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Originally Posted by Mistermystery
I did, and like I said the Shadar is about the only piece of hardware that seems like a bit of scientifical appealing. The others are either allready availble on mars, or will be better in upcomming missions (like Phoenix for instance). A little repetition is good, but as far as I can see their main targets are just to get some eye-candy
(Daily global mapping and profiling, Regional surveys, Globally distributed targeting of hundreds of specific sites).
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The MRO is going to be very instrumental in deciding *where* Phoenix, as well as future landers, will be touching down. Also, the MRO is a step in a long range program to explore Mars. Sure, you could just wait until a more advanced probe shows up, but then you would be missing a step, and the potential for a major stumble is presented. Besides, by that logic, there should be no probes or landers at Mars now, and we should be waiting for... well, the first manned landing, I suppose. But then we get back to that whole missing a step or two thing....
Ride with this. If there was no valuable scientific data to be gathered that couldn't be gathered now, or if this were simply an eye candy trip, then trust me, the cash-strapped NASA would *never* have even approved this project, much less actually built the thing and enter into the final prep-steps to launch it.
...John...