IIRC - Matt Heverly, who drives Curiosity, said that the Soviet plutonium-238 pellets riding on the rover's tail could last upto ten years . . . there was a conversation about the fuel awhile back in this thread.
Talking about Heverly - he's probably all set now to take on Mount Sharp - this was going to be one of the major drives for him and he says that compared to the small moves they are making right now the drive up Mount Sharp's canyons and steep walls was going to be amazing.
Must be tedious, though, with the light-delay, giving those 'B-Spec'-type orders and waiting for Curiosity to respond.
'Curiosity, go forward ten feet, then show me where you are'
Okay, time for a sandwhich . . . heh. heh.
'Ah! So there's where you are. Turn left now and show me what you see.'
Off to check the mail now.. . .
'Oh! There's a rock right in front of you? Okay - hit it with those photons - let's see what colors come up.'
And so on.
I did go looking for that bit about the Martian microbes - and what the Guiness Book was talking about was an unearthly bacterium called D.radiodurans - something that shouldn't exist within our pattern of evolution; almost impossible to mutate even given astronomical doses of radiation - and whom scientists speculate would be the type of life found on Mars (if they find 'life', that is).
Here's to Heverly
- and hope he has a good drive up Mount Sharp.
