, but what good are they doing other than providing full employment to a bunch of engineers at taxpayer expense?Well, there are a multitude of vendors and small engineering supply companies which provided the components for the Mars Rovers, the Rover project didn't use so much pure "custom design" electronics, for instance, as it used more 'COTS' (Commercial Off The Shelf) electronics, including the computers and other electronics, unlike previous probes or the moon-mission hardware which was all special design. This resulted in a *big* savings - it's also flat out amazing to see the huge leap in capability and quality and reliability that today's electronics represents compared to 1968 or 1975 even!
Oh I agree with this, but just because they were relatively cost effective in the landing vehicle components doesn't meant that the money would nt have been better spent by the people who actually earned it. Also I don't think the launch vehicle or airframes were off the shelf. However if the space entheusiasts were to take up a country wide collection of voluntary contributions I'd be a lot happier. Hell I might even contribute.