Rov Mars Analysis

Throughout Steve Squyres book, Roving Mars, there is often direct conflict in the goals and processes of the groups composed of scientists and the groups composed of engineers. This is first evidenced through the AO. One of the opening processes Squyres identifies that he must endure in order to send hardware to Mars is the AO, the Announcement of Opportunity. He identifies the AO as one of the strikingly few “things that can get scientists and engineers to pull together,” (Squyres, 12). Due to the difference in the nature of engineering and the nature of science, it is quite logical that their respective practitioners would not always be prone to ready collaboration. Engineering is a practice rooted in practicality. A goal or problem is presented,

There is significant conflict between the people actually doing the work—the engineers and scientists—and those who administrate and finance the projects. The capital providers have final say on what happens, as they are going to be held accountable for failures that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Quite similar to the case of Coley, Ewing and Rockefeller in Jerome Groopman 's essay, “The T-Cell Army,” in which Coley is unable to provide to Rockefeller an attractive option, but Ewing is and thus Rockefeller funds Ewing, the scientists and engineers in Roving Mars have to be able to present to the asset holders at NASA attractive options for development and research in order to receive initial or further financial means to carry out their projects. This is why Weiler and other NASA and JPL higher ups are constantly skeptical of the work being done by the scientists and engineers, because they are responsible for making sure the work is worth the money it costs and for making sure the work is not simply leading to a dead end. These pressures, though, are far from unwarranted. Much like how in the aforementioned case of Coley, Ewing and Rockefeller—but viewed through the scope of Carl Sagan 's essay, “The Burden of Skepticism,”—it is right for the capital source (in Rockefeller) to be skeptical of the project (in Coley 's and Ewing 's respective works) to be sure of its worthiness for allocation of funds, it is right for the administrators at NASA to be skeptical of the advances made by the Roving Mars team before delivering them budget increases to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. This political motivation drives the extra thorough investigations and evaluations of the MER team 's work—such as the highly critical ATLO Readiness Review, during which “JPL review board members didn 't seem convinced we could make it,” (Squyres, 143) and “the Independent Review Team members were ominously silent,” (Squyres, 143)—as none of the executives want their heads on