🚀 go-pugleaf

       The Mt. Erebus operation was very impressive.  But it saddens me to 
see so much of America's best robot expertise wasted on one-of-a-kind 
projects for NASA.  We're not going to catch up with Japan that way.

       When we have lots of mobile robots working reliably on Earth, modifying
one for planetary exploration will be a straightforward job.  But why
waste the research resources working on a low-volume low-payoff application
like Mars exploration?

       Let's face it; Mars isn't that interesting a place.  It's lifeless,
cold, airless, and looks like Arizona.  The effort to find that out was
worthwhile, but further ground-level exploration doesn't seem cost-effective
given current launch costs.  

       It will be interesting to see if the Clinton Administration's
"civilian DARPA" redirects funding in more productive directions.

					John Nagle