No driving is planned today. But yesterday's drive stopped a bit earlier than we'd hoped, after covering 2.19m of the planned 2.5m, due to increasing tilt. We knew the tilt limit was tight, but we allow only 8deg of tilt this close to the rim, and our limit of 7.8deg was about as high as we'll go.
But, looking at the data ... well, I'd be comfortable commanding another 30cm at a higher tilt if it came to that. Our slip wasn't increasing, which is what the tilt rules are really about, and if anything, we'd probably actually flatten out a bit more over that distance.
The possibility is alive for a while, until Larry Soderblom comes by. "Two point one nine meters is close enough," he announces, and that's that. No driving today.
I do have to come back later in the afternoon to give a demo for the college-aged son of a friend of Charles Elachi, the Lab's director. I don't know what's happened to college kids since I was in college myself. They seem to be opening the entrance gates to younger and younger students. Pretty soon, they'll be letting kindergarten kids in.
But he's a nice guy, and appropriately enthusiastic and impressed. So I won't hold his youth against him. He's clearly wise beyond his years.
[Next post: sol 1096 (Opportunity sol 1075), February 1.]
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