Quaid! Start the reactor! Free Mars!

Great job NASA!!! Keep on rolling! But my idea would be to first colonize the moon and test our habitation technologies there before having to spend 3 months each way to Mars to just test our tech! That way, we can get the bugs worked out close to home before going all the way to Mars! Once we perfect our systems, we can then use the moon as an assembly center for the components that will go to Mars and to further destinations in the future! The moon's got a lot of potential!

It's nice to know some American made things outlast their warranty.

Let's find the team that designed and built the rovers and put them in charge of the Big 3 in Detroit.

I find it hard to believe there isn't any geothermal springs on Mars at least. Dead extinct volcanoes should have some evidence of hydrothermal activity. I hope NASA or JPL places rover vehicles designed to last 5 years, thereby getting 15 out of them, and explore the great Olympus Mons area. It has been a real treat exploring Mars somewhat and right at home at the computer.

An excellent job. J.F.K. would be VERY proud !
It was his foresight that got the Appollo missions to the moon(and back!),I'm sure he would have approved of the Mars Rover project.
Yes, we could be spending this money on earthbound programs, but the return in scientific knowledge & National pride is beyond measure.
There were probably those back in the day complaining about the expense of the voyages by Colombus also. Every new, investigative challenge will have it's naysayers & doubters. Fortunately, the forward thinking folks usually will find a way to prevail.
This is what advances mankind, rather than stagnating it !

Congrats NASA, some thing American made thats works better than expected. Money well worth the investment. Had the money gone to feed and cloth people in this country, they never would have started working, let alone be working five years later. It just shows that hard working people can make the money allocated to them work. Most government programs don't work from the start but NASA, with some setbacks, has always found a way to make the investments work. Mabey the auto manufacturers should hire some NASA folks to show them how to make what money they have work.

For all you complainers, whining about the money spent on these Rovers, about how they could go to feed hungry children and the like.....first of all, this isn't a zero sum game, and frankly, compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending to keep bankers afloat (which doesn't seem to be working, I will add) it is a bargain.

So what is the use? Why are we bothering with Mars? Besides the technological (think about something that can run for 5 years in an incredibly harsh environment, using solar cells, then ponder that one) there is also simply the effect of dreaming and what that can do. A lot of the technology we take for granted today either came from the original space program or came from people whose imagination caught fire with the Apollo program and went on to create technological wonders like the internet, high speed cheap pc's and the like. Imagine kids whose imagination is caught by the rovers, and decides to go into science and engineering, perhaps to develop the next great thing? If mankind refuses to dream, to learn for learning sake, you end up with the dark ages, either of the medieval sort or in places like the middle east where, despite great wealth, they are contributing little or nothing toward man's ability to dream and learn.

I also will add, for the poster who is bitter about being unemployed, and for others in the same position, that we have lost good paying jobs because of people who forgot how to dream and learn, and instead "focused on business, real matters" aka making more and more money. Our industrial base, instead of pioneering new technologies and better methods, stuck with 100 year old manufacturing techniques, and then found dirt cheap labor to make those ancient factory equipment produce gold once again, instead of creating efficient production that could pay decent wages. Or the auto industry, whose pooh bah's, instead of embracing better production methods and new technology, employed an army of beancounters and lawyers to fight off change, net result to be seen on the daily news broadcast.We have lost good paying jobs because industry was too greedy and shortsighted to develop new technology, and put their factories using 100 year old technology in third world, overpopulated countries.

The solution to the problems at home is found in dreaming, in understanding the universe, as much as it is in spending on 'brick and mortar things', and if we lose that, we might as well resign ourselves to being a has been nation. I don't think we will, too many people with a fire in their belly (rather then bankers with a hankering for 5 mansions and a hundred million dollar paycheck) to allow that to happen. Imagine if someone in detroit had the imagination the people who created the rovers did, what that would have done for cars?

Chris, Detroit, MI
"One picture I saw said that ice was there and then a few moments later it melted.  How can ice melt on Mars?"

It Did not melt it sublimated turned directly from a solid to a gas.

