NASA’s next mission to Mars has been delayed by two years from 2009 to 2011, adding another $400m to costs now running at $2.3bn for this project.
Apparently there’s only the occasional window of opportunity for such jaunts, every 26 months, and they won’t have ironed out the glitches from the last mission before the 2011 window.
We have discovered, apparently, that a Martian year lasts 687 days. Maybe this makes it more difficult.
But we all know, don’t we, that there isn’t any life on Mars and it’s too far away and inhospitable to want to live there. So what’s the point?
Scientists will say, with some reason, that it’s their job to find out things and worry about whether or not this information is any use afterwards.
They say this mission will discover if there is or was any ‘precursor’ to life on Mars but this isn’t going to be a whole lot of use either.
Of course $2.3bn these days only buys you a few bonuses for bankers charged by the Government with running down their failed businesses.
Even so these benighted Mars missions do seem a little pointless.
[Image Attribution: Buglugs]