Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[rice07]

Hi,

Please help me confirm the following:

When googling, I learn that a space rover(or sometimes planetary rover) is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other astronomical body. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots. Rovers usually arrive at the planetary surface on a lander-style spacecraft. And a spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo.

Based on the above, I assume that, usually, a space rover(or sometimes planetary rover) COULDN'T FLY. But a spacecraft or spaceship could.

Why I raise this question? The reason is there is a sentence-- What is faster than a space rover?-- in one of my son's English textbooks, and the sentence shows no difference in the meaning of Chinese, when rendering, between space rover(or sometimes planetary rover) and spacecraft or spaceship. Therefore, that might confuse the kids there.

Thank YOU for helping me straighten it out, and your time.

Yours sincerely
rice

[Lorikeet]

You are right, and the book is wrong. I have never seen "Space Rover" used to describe a spaceship. I would imagine many things are faster than a space rover. The rover I am thinking of is the "Mars Rover" seen here: http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html