And for the fella who wanted to plant evergreen tree's
Well there are a few problems with that. Mainly mars has only 1% earths atmosphere, No magnetic field like earth has and the solar wind is steadily stripping away at mars atmosphere, The consequences of this are radiation and the point that i made above about solid ice turning directly into a gas. No liquid water for the plant would kill it and tree's require lots of water. Also if you could get trees to produce oxygen it still wouldn't help until you had thickened the atmosphere to the point it would allow for a warmer environment, On a good day mars temps reach 68° F
and on a bad day to a low of -220° F.

Now ive never seen plants growing in Antarctica and id be willing to bet that Antarctica  never sees temps as low as -220° F. Also note the fact that because of the solar wind if you were to fix the atmosphere by engineering a set up to pollute mars like we do here on earth you would have to perpetually reinforce this atmosphere to keep the solar wind from reducing it all over again.

Terra forming a planet is not impossible its just not realistic in the current generation. It would take an enormous amount of money, And NASA still accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

So for the nay Sayers who want to cut NASA programs i could name quite a few who should go long before NASA is dropped.

Lets see.....hmmm

$515.4 billion for the Department of Defense’s (DOD's) base budget

Lets spend that kind of money to develop new kinds of weapons and say that's ok!

Then we will turn around and blame NASA as the problem with the US economy. Its not the pointless war in Iraq killing thousands of brothers sisters and cousins. Its "NASA"

I'm not saying NASA is a shining star but hey id rather see people shooting into space enjoying the world around them than looking at the back of a coffin lid. Because bush wanted Saddam's oil.

Seriously if ya want to gain some insight watch Fahrenheit 9/11 a great Documentary by Michale Moore
It will have you viewing things in a new light.

All i can say is thank Goodness for Barack Obama

Well i hope this was educational for the good people who read articles here on MSNBC

Your welcome

To Roger (who wondered "how many homless (sic) people could have a roof with that money")

$820 million is something like 3/100 of 1% of the entire estimated US budget of $2.5 TRILLION for 2008.

In 2006, the US gave about $22.8 BILLION in foreign aid, the latest year for which I could find a figure.

Total education expenditures for K-12 in 2004 were approximately $536 BILLION according to the US Dept. of Education (see www.ed.gov).

According to the National Coalition on Health Care at http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml, total healthcare spending was $2.4 TRILLION in 2007, or $7,900 per person.

Using a population estimate of 300 million people, the Mars rovers cost about $2.73 and that has been amortized over several years of operation from concept, design, deployment and through to continued operations (in other words, more like 50 cents a YEAR for 10 YEARS)

As you can see, a little mathematics is a very useful tool. Before making bald statements and rash judgments against expenditures that increase our understanding of the universe, you should stop and analyze what we got for what we spent. The Mars Rovers have been a bargain and well worth EVERY cent.

Congratulations NASA.  This is the kind of project we should be funding.  Now throw away the shuttle and the International Space Station and pour that money into a space elevator.  Then we can start making some progress getting off this rock.  Our only hope of long term survival is to expand beyond the Earth, and this is the type of work that will make it possible.

I am an educated man, and not averse to scientific projects.  However, we continue to spend TRILLIONS of dollars on space exploration, and not enough on how to solve the problems on THIS planet.  It's about priority, folks.  In my house, if I want to INVEST in something, but my kids are starving, I buy FOOD.  That does not mean that investment is a bad idea; it just means that this kind of spending is not a good idea right now.

[ALAN ADDS: Just to head off some of the responses to set Joe straight, I'll note that the entire NASA budget is not TRILLIONS of dollars, but roughly $20 billion a year. At that rate, it would take 50 years for space spending to amount to $1 trillion (and NASA spends money on things other than space, such as aeronautics and education). Here's an item that delves further into the cost of spaceflight:]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/03/1489144.aspx

Jack,

The expansion of the human race into the larger universe is inevitable.  While I believe it is extremely important to solve the Earth's current environmental issues, the long term future of humanity is in space.  Sooner or later, some cosmic disaster will cause the Earth to be unlivable, and we'll need to have developed the technology to survive in the hostile universe.

