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NASA’s Spirit Mars rover has completed exploration of "Home Plate", but now faces the onset of Martian winter while dealing with dropping power levels and fighting a balky right front wheel. "Our current focus is to drive like hell … and try to get [Spirit] to safe winter havens before the power situation gets really bad," said Steve Squyres, lead Mars Rover Exploration scientist.
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Dr Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, has written an op-ed piece in Space News, decrying NASA's recent abandonment of methane-oxygen propulsion for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).
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Check out Google Mars, a Web browser-based mapping tool that gives users an up-close, interactive view of the Red Planet with the click of a mouse. The Martian maps were made from images taken by NASA's orbiting Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor.