Sol 1500 Options

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[Stu]

AstroO, you figured out my secret; I am indeed from the future - actually I'm a Special Circumstances agent from The Culture, come back in time to monitor you and slightly tweak your history; you know how we love our meddling! - and I've seen people doing those things on Mars.

You might also be interested to know that in the future there is indeed an attempt to shut down one of the rovers to save money, but the plan is abandoned after the biggest protest campaign ever staged by the pro-space community. Led by outraged members of UMSF, who enlist the help of The Planetary Society and other pro-space groups, there's a concerted effort to get the decision reversed by the mass emailing of NASA officials, politicians, newspapers, tv stations and online news agencies; thousands of videos in support of the MER program appear on YouTube; every pro-space blog campaigns to stop the rover being switched off, etc.

In the end, The Powers That Be realise that turning off one of the two most succesful spaceprobes in history, which have revolutionised our view of Mars, captured the world's imagination and truly transformed the planet in the public's minds, would be a PR disaster, especially at a time when they are 1) wanting to improve their public image to increase the profile of, and support for, the Vision for Space Exploration, and 2) facing increasingly serious technical challenges from China and Europe and other countries. They realise that it would be a kick in the teeth for science teaching, engineering teaching and technology development in general. They realise that if they're to actually get the public to believe in the value of space exploration it would be ridiculous to do away with one of their most productive, most visible assets. Common sense prevails.

Well, at least in one future...

Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.