Rover Revival

My first visit to meet Percy at Jezero Crater.

In ethics class, we talked about the right and wrong ways of dealing with a historic site. We used the old Mars 2020 Perseverance rover as an example.

Amazingly, "Percy" was still working when the first Rocket Team astronauts landed at Jezero Crater. As you know from the history books one of the first things they did was hike over and say hello.

Some people thought they should have left Percy alone to be respectful of its long, historic exploration. But the astronauts thought the opposite; they decided to give Percy tires and a tune up and assure it could continue the mission.

Today, decades later, Percy is still rolling around Jezero as a fully integrated part of the daily business of exploration. New students love to get their picture made with this famous rover (I included my own picture above).

But should the astronauts have done this? Should they have left Percy as a slowly decaying robot, with wobbly wheels and a cranky computer, to eventually fail for good?

What do you think about Percy's explorations on Mars? Tell me about it at

RamoneRocketeer -at- gmail -dot- com