Doug Ellison said:

"Sorry to bust your dreams, but the next rover on mars is RTG powered in 2009."

This vehicle is "Mars Science Lab" (MSL) which used to be "Mars Smart Lander" but had to have its name changed because making it "smart" was too hard. "Mars Smart Lander" used to be Mars 2009 but they changed the name because they realized it needed to be "smart" in order to land in a place with interesting science. Mars 2009 used to be "Mars 2007" but they pushed it back to 2009 because the engineering was too hard. Mars 2007 used to be "Mars 2005" but they pushed it back to 2007 because Mars Polar Lander augered-in.

Building MSL/Mars-2009/2007/2005 is sort of like Sysiphus getting his boulder on top of the hill (don't plan on it). The JPL engineers went to "sky crane" concept for MSL because of the extra mass of the RTGs. Many folks at Ames are conviced MSL will auger-in if JPL stays with "sky crane". The concerns of NASA engineers outside of JPL will no doubt push MSL back to 2011 if the project isn't cancelled altogether. Add on top of this, the question about MSL's landing site. MER-A's landing site (Gusev) was mostly igneous rocks (not horribly interesting). MER-B's landing site (Meridiani) hit pay dirt as sedimentary soil and evidence of liquid water. However the soil there is so acidic that there is almost no likelyhood of finding fossil evidence if there ever was life there to begin with (I'm still sceptical). Where on Mars is MSL supposed to land? What will NASA send to Mars for the 2009 launch window? Reusing the MER design is the obvious answer.

Gary