Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

If a system designed to last a few months last 12 years, is that a success or a failure?

A recent story hailed the success of the NASA Mars rover. The rover was “designed” to last a few months, but is still going after 12 years. Wow! What a great design and implementation!

There is, however, another perspective on this, especially since it was built with the money of tax payers.

The system was required to operate a few months. Someone spent too much time, money, and expertise on the rover. They designed and built it to last 12 years—that is why it has lasted 12 years. That was a waste of money. The rover could have been designed and built much faster at much less cost.

Yes, there are advantages to having the rover function for 12 years. We, however, paid for those advantages. The persons who set the initial requirements didn’t want those advantages.

Oh, by the way, since the rover has continued to function and send data back for 12 years, we—the taxpayers—are paying the salaries of all those people who are receiving and analyzing the data. Perhaps this whole episode is a conspiracy of the data analysts who wanted paying jobs that lasted 12 years instead of a couple of months.

So, is this a design success or failure?