I heard a story and interviews pertaining to this on NPR Friday afternoon: http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1691_1.asp One wonders if the MRO data will be of any practical value by the time another lander- robotic or manned- touches the Martian surface. It seems that planetary science will be in the doldrums for a decade or two, in order to fund a shuttle that's only a few years from the scrap pile, and the ISP. But hey, that space station sure is spiffy, eh? We'll have a place to send a few wealthy space tourists on Russian and Chinese rockets. It's just as well there are no astronomy-related science-fair projects. There won't be any jobs for young astronomers anyway. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com