29Jan/106
Spirit
by Jeff
Image text: On January 26th, 2213 days into its mission, NASA declared Spirit a 'stationary research station', expected to operational for several more months until the dust buildup on its solar panels forces a final shutdown.
The title of the comic is a pun on the word "Spirit" because the name of the Rover is Spirit and in the comic, the rover is showing almost unwavering spirit as it goes about its mission for six years.
January 30th, 2010
and it refers to ‘Moon’
January 31st, 2010
Maybe in a few hundred years we’ll rescue it
January 31st, 2010
I believe technically the Smithsonian now owns the Viking landers from the 1970s, all they have to do is collect them
February 10th, 2010
It’s also important to note that both rovers on the mars surface were expected to last 90 days because of dust building up on the solar pannels but both far exceeded that period (because of marsian sandstorms). Both experienced casualties during that time and one (apparently the one in the comic) got irreversibly stuck.
May 19th, 2010
this comic got me all choked up when I read it *sniff* poor little rover…
also that line about how ‘a good rover would keep going, a good rover like they wanted’ sounds quite familiar, source anyone?
November 18th, 2010
That light pun is hardly the point of the comic. The humour comes from the elementary personification of the rover, who keeps trying to be good enough, but doesn’t realize that he’s been abandoned. They aren’t coming back to save him. The end of the mission means that they’re done with him, not that they embrace him with open arms for having done a good job. Munroe then compares the potential psychological trauma that would have on, say, an animal used for the job, who keeps trying to get that approval that was used to train the animal in the first place, who is now no longer needed.
Simple psychology joke, that’s all. And that’s much more important than a pun about spirit–if that were the point, this would be an exceptionally lame comic.