Thanks for accurately identifying your remarks as exactly what they are - guesses by a non-expert.

The problem, Mark, is exactly what I've been trying to tell you folks for some time: the NRC, CDC, NIH etc are not going to settle for guesses by anyone, amateur or expert. They are going to require hard data before they'll sign off on manned flight to Mars, and their sign off is necessary for that, no matter what some people would like to believe.

The only way to get that hard data is with long range rovers, and because of the delays in radio transmission between Mars and Earth, those long range rovers will require artificially intelligent vision systems and autonomous control...

My friend Dr. Usikov still has a lock on this, though Japanese researchers have come a long way, in part due to Japan's license of the technology from IKI. Depending on the numbers for Beagle, Europe could also proceed based on Italian and French license of the same.

What I think may happen may be 2 long range rovers in the 2005-2007 time frame, one on an H-2, the other on a launcher from Starsem (joint French/Russian). I don't know what the governmental-private sector mix will be that will occur in these cases; I am pretty certain that if NASA does not get its image/height data licensing act together, and ditto for its robotic vision programs, the US will pretty much be out of it.

ep