The thing that struck me when reading this thread is that, in comparison to the amount of money that is spent on government programs that strike me as substantially less worthwhile, $20 million is a drop in the ocean. Well, maybe a decent-sized pond.

I think that space projects, as a whole, are severely underfunded - granted, we can't fully fund everybody's pet project, and there's nothing wrong with continually looking for ways to do the same thing cheaper. But I rank answering the Big Questions as among the most important things that a country can try to do, and space exploration is essential to doing that. The ongoing success of the Mars Rover mission demonstrates to me that it's deserving of all the funding it needs, and I can think of a whole bunch of other programs that I would gladly cut in order to let NASA maximize the Rovers' potential.

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"Scientific progress goes 'boink'?"