In 2020, NASA is expecting to release a new rover to explore the planet Mars. This will be the fourth rover they have sent. Instead of exploring places we have already been, NASA should push the limits and branch out among the stars by sending high-tech rovers to other planets, like Venus.
NASA sent two rovers to Mars in 2004. I remember clearly learning about it in the fifth grade; I was so excited. With the minimal knowledge I held as a fifth grader, I still understood that we were sending robots to Mars, a planet I would never be able to walk on. This blew my mind then and still does today.
The second and third rovers sent were named Spirit and Opportunity. They were sent to Mars on the same mission. Spirit has since broken down, but Opportunity is still up and exploring today. Opportunity is not expected to last much longer, so NASA recently sent another rover, Curiosity, to take its place.
Sending Curiosity to Mars was more than warranted, but sending a fifth rover to Mars is not. It’s unnecessary and redundant.
Venus is a lot closer to the Earth than Mars and unlike Mars is very hot. NASA calls it Earth’s “twin planet.” NASA also said that evidence found by European orbiters show that the planet has been volcanically active and that it has an atmosphere similar to ours.
This sounds like a fantastic planet to explore; imagine the things we could find. Apparently the only thing holding NASA back is the extreme heat of the planet. Oh yeah, and its unnecessary obsession with Mars.
NASA reported that in 1970, a Russian spacecraft to Venus was able to send about 20 minutes of information from the planet’s surface before completely shutting down. In 1984 Russia sent two more spacecrafts, Vera 1 and Vera 2, that were able to land and collect data on Venus.
If I were NASA, I would have already started working on technology that could withstand extremely hot temperatures for longer periods of time. It has already been over 40 years since our first landing there, and it’s not like we do not have the resources to invent these types of things. So what’s taking NASA so long to create this new technology?
Maybe it’s the fact that they are building more rovers for a planet they have already been exploring. Only this time, the rover will probably be able to collect samples of soil and rock and send them back to Earth. NASA should have thought of that idea before they decided to show off and send Curiosity to Mars during the 2012 Olympics.
2020 will be another year where another rover is sent to do another exploration on the same planet we’ve already been exploring. Instead, I’d like to hear that NASA will be releasing a new rover to explore another planet in as much detail as we’ve explored Mars. We should be taking the steps to push our limits and expectations once again.
