That is the key to success. There is a plethora of concepts that offer very high science value. APL is now controlling the lab-built Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft that has orbited asteroid Eros since February. Whether the mission is investigating Mars or other worlds, it is time to open up the solar system to competitive ideas, Krimigis said. There are a large number of organizations and people with ideas that have not had access to and contributed to the NASA technology pool.
People feel more freedom to think about inventive ways to do business.
There seems to be a receptive environment for that now, particularly in the astrophysics community. Hopping safely about a world as strange as Mars or Titan, a moon of Saturn, is critically important. Taking to the air is one solution. The tops of the helicopter blades would be covered with solar cells. Revving up on Mars' surface, the robot helicopter would take to the air, hover at high altitude and then scoot over to another landing site.