Will new Mars lander be parked or scrapped?

BY ROBERT S. BOYD MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- America's next daring adventure on Mars - a one-ton rolling science laboratory scheduled to launch next October - is in deep trouble.

Huge cost overruns and technical difficulties may cause the $2 billion dollar Mars Science Laboratory to be delayed or canceled outright, members of a NASA advisory committee were warned on Oct. 2.

"Our problem is enormous," said Jim Green, director of the space agency's Planetary Science Division, as project costs soar up to 40 percent above budget.

The successor to the wildly popular Spirit and Opportunity rovers, still toiling along on Mars, is supposed to check out a region on the planet's surface where conditions could support past or present life - one of science's highest goals.

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