The Rovers that keep going

No, I wasn't talking about the rovers made by Ford that keep breaking down. I'm talking about the two Mars Rovers that keep going three times of their expected lifetime. Of course, there're many moments that everybody thought they're dead in the water, including one right after they landed on our neighboring planet. However, the guys and gals in JPL eventually got around the problems have both them keep doing what's "beyond the call of duty."

To me that's $820 million of my tax dollar well spent, so did the extra $82 million so far to keep it going. I was watching the 2nd season of the West Wing recently. Here's the perfect pitch for NASA from the episode of "Galileo" when Mallory was playing with Sam and Sam answered her question regarding the Mars mission:

Mallory O'Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Mallory O'Brian: Why?
Sam Seaborn: Because it's next. Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is on a timeline of explorations and this is What's next.