Rover Budget Woes

What fierce Martian dust storms couldn't accomplish, Washington politics might.

NASA's tight budget situation might lead the agency to cut dowm on the funding of the ongoing Mars rover explorations to the point that one of the rovers may have to be shut down for months. Of course, that's not like leaving a car in the garage for a while. There is no guarantee that, once "hibernating" for that long, a rover could function again. Currently, both rovers are still working well, and still doing good science. Replacing the capability of one of them on Mars would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and several years-- and risk all the uncertainties if spaceflight, landing on Mars, and deployment after landing all over again. In short, there would be no replacement.

Forcing curtailmant of an extraordinarily successful mission that is still doing good science for want of $20-$30 million dollars over the next two years is clearly a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. Hopefully, some way can be found around this shortfall so Spirit and Opportunity can continue their historic navigations of the surface of Mars.