The Mars Exploration Rover Mission ^[1] Celebrated a year on Mars. This in and of itself was quite an accomplishment. What with all the shuttle problems, funding problems, personnel cuts, disappointments, etc. it’s nice to see something cheap and easy succeed so dramatically. A pair of rovers on Mars that were only supposed to last 90 days wound up lasting a year, maybe more. NASA is trying to position the rovers so they can extend their lives, and their usefulness farther into the future.

While this is all well and good, and I’m glad to see it happening, I have to wonder if this is symptomatic of the problems at NASA. They get a program going, and it is wildly successful. They keep using that mission/program/vehicle until long after it should have been discontinued and something new done. The Apollo Program lasted longer than it should have, and by the time it ended, there was much better and cheaper technology available. The shuttle program has long outlasted the technology used and as is so painfully outdated to be almost useless at this time.

Will the same thing happen with the rovers? Will Opportunity and Spirit be overused to the point of being antiquated and ineffectual compared to what could be available if we start developing new exploration vehicles now? Sure, NASA is currently developing

• the Phoenix mission, the first chosen for NASA’s Scout program. This is another attempt to find water at the poles.
• the Mars Science Laboratory which will collect soil samples and rock cores analysis to see if organic compounds exist, and study Martian environmental conditions.
• more scout missions
• a sample return program
• an astrobiological field laboratory

but why keep using the rovers until they die, instead of allocating those resources to newer and better things?