NASA is launching a new $2.5 billion, nuclear powered rover to Mars on Saturday. Scheduled to land in August 2012, 'Curiosity' has a mission to find water deposits that might have once harboured life. According to the NASA Astrobiology Program Director, Mary Voytek, "Mars could very easily have evolved the complex chemistry that is necessary to be a habitable environment. And that information is still on Mars."
With all the funding cuts at NASA under the Obama administration, it seems as if the space agency is attempting to create a headline-friendly mission that has large appeal to the public's imagination. Either way, PR campaign of hard science (probably both), it's great to see the US continue to invest in space travel.
Via AFP and The Vancouver Sun.
