Mission Objectives
- To prove that the development of "faster, better and cheaper" spacecraft was possible (with three years for development and a cost under $150 million).
- To show that it was possible to send a load of scientific instruments to another planet with a simple system and at one fifteenth the cost of a Viking mission. (For comparison, the Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974 or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars)
- To demonstrate NASA's commitment to low-cost planetary exploration by finishing the mission with a total expenditure of $280 million, including the launch vehicle and mission operations.
Read more about this topic: Mars Pathfinder
Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or objectives:
“I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“Along the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)