NASA May Stretch out Mars Missions to Save Money

"NASA is considering a plan to get around limited budgets set in Washington by stretching out missions to bring back samples from Mars, a researcher said on Wednesday. It may be possible to break down the complicated and expensive mission into three parts, said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University astronomer who leads the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. "It makes the program more affordable because it strings out the cost over time," Squyres told reporters in a telephone briefing. "It brings down the cost per year of doing such a thing."