"Close Call: Sojourner Mars Rover's Encounter with LISP"

During the development of the Sojourner Mars rover in the late 1980s, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had two teams working on different levels of autonomy for the rover's firmware. One team focused on creating a sophisticated LISP-based firmware that could interpret high-level instructions, while the other team opted for a more limited autonomy approach with explicit route planning. Due to system requirements and complexities, the latter approach was chosen, resulting in the rover featuring straightforward C-based firmware. However, later Mars rover missions implemented more autonomy, building upon the pioneering work of the LISP-based team.