"llowing the public to use their PC's with a joystick or mouse to drive one of the rovers for say an hour across the surface."

I cant believe that this idea still exists - you dont 'drive' the rover with a joystick. You write a command sequence, uplink it in the morning via the DSN - and then the rover acts out the sequence during the day

Go get Maestro - the package that presents the data from the rovers - it's a cut down version of SAP - the package that is used to write the command sequences. Thats how you 'drive' a rover.

FWIW - I believe the funding will be found to operate these assets till they die - and not a moment before.

Doug