Space & Astronomy

Could Curiosity return to Earth one day ?

By T.K. Randall
October 25, 2012 ·  7 comments

Image Credit: NASA NASA's Mars programme director Doug McCuistion has said that he hopes astronauts will one day visit the rover and bring it home. "It is my hope that humans will be sent to Mars in the 2030s, or 2040s, and they will be able to walk up to Curiosity and bring it back, as I am sure there is a museum out there that would love to have it," he said. With its nuclear power source the Curiosity rover could continue to operate for decades.

McCuistion's comments raise other questions about the future of other spacecraft that have been sent out to explore the solar system. Could humans one day catch up with the two Voyager probes and bring them back to Earth to take pride and place in a museum exhibit ? What about the Apollo moon landers ? Could the site of Neil Armstrong's first footprints on the lunar surface become a museum exhibit in itself ?[!gad]NASA's Mars programme director Doug McCuistion has said that he hopes astronauts will one day visit the rover and bring it home. "It is my hope that humans will be sent to Mars in the 2030s, or 2040s, and they will be able to walk up to Curiosity and bring it back, as I am sure there is a museum out there that would love to have it," he said. With its nuclear power source the Curiosity rover could continue to operate for decades.

McCuistion's comments raise other questions about the future of other spacecraft that have been sent out to explore the solar system. Could humans one day catch up with the two Voyager probes and bring them back to Earth to take pride and place in a museum exhibit ? What about the Apollo moon landers ? Could the site of Neil Armstrong's first footprints on the lunar surface become a museum exhibit in itself ?

Source: BBC News | Comments (7)

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