Cal,
It looks like you have the 'rest of the story' here.
I am digging deep in "I wasn't paying attention/not that interested" thoughts for what I heard about the two things we have on Mars.
as I recall when the first one landed, it wasn't working correctly and for a time it looked like a wasted trip.
Then NASA kept reloading the program, seems there was a flaw, I recall thinking to myself that it had been hacked.
As i recall they would ask it to do something and it would do something else.
They took the time to upload a computer program and got it to working again.
So yes, I can accept that hackers are responsible for the Columbia crash. The hackers would explain why the watch was on to wave off the ship, as there was a terrorist threat, it was clearly reported on the news at maybe 1 am and 2 am, then I waited to hear more and it was off the news.
With the limited years that I have left, space exploration does not excite me, they won't learn anything that will affect my remaining lifetime.
As usual, you are good at finding the 'rest of the story', we have missed you.