Little Red Planet, Big Waste of Money

If you haven't already, it won't be long until you hear about Phoenix, the latest NASA probe to land on Mars. I've already read claims that Phoenix has sent back historic photographs, which apparently give us much more information about the Martian surface than previous photographs relayed back to Earth from the 2004 Mars Exploration Rover Mission. I'm no expert, but they don't really seem to be radically different from the original Viking images that we first saw in the late '70s. From all the images I've seen and things I've read, Mars can be summed up pretty quickly:

Mars is cold, redish-brown, dusty, and has small rocks in some places, large rocks in others. Some regions are relatively flat, others are cratered and mountainous. There is very little water, and what water there is tends to exist as ice. There are no signs of life.

So far NASA has sent seven landers (probes that actually land on the planet's surface), six of which have been successful. Additionally, NASA over the years has sent eleven orbiters to Mars, of which seven have been successful. Of the seven landers, Phoenix is being heralded as being the most economical at the low, low price of $420 million. That's right, for just $420 million, you too can have a Mars lander that not only lands safely on Mars (probably), but also takes uninspiring pictures of rock-strewn plains, and cooks soil samples to look for evidence of microbial life. Oh, and did I mention that, because its landing site was planned to be further north than previous missions, it is only expected to remain operational for three months (before the dark Martian winter sets in, at which time its solar panels will be rendered useless)? Yes, NASA has really spent the taxpayer's dollar wisely!

Unfortunately, the billions of dollars spent on the exploration of Mars is just the tip of the iceberg, when you start considering the ever-growing annual NASA budget of $16.8 billion. Sure, some good things have come out of NASA's research (Tang and Astronaut Ice Cream come to mind), but I believe too much time, effort, and money is being spent to entertain the Star-Trek fantasies of NASA employees. We've seen a bunch of cool pictures and compiled some interesting data concerning God's universe, but we still haven't found any signs of life outside of our little blue and green planet.

Phoenix won't find life, but that won't keep NASA from sending yet another probe to Mars in search of it. Maybe someday we'll come to the realization that not only is Mars barren; but that we are alone in this beautiful universe, and that our Creator intended it to be that way!