. "4 Conclusions and Recommendations." A Scientific Rationale for Mobility in Planetary Environments. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.
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TABLE 4.1Mobility Needs in the Solar System Exploration Roadmap's Campaigns and Portrait Missions
* Low, little or no mobility required; medium, robotic arms or other types of sample collection devices needed; high, mobile platform equipped with sophisticated instrumentation required.
the main thrusts of technical development, especially of rovers, are directed at reducing their size and increasing their autonomy. If size reduction also results in a corresponding reduction in range or other capabilities, it will, potentially, have a significant scientific impact. This is so because it creates a capability to make scientific measurements on a scale size that is not necessarily optimal for addressing the scientific questions to be answered.
The pattern of planetary exploration to date has been to make basic observations of planetary surfaces from orbiters and to establish hypotheses for interpreting these observations. These hypotheses are then tested by more directed observations and measurements. Because the hypotheses are based on orbital images with a relatively low characteristic resolution, this suggests that long-range traverses are required to test the relevant hypotheses. However, the focus of technical developments appears to be to create mobility systems capable of producing very detailed, but limited, data sets about very small areas. Thus, we run the danger of creating a technical capability to address scientific issues that might not, necessarily, relate to the framework of scientific questions and issues