In just the blink of an eye, we've gone from cowering in the dark to launching machines capable of exploring remote worlds.  I'm firmly convinced that if we don't kill each other first, we'll solve the tough problems of living in space.  However, without the foresight and desire to fund such projects, we will certainly fail.  Abandoning the science necessary to move us forward is to doom us all.

Why is it that whenever science scores big, someone will always cry foul about the money being diverted from social welfare programs? It's amazing...I guess the example being set by these stellar personnel. Let's keep reaching for the stars...

FAR OUT!

Just think . . . they have now lasted as long as James T. Kirk and crew were supposed to "explore strange new worlds"!  :)

Perhaps there will be a New Generation with the new rover (once it gets launched).

Seriously, I hope I am alive when we bring one of these critters back to Earth to display in the Smithsonian.

Gratz to NASA, JPL and all the other teams involved with this mission.

I think this is a great feather in the cap of NASA.I would like to see more money spent on unmanned probes to distant worlds,and less talk about trying to plant humans on mars.Mars has no value at this time.the moon is the next logical step.

I wonder what benefits our world is gaining due to this space exploration--is it better equipment for medical use? Is it more heat-proof products? I know they want to find if life existed in any form so we can better understand our earth's beginnings. It does show that long-lasting machinery is possible (at a cost!) NASA does't advertise very much, letting the populace know how many wonderful products, equipment, etc. has resulted from their programs.  We don't
yet know what they will find--thus man's historical quest for something new continues. Exploration has gone on ever since this earth has been occupied! Hopefully all the programs will be fully funded, and those in the U.S. needing help.

It's amazing!  Five years already.  We have learned so much.  I hope NASA and geologists get to develop a real plan for comprehensive geological surveys for the future.  Here's to NASA not just for another incredible mission but doing it under nearly impossible politics.

Please, to those who fail to understand the connection between scientific space research & solutions on earth, please open your mind.   It is  painful to repeatedly read comments from those who simply don't have the vision to see the big picture.   Those with shallow, black & white, "it can never be done" thinking lack the intellectual curiosity to leave the harbor of ignorance.  Voyage forth, NASA.  I am proud of your many accomplishments.

Let us stop the 'moron-a-thon', yes?!? We're spending billions of dollars bailing out companies who can't run a business, and wasting billions every year using finite resources. Why? All because we are too stupid, too stubborn, or just too lazy to get our rumps off the couch or put down the texting gadget; and you are complaining about UNDER a billion! GTFOH! Imagine if your car had a warranty for 5-10 years, but it actually lasted more than a century!!!

Too bad Mars has little or no oxygen in its atmosphere, that place looks like it'd be an absolute blast for some ATV or dirt bike riding..........maybe some electric motors may be in order.....

Nay sayers, all I can think of is what my gandfather taught me, that if no one dreams no dreams come true. If all people stop looking for good then no good will be done.

These two small steps can become much more than the expense some people talk about in this blog. I think that in the future of mankind these first small steps will be the stepping stones to a much larger piece of the puzzle. Please do not lump me in the catagory of a crazy freak as I own my own business and pay my taxes and my dues.

To those of you who think this is a waste of money. Do you honestly think that the cell phone you have in your hand the microwave you have in your kitchen or the things you take for granted every day of your life are all here because someone did not dare to dream?!!

I for one am proud to see these "litte experiments" continue to do their jobs and make us all wonder and dream about what may be for our future and the future of mankind. I can only hope that they continue to bring us more information and wonderment as time goes on. Yea NASA you rock!!! Oh by the way I am over 50 so don't even go there people!!

well roger, it is just soo sad that it is not all about you. i'm unemployed too, and I say GO NASA!

$820 million so that two toys can go less than five miles in five years! Almost 80,000 people could be lifted out of poverty for a year with this money.  An obscene waste.  I hope the people at NASA and JPL will get real jobs helping people some day instead of wasting our resources on these toys.  Another example of people who are more concerned about machines than real people who are hurting.  I hope President Obama will cancel NASA and turn the trillions of dollars that is spent over to real programs that help real people who are suffering.

There is NO WAY these things lasted this long by accident. They were obviously "helped".  And soon enough, those who "helped" will reconfigure and send these rovers back to us with hostile intent!  What fools we are!

