> The reason the data is not released immediately to the public is both understandable and frustrating: scientists around the world compete for control of Curio

> The reason the data is not released immediately to the public is both understandable and frustrating: scientists around the world compete for control of Curiosity's precious mission time. The same applies for the giant telescopes (KECK, VLT, ALMA, etc). A scientist applies for some time doing observations with the telescope, and gets exclusive access to the data for 2 years before the data gets released to the public. But I agree with you too, all scientific data that is acquired with taxpayer money should be released to the public at once.