Faced With Step Two…or, 124

This is what we want to replicate.



Maybe a tad bit smaller and not with the weird guy in the white suit,

 

Let’s take a closer look. First, it was designed on Earth but it is supposed to run around Mars. Ours, unfortunately, is pretty much destined to run around Dublin California. 

The biggest challenge, well one of the biggest, is to duplicate the driving wheels. If you look closely at the picture above, you see that there are no axles on this rover. If you now go out to your car and look closely, you will note that your car as one or two axels. In fact, if you look at any driving vehicle within 356 miles of your house, they have friggin axles.

Yet, mysteriously the rover ain’t gottem. So, how does the rover move? Beats the shit out of me. Let’s Google that puppy. Should have known. Each wheel has its own motor. Fantastic! Now all we have to do is attach a motor to each wheel. OK, the two front wheels. Let’s not get too carried away. Got it figured out yet? Me neither.

See, the design of the wheel must contain the motor inside the wheel and tire. Otherwise, anything hanging down other than a rotating tire will get caught on rocks or maybe a Martian bone or something. Probably all of the crap we sent up there. Over there. Not sure if it is up or over. Certainly not down there. Hell no, not down.

Houston we have a problem. The Mars Rover has just had a collision with the Mars Explorer that we landed 10 years ago. And, Explorer is now Exploder as it died crashing into the Mars Octiplant parachuted on the surface along with 300 tons of worthless crap over the past 20 years. It’s like friggin Mt Everest with more discarded O2 canisters than actual open snow for walking. Climbers now walk on steel canisters all the way to the summit and never touch ice.

OK, I’m done with that rant. Back to our project.

Being a fast learner and swift of intellect, I reckon that we need to place an electric motor inside those tires. Furthermore, we need to control this thing remotely. Remember the NASA specs? Consider a remote controlled toy. So, we might start thinking about steering as well. (We’ll get to the solar recharging system next month.) Plenty on our plate right now for sure.

Its a start. A small step for a man...