It's too bad that Mars is the only other planet that remotely comes close to what earth was. Mars failed to evolve in the habitable zone. Tried..but failed.

I don't think any kind of God would play these games in the "creation" of a universe and life/humanity.  If "He" did then "Tough Love"  SUX ..and so on and so forth !

Guys wake up call.
Why do you think NASA will spend so much money in those kinds of projects, and many other that are classified?
Do you think the class of technology we posses right now just came out so quick of nothing
I hate to break it to a lot of you but we are not alone in this universe we are a planet in one galaxy that is not even totally explored, there is millions of galaxies, the distances are imaginable and yes it is possible that even some other civilization don't even know about us. Also there is possibility that there are more planets in worst evolution than the Earth planet
There are people or whatever they are that are smarter and different than us and some are here among us, many classified programs and discoveries by NASA and CIA have helped United States of America to stand where we are now.
It is all about power gained by allot of knowledge of discovered technology

Haesly's comment has THE unfortunate/fortunate truth that space travel and time are finite barriers for our specis.  Good luck to the next.. if any.

Several people have commented on how we are destroying the planet.  Reality check folks!  We are killing ourselves, not the planet.  Long after our species has died out, the planet will be here.

Joe Blow:

I also recall the original Viking pictures to show a light blue sky and that scientists were surprised at the color.   As I recall, there was a placard on the Viking much like the color bars broadcast for test purposes by TV stations and satellite providers.  When photos of the placard were examined, it was found that color correction was needed.  The reason given was that in their haste to make public, the JPL engineers failed to correct the color based on lighting or other factors.

...way to go. one step at a time, sooner or later humans will make it. great to hear progress

I am fed up with the many NASA budget cuts.  The space program has given us many inovations from velcro to microchips.  It also has given people hope that maybe we can work together as a people of one planet.  I just hope one day that these rovers will lead to human settlement on Mars.

Maybe the Smithsonian will need to set up museams on the moon and mars for all the probes and rovers that we have sent.

Great job Rover, You proved the bible is right. God put us here on earth, and that is where I want to be. That is, until He brings me home with Him.

Anyone interested in a "can't put it down" account of the birth of the rovers should read Steven W. Squyres book "ROVING MARS, Spirit, Opportunity, and the exploration of the Red Planet". It is a fabulous account of the trials and almost disasterous glitches that preceeded this amazing journey.

Undoubtedly this is a unqualified success story for NASA.  I feel like a previous poster that we should look towards the exploration of our own oceans in our backyards.  What a tremendous opportunity that would benefit mankind immediately if we would only look towards our seas.  I'm not knocking the value of space exploration, but perhaps it is time for private industry to take over space exploration and let government take a back door to it.

"Why did we spend all that money building the Parthenon, Pericles when we could feed the homeless?"
"Emperor, why build roads all over Europe and civilize the barbarians when we could feed the homeless instead?"
"Why are we sending troops to defend Europe against the Nazis when we could feed the homeless instead?"
Nobody. Cares. About. The. Homeless. Let them eat each other.  I'd rather p--- away a billion dollars on a Mars mission (no question that NASA is horrendously inefficient) than spend it on people who chose to ruin their lives. Face it: a majority of the homeless made "bad choices" to quote the social workers: like drugs, alcohol, thievery, or just plain stupid behavior. The proportion who are mentally ill and turned out of doors by "the system" is miniscule.
So, to summarize: Mars Landers: Yes. Bums: No. Hope this clarifies things.

Great article Alan!  The Mars Rovers are the little rovers that could.  What a great investment us taxpayers made in these wonderful robotic explorers.  I look forward to more awesome panorama pictures from the rovers.

Hopefully this year Cosmic Log will have lots of great stories about scientific achievements as the Large Hadron Collider comes back online and the Hubble Telescope gets an overhaul.

For the family who's spouse is out of work or the tax payer who gets taxed to death, who really cares what goes on on another planet? NASA has and always will be a total waste of taxpayer's dollars.

Must be powered by a Chevrolet small block to run so long.

this shows how are country is better than the other it shows we are very fast and strong and there is nothing we can't do in the future.  

