B
berna
Guest
I like the idea of a successor to the MERs which exceeding all expectations contributed a lot to the understanding of Mars.<br />The space crane concept looks great to pinpoint the landing site but requires a lot of artificial inteligence in order to cope with every possible contigency. Eg. altitude estimation error, dangerous land features. Also I do not understand why a big rover with nuclear or isotopic power will be limited to 10 ~ 12 miles instead of a few hundred.<br />Longer range would certainly allow to study more variety of terrain and increase the chances of finding hints of life.