The next mission to mars was Viking in which two spacecraft (each having an orbiter and lander) were launched in i975 and both succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. This was followed by Voyager in 1977, again two spacecraft, and they visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These were both wildly successful and are still returning information.

At this point NASA decided that we knew how to build reliable spacecraft but these missions were way too expensive. So, they went to the faster, cheaper, quicker philosophy on the assumption that an occasional failure would be acceptable because they could do many more missions. The trouble is that the failures are more than occasional and, even if they are acceptable to NASA, the public does not look too kindly on them.

Bev and Jerry