They dont have the bandwidth to go on holiday-snaps jaunts. It takes almost a week to transmit a full panorama (check the Exploratorium site for the evidence of this)

They dont have the power to go on mad rambles up the hill much faster than they already do. It's winter. They should be slowing up and parking up - it's a miracle of engineering and resource management that they're still alive, let alone still doing huge ammounts of good science.

They were not designed to go on some ego trip to the top of a hill just because it's there. Spirit struggled to get to where it is now. It's already traversed hundreds of metres of rough terrain to visit a crater, and a further 3000 metres to get to where it is now - more than FIVE TIMES it's design range, and approaching THREE times it's design life span. To say you've got your moneys worth is a master of understatement by any means.

The mission was conceived for, they were built for, and you've paid for a systematic analysis of the rocks and soils at two diverse landing sites to establish when, where and how water was involved in the geologic history of mars. It's PRECISELY what they're doing, and doing superbly well.

You say that spirit's been doing too much stopping at ratting. Before it's current site - when was the last time it stopped to drill a rat hole ( answer = months and months ago ).

They're doing their job - in extra time. They're doing it beautifully. They've both done twice as much sight seing as they were ever inteded to do.

It'd be irresponsible and a down right waste of money to say scrap the science and lets off road for some postcards.

I think you should quit the moaning and start praising their achievments - and when the systematic analysis continues all the way to the top of Husband hill and you get your panorama in a few months time - you can thank the rover team for doing their job properly AND getting the wow factor into the bargin.