http://www.physorg.com/news7328.html

Flat is no good!
a better way to put it is "look where many things meet". a cliff is where internal soil, external soil, air, all meet. a shoreline is where many things meet.

For years i have written and tried to show that our current methodology of study is VERY inefficient. when nasa was to do the cheaper, faster, better. they really didnt go about it that way. especially the better part.

i have more than once proposed (but am no where where a proposal means anything). that what should have been sent to mars is several communications satellites. that the method to explore any new world is to set up a communications beach head (even if we used a refurbished communications satellite).

once those are in place all manner of research on the atmosphere and other items of interest can start while the next vessel makes it (if you sent it in pairs there would be no waiting).

these have sensor suites of many types. think of the area the robots covered. you could have more easily droped a sensor box with a telescoping camera set at each point that the rover ended up in. depending on size and power source and such, you could drop more than 100 of em. some with cameras, some with soil testors (that work on dust in the air). weather stations, etc.

right now instead of looking at what two rovers did, we could be gathering the results of 100 sensors all over the planet! with a communications satellite relay, they use a lot less battery, have wider bandwith and more.
who cares if 25 percent fail, that would still leave 75 sensor suites in place. As they get smaller and more varied we get more info.

while a robot is nice, and makes press, they really arent that good at getting information.

its even easier to make moving ones! you just model them on fleas. they sit for a while, crank up a spring over time, and spring far to a new location. monitor, and do it again.

new mesh systems and sensors the size of small cell phones (with a comm boost module), could literally blanket an area.

there are lots better ways to get planetary information over the long term in a expandable methodology. however, we dont think that way.

there are other methods for lifting bodies that they are not looking at at all (very economical and the tech is easy compared to what they are currently proposing).

all in all... we can do better.
the question is

will the let us?