[Quote]:

It seems every time I come across a story about the Mars Curiosity rover there will be many people commenting on the technology used starting with "Why don’t they just..?" and usually pointing out things like: the processor in their smart phone is way faster than the one of Mars, or they have way more memory on their iPad, or their digital camera is way better than the one sending back pictures. These "Why don’t they just..?" questions are both annoying and to be expected.

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A good way to see how hard it is to build and operate a rover would be to build one designed for operation in an inhospitable part of Earth. Launch it via a high-altitude balloon with parachute descent and then operate it without GPS over a slow, high latency radio link.