Tires on the ground ...

I got that surface evolver program working [] Now, I can import the point data from a dem file and also the poly data but the program needs the edge data. Does anyone have a 3d app that can get that data?

Didn't NASA have to park its rovers up on the side of a hill for the martian winter, just to keep the solar cells ticking over? keeping our salive for two and a half years is going to be a hard job. We have to allow for a high mortality rate.

When i talked to the guy that created this evolver program, I said that the least route map created by a geomorphologist would have a relationship to the least route map created by a political geographer, he wrote back that human activity is messy and that superhighways can follow deer runs which are thousands of years old.

I said yeah, [] Deers are there because rivers are there; so people are there. Our geomorphologist can draw out a least route for rivers, then refine it by looking at "river piracy," where one river robs another of its feeder streams.

The political geographer would have to add weighted virtual mountains to shift the least routes from political borders.

I took a look at a map of the Sidonia "artifacts," in which someone had drawn lines and measured angles to try and show artificiality, These were really great circles. People don't go from a to b along great circles, they go the least route. least routes will change over time but they will have a history. Think of the shape of a very old city, like York, it's new least routes are based on fossilised older ones.

I think we can keep the first generation of rovers near the equator and mitigate some of the wintery effects.

<b>[Stoat] "We have to allow for a high mortality rate.</b>"

The ball rover design might not attrit as fast as other designs. It is cushioned from mechanical shock, and sealed from dust and moisture (in the inflated tire variant). That last might be more important than one would imagine, since there is evidence for water on Mars.

If the rovers are robust in design and construction quality, they should do well in terms of reliability and lifetime.

In reviewing my version 1 estimate, I see that I left out the Earth-side relay satellite(s). That ought to push it over $500 million. I wonder what else I have missed?

I think we've got to push for am interrnational year of Mars. That way we can get sponsors on board to cover most of our costs. Then the rental of rovers would be a subsidised p,r, project for international companies. Who knows, a few of them might help with R & D. Something for their junior engineers, and there's always the possibility of spin offs.

We will have some allies but i expect that some of those might only join to do a bit of spoiling for their own designs. I'm thinking of those that want nothing less than a manned landing. I think we can convince them that this is the best way to go at the moment.