You're absolutely right that I'm not the first person to point out how NASA produces its images of Mars. I have to confess that I've been guilty of letting the messenger get in the way of the message, since this has usually come from believers in The Grand NASA Conspiracy to Fool the Public, and comes across like just another salvo in that genre of conspiracy theory.

I don't have an axe to grand, and in fact I've gone out of my way to show my respect for the scientific talent at JPL. I've described their image processing specialists (the ones who produce images for scientific use rather than public consumption) as "gurus", "shamans", and "the best image processors in the Solar System".

I think the truth is actually rather banal. I doubt that NASA devotes its most skilled image processors to producing press release images. More likely these images are produced by graphic artists with experience in commercial graphics, and they've either been instructed how to use the official color, or they've simply gotten fed up trying to get a consensus from the pros about how to accurately portray Mars.

Bureaucracies always favor taking the safe and easy course, and civil servants don't get fired for following official policy. NASA may be a screwed-up organization, but I don't think it's malevolent. It's just a normal Federal bureaucracy trying to maintain an image of The Right Stuff, trying to explore the final frontier while filing a mountain of forms in triplicate, and keeping every ass covered.

Thanks for the praise. Saying that it's all over and we can go home now was just tongue-in-cheek humor. I won't stop trying to get it right...I'm having too much fun!