Back To Mother Earth

Now that we have partaked in the Rastaman interlude, time to get serious about ‘suspensions’. (BTW, 325 kids got suspended in the last post for using ‘shit’ in a sentence.)

Plate 3.77

If you look at the Mars Rover in the reference plate 3.77, you will notice that the suspension that holds the self-driving wheels is friggin cool. (High use of intelligent vocabulary right there.) The suspension holds three wheels on each side. Count them Grasshopper. Three.

The front carriage fulcrums on the frame with a rear lattice-like mono-pivot that distributes Bob’s weight to the most grounded wheel as to free up the ‘most dicked up wheel’. (NASA’s term, not mine.)

Imagine Bob slowly moving across Mars and hitting umpteen (NASA’s term, not mine.) rocks and prior NASA delivered pieces of garbage on the surface of the red planet.  Bam! Bob hits a rock. Bob’s ass end raises up to take pressure off Sally the rock. And, there you have the world’s first intergalactic Bob & Sally early reader book. That said, this is exactly what is cool about the rover suspension, even without Sally.

I know that you are asking as to why your car doesn’t have this three wheel drive array on each side. Not sure but I am guessing that the next time you get stuck up against a Mars rock you will fire off an email to Ford suggesting a third complete redundant rear drive assembly just like Ol Bob’s here.

For you slow learners, a more simple exploded view with assembly numbers for rocket scientists who earned their PhD putting together Ikea flatbox furniture.