A lost Opportunity?

Potentially bad news coming out of NASA headquarters today: the Mars Exploration Rovers, those hardy robots that have just celebrated their 4th anniversary on Mars, might fall victim to budget cuts. In the worst case scenario, one or both of the rovers would be shut down, though they could be revived if the funds to operate them become available. So far, this appears to be only a possibility, with NASA now vehemently denying that they would willfully pull the plug, but the fact that this is even on the drawing board is pretty alarming.

Sunset on Mars: symbolism, or just a pretty picture?

Our record of successfully landing robotic missions on Mars is not particularly good - a little over 50%. Each mission costs hundreds of millions of dollars (the MERs were $800 million), so each successful mission is really twice that. So if you're fortunate enough to have two very capable rovers operating successfully on the surface, it seems pretty clear from an economic point of view that you would want to maximize that return, squeeze every last spectrum out of those rovers. That's not even considering the science potential of continued operations. Both rovers have now essentially proven the past existence of water, and continued exploration could very well tell us what the water was like, how long it was around, and if life could have gained a foothold.

It's hard to point the finger in this kind of situation, because everyone is trying to do what's best. NASA only has so much money to work with, and no amount of scientific potential will change that. Any time money is limited, something is going to have to go; the remarkable thing in this case is that such a high-profile, successful mission may be on the chopping block.