"At the beginning, there's nothing. There's no concept of a robot
explorer crawling across the surface of another world. And then,
gradually, you start to think. You start to act. We just start to build.
And those machines come to life." the principal scientist on the
Opportunity mission. Steve Squyres
Oppy is the affectionate nickname for the Mars exploration rover named Opportunity. Oppy was expected to be operational for 90 days and wound up roving the red planet for fifteen years. In Ryan White's documentary, Good Night Oppy. Ryan White has directed previous documentaries, notably, The Case Against 8
which was the behind the scenes look at overturning California's ban
against same-sex marriage and a film I helped screen at The In Light
Human Rights film festival in Bloomington, Indiana in 2014.
White and his team follow the rover and the scientists over the course of Opportunity's lifespan. From the ten years of proposals until NASA gave the green light to begin the program. To how would they get the rover to Mars. How do you get the rovers to land on Mars without damaging the robots. How do you build the machines so they can roam the arduous surface of Mars. What cameras and other equipment to you put on the rovers to collect and transmit data? The rovers began to be created at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "It's just a box of wires, right? But you end up with this cute-ish looking robot that has a face." Doug Ellison, camera operations engineer.
At one point early on we see Oppy navigating the surface of Mars and stops at it detects a hazard. It is only Oppy's shadow and NASA informs the robot rover she is safe to proceed. In 2003, twin sister robots named Opportunity and Spirit were sent to Mars.
One of the great sequences in the documentary is watching the scientist figure out the airbag landing system to get the rovers to land safely on Mars. We see people sewing this giant airbags. We watch the creation and testing of the parachutes. One of them crash to the surface during a test. That was going to be one of the parachutes that were going to go to Mars. There is genuine suspense as we follow the trials and tribulations of undertaking this mission to Mars. There are so many things that have to go right for any scientific space exploration mission and there are so many more things that can go wrong.
"And along come Opportunity. And on every test, Opportunity came through with flying colors. So, even before they left this planet, Spirit was troublesome, Opportunity was Little Miss Perfect." Doug Ellison. We see Opportunity take her first steps. "To say that it is like a child being born would be to trivialize parenthood, but it feels kind of like that." Steve Squyres.
In an age of science denial it was great to spend time with scientist asking questions about life on other planets. The grand adventure, the thrill of discovery and the act of creating robots. How can you not get emotionally caught up watching the rockets blast off to Mars with Spirit and Opportunity. "...it was hard to say goodbye. I devoted 16 years of my life to these rovers. And then you put them on top of a rocket and shoot them into space and you're never going to see them again." Steve Squyers.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As the Sols go on and Oppy lives far past her projected lifespan. She gets arthritis and suffers memory loss. It is a hell of a thing to get so emotional invested and defeated when the two rovers pass away.
Spirit and Opportunity. It what was expected to be a 90 Sol mission. Opportunity explored Mars for 5262 Sols. What a journey. Roam where you want to.
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