Either something is going wrong at NASA or inflation hasreached interstellar levels. In one year, the NASA rover that was supposed toland on Mars in 2009 for $969 million is still on the ground and $831 millionmore costly. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a nuclear and solar-poweredprobe designed to search Mars for signs of life. MSL, or Curiosity Rover, isNASA’s latest probe being prepared to land on the red planet, slated for arushed November 2011 launch.
Since reported on Government Bytes inMay, 2010, NASA scientists and engineers have been working on technical issuesand installing delayed components. Total costs for the MSL project have reached$2.5 billion -- up 56 percent from the planned $1.6 billion.
How could this get more costly? NASA’s Inspector General’soffice reports that if Curiosity misses its launch window, another $570 millionwould be needed to redesign parts of the rover. Here’s hoping for clear skieson two plants.
NASA has been instrumental in exploring the red planet’ssurface and has been quite good at underselling its over performing probes. Twosmaller, less expensive rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, lasted years longerthan what was planned because NASA used quality parts in quality designs withthought-out plans. However with the retirement of the shuttle fleet, Congressand taxpayers are more aware of NASA’s other ventures and this rover iscuriously collecting dust as it spends our money.