helped build and

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operate um and and direct the rover to

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that spot

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uh yeah that's very rewarding we're

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tired

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but

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there's just nothing more fun than

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getting up in the morning and going to

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work and

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you know seeing something nobody's ever

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seen

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before and then deciding you know all of

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us sit down together today on this

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planet to decide what's going to happen