[skerit]

The furthest distance a robot on mars has traveled from its landing position isn't even 50km. Over many, many years.

For example, on Nasa's website it says this about Perseverance:

> This map view shows the route NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has taken since its February 2021 landing at Jezero Crater to July 2024, when it took its “Cheyava Falls” sample. As of October 2024, the rover has driven over 30 kilometers (18.65 miles), and has collected 24 samples of rock and regolith as well as one air sample.

That's about 8.5km per year.

So I think they would have to land a new one pretty close.

[RobotToaster]

Why does it move so slow?

Isn't it solar powered? So it could just keep moving in the right direction?

[theoreticalmal]

Unfortunately, the roadway infrastructure on Mars hasn’t been updated in decades, so there are lots of rocks and potholes/craters and other obstacles that need to be avoided. You know how those jeeps go out to Moab, Utah and do the 4x4 trails? It’s like that but there’s only one vehicle and no human and 1 hour communication round-trip and if something goes wrong the tow truck is millions of miles and billions of dollars away

[jvanderbot]

The two solar powered ones are decommissioned, both mostly because of diminishing power but one got stuck first. Away from the equator solar power is less effective right? And it's colder, which exacerbates a serious problem: most the energy goes to heating the main components.

The nuclear rovers are doing their assigned missions, and can go about 100m/day IIRC. So, 5000km trek to the pole would take about 50,000 days at 10d/km. Give or take a few thousand km. (It's a whole planet right?)

This is all Wikipedia level research and from memory.

[kataklasm]

One major issue with transportation in the Martian environment is the extremely abrasive dust and the sharp rocks. Pretty much every rover has had the issue that the wheels deteriorate very quickly and dust gets into every nook and cranny, eventuelly destroying important movement-related mechanisms. As to their movement speed, that's mostly down to the movement being manually commanded and with the light delay of about 20 mins (one-way), you can only command the rover to go so far before involuntarily hitting an object.

[Mistletoe]

This doesn’t bode well for any human base there does it? We will have these same abrasive dust problems on human movers and machines.

[keyringlight]

I recall reading that a major candidate for any early colony is in lava tubes, dust on the would be one factor, but radiation shielding is another. Either you have to ship materials from Earth and build them, consume whatever is available and useful locally, or make use of whatever Mars-nature provides. If you can get away with lighter materials to build below surface then it seems better compared to more durability/shielding requirements above.

[adrianN]

Humans are better at cleaning than robots.

[pfdietz]

The dust on the Moon will be even worse.

[dylan604]

why? there's less wind. supposedly, the astronaut footprints are expected to remain intact for quite a long time because of it.

[pfdietz]

Exactly. There is no wind. All the little solidified impact glass particles, with their razor sharp microscopic edges, have not been smoothed by even the slightest wind erosion.

[werdnapk]

The rovers are controlled remotely, so imagine playing a video game where your inputs lag by upwards of 40 minutes and you can't crash.

[inglor_cz]

You really don't want the vehicle to get stuck. Recovery may be impossible.

[stevenwoo]

They have metal wheels that wear out. Even given unlimited power they would no longer be capable of movement after enough wheel/tire wear.