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A couple of reasons. The first is that to make a mission to Mars cost effective, we have to wait about 18 months for Earth and Mars to line up in the right posi

A couple of reasons. The first is that to make a mission to Mars cost effective, we have to wait about 18 months for Earth and Mars to line up in the right positions, otherwise it costs too much in rocket fuel to be worthwhile. The second is that the missions lag behind the discoveries - it's much easier to analyze pictures and spectographs than it is to design a mission, secure funding for it, and then do it. Sending a landing craft to Mars is not very easy. We've done it successfully a few times, but we've failed quite a few times as well. A lot of these discoveries happen in places that it isn't trivial to land a rover. We put them in flat deserts because it's safer to and there is still much to learn there, but liquid water doesn't necessarily get found in places rovers can go. I imagine we're much more cautious with rovers on Mars than we are on say the moon. It's very costly to make a mistake and lose a rover on Mars.

beamatronic 8y ago
We have a proven design in Spirit/Opportunity. There should be an assembly line cranking them out.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  And rockets too, while firing 30 at the same time for redundancy? This is not a valid argument at all. You need different designs that will not fall in the same way. We could e.g. send Lockheed, United Space, SpaceX, Russian, ESA and CSA designs for all of the components at the same time, then it is perhaps possible that at least one week make it. The cost will be huge though.
  - api_or_ipa 8y ago
    > while firing 30 at the same time for redundancy? I presume this is a reference to the failed N1 project with it's 30 NK-33 engines? To be fair, the N1 rocket didn't fail because of it's engines, it failed because of numerous organizational failures, including a ruthlessly rushed design process, lack of funding, and most importantly, the death of it's chief engineer, Korolev. The NK-33 rockets were basically the only part of the rocket that actually survived the program-- they're a big part of the current Soyuz stack if I recall.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  There would be, if NASA had the budget to plan and fund a couple dozen missions at a time. Going one at a time, with each next mission being uncertain, all they can do is to maximize the amount of science their mission budget buys, and that means building one-off, highly-specialized instruments.
- azernik 8y ago
  The design they're sticking with is instead Curiosity; the Mars 2020 rover is basically an update of that design with different instruments, better navigation software, upgrades to parts that specifically took a lot of wear on the Curiosity mission, and a cool little helicopter scouting drone.

beamatronic 8y ago

We have a proven design in Spirit/Opportunity. There should be an assembly line cranking them out.

AstralStorm 8y ago
And rockets too, while firing 30 at the same time for redundancy? This is not a valid argument at all. You need different designs that will not fall in the same way. We could e.g. send Lockheed, United Space, SpaceX, Russian, ESA and CSA designs for all of the components at the same time, then it is perhaps possible that at least one week make it. The cost will be huge though.
- api_or_ipa 8y ago
  > while firing 30 at the same time for redundancy? I presume this is a reference to the failed N1 project with it's 30 NK-33 engines? To be fair, the N1 rocket didn't fail because of it's engines, it failed because of numerous organizational failures, including a ruthlessly rushed design process, lack of funding, and most importantly, the death of it's chief engineer, Korolev. The NK-33 rockets were basically the only part of the rocket that actually survived the program-- they're a big part of the current Soyuz stack if I recall.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
There would be, if NASA had the budget to plan and fund a couple dozen missions at a time. Going one at a time, with each next mission being uncertain, all they can do is to maximize the amount of science their mission budget buys, and that means building one-off, highly-specialized instruments.
azernik 8y ago
The design they're sticking with is instead Curiosity; the Mars 2020 rover is basically an update of that design with different instruments, better navigation software, upgrades to parts that specifically took a lot of wear on the Curiosity mission, and a cool little helicopter scouting drone.