Facts Killing a Wonderful Theory

[mishalak]

I was sitting here thinking to myself about building really solid and reliable machines to explore other planets. Not that we as a species (and as Americans) haven't done really much better than expected with the two Mars Rovers. I was just thinking, "Hey wouldn't it be great if we could build machines that worked well with an environment rather than against it." So if we could theoretically build a rover that would be happier working in the range of -17.2° C to -107° C as found on Mars rather than fighting to overcome it with heaters and such.

And then I remembered superconductors and I looked up the record. 138 kelvin or -135.15 degrees Celsius. Poo. So close and yet so very far, I suspect that the only place our current batch of superconductors will work is out past Jupiter. Well at least we're getting closer.