In an attempt to increase interest and funding in the Mars Rover program NASA has signed a one-episode deal with the Robot Wars television program that will pit two active Mars based rovers against each other.
NASA is working with Russian officials on a deal that may allow the Russian Space Agency to control one of the rovers. "The Cold War may be over, but there is still a lot of bottled up tension between us," said a NASA spokesman, "This could be the chance we never got to totally annihilate those damn Commies." A coin would be flipped to see which team controls which rover with the OPEC nations acting as referees.
Using its robotic arm the rovers will catapult Mars rocks, some weighing as much as 25 pounds, at each other at a distance of over 6700 miles across the planet. "The gravity up there is perfect for this type of action," said one un-named NASA official. "We are confident we could hit a target twice that distance with pin-point accuracy."
