these 'rovers' cover awful little area. I like the mars hopper. It can carry a small rover, or perhaps an arm with insturments. However it is many years away, the landing seems to me to be the most critical part, time has proven not very forgiving of this act. its pretty much guess work and luck, we find a flat area and hope it doesn't hit an odd boulder. We should minimize this aspect of delivery as much as possible.

The other idea that I liked was aircraft on venus. HoweverI have a problem with the 'powered' part. We need lighter than atmosphere craft that use little power, and can stay aloft for long periods of time. Venus' thick atmosphere make sit a prime candidate for such an operation.this is harder on mars, but just as well. Lets take the aproach we take with satellites and apply it to lighter than atmosphere craft. Exploration and discovery can be very hit and miss, just let some durigibles float around mars with cameras and spectrometers. When the durigible detects winds dying down its can automatically 'land' very easily and do close up rock observations like any rover would. It is amazing to think of the wide variety of terrain this could cover and the rover quality data it coud return! It sounds too good to be feasible. . . hmmmm

-Justin Kelly