Do it again! 2 more of those same rovers (with a couple minor improvements) and fast! Send them to two new spots... and then send more! When you get something right, do it again!

i am amased at the comments made hear that no one has even thought of the concern of our nations safty and power it brings to  our home land secerty and the peace it could bring to the world. as long as we bring in the nations of peace and respect to other nations we can possibly have a safer world on the same mission to explore the depts of our own world w/out war and still try to benifit by knoledge of the outer limits to inprove our own exsintisnt there are many learning oppertunitys to be learned from a planet that use to or had some kind of life on it a why it doesnt something we all could take a look at and maybe use to better our earth as for feeding our young we have plenty here to do that just the wrong people  in charge of those programs look to the human factors when u think of whats wrong here i think it is true that the water on earth hold alot of answer to our exsintints and i think we r becoming aware of that and hope like nasa the explore the idea of deep sea and ocean traveling maybe a rover like unit that can stand the issues of the deep and answers will be quickly learn and maybe appyed  and make a better world for us all  we will be force to do this eventually so lets get started now there is no world peace now and its not getting any better our goverment better learn that all they have is nothing like the rest of us and start doing the right thing for us all instead of a few because we all r going to end up in the same place like it or not  so u see we r all egual in the end of things   wheather u believe  or not if there was a god of your chioce u would be asking 4 the mirical we sure seem to need now   take care stay safe and bless us all.

Go NASA Go!

Go Rovers Go!

Go scientists Go!

That said, scientists across the world should ask for support from their governments to work across political lines without limitations and leverage the intellect of other scientists from other countries.

I dream that, some day, we will not have any country in Earth and that all the countries will be states or regions under one central government of Earth.  I know, people will liken this to Napolean, but Star Trek has proven that it is very futuristic and all we can hope for is that we see that day, someday!

We have scientists from Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Israel, Japan, former USSR, UK, USA and a few other countries that can think as a team for the improvement of the world.

Like it or not, the space program has produced the technology we enjoy today.  Its advances have been adapted for our day to day use.  Not to fund it would be a mistake but funding it to the extent some want is. I do agree more attention should be focused on earth, our civilization and the cultural problems we all face.  How about using some of this money to invest in our children's education so that this scientific research may continue?  We could produce many future scientist with this kind of money.  I am not against the program, don't get me wrong.  If you are going to invest money in space exploration, do it wisely.  I agree with Jack Haesly's comments. One of the problems I see is that man has an ego that needs feeding and ambitions that need achieved--the need to be first at something.  That emphasis and energy needs to be focused here.  Why look so hard out there for life when we sprang from here? There is all kinds of life here yet to be discovered. I think if you look hard enough at our own planet, you will unlock many answers to our existance right here. Like the Bible?  To all you non-believers. Say what you want about God. As you reach the end of your existance here on earth and still hold to your disbelief, good for you. I would rather believe and be wrong than not and be right! I do not believe we are the only intelligent life that exists.

Roger wrote:"$820 million, I wonder how many homless people could have a roof with that money, how many hungry people could be feed. How many shoes for the kids that have none. Its this type of spending thats wrong with america. All the project has done is help feed the egos of the people who run it. Without the program, some people would have no reason, no job . . .  Gee, it would be terible to see those 100k a year geeks on un-employment like me. I say lets stop funding missions to mars, and fund missions on earth."

NASA almost ALWAYS provides huge returns on the money America invests in it's space program.

While feeding the homeless and poor is certainly a valid goal, I wonder why people always go after NASA's measly 16 billion budget and never the trillion-dollar war-machine we fund? We spend the budget of NASA ($16B) each and every month in Iraq (while killing 1000-2000). Bring our troops home and you could have $10 BILLION a month for poverty with change left over...but somehow NASA (which kills no one) is the wrong moral choice for the USA?

I work at Chrysler and if we got paid 400 million dollars a car, we could build one to last a hundred years!

Ok i know all about Mars, but what about Pluto

[ALAN ADDS: You'll have to hang on until 2015, when the New Horizons probe zooms by Pluto. More about that later...]

[...] No one went hungry because man went to the moon and no on went homeless because to robots went to Mars.

Right on Terri

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