Mars Phoenix lander site is still being determined, last I checked. I think there was/will be a planetary science meeting to determine the exact site. <br /><br />As for the "best" Mars missions, I think any that survives the trip and functions is the best. Even Russia's Phobos1 would count: it sent a couple of pictures before the Great Galactic Ghoul ate it.<br /><br />NASA's best moments in recent decades have been with robots in deep space. Galileo, Cassini, the MER rovers and Pathfinder, last summer's Deep Imapct. NASA does deep space very, very well. They do LEO like crap, even if it's beautiful watching ISS spacewalks. NASA should focus on what it does best, extending it to human deep space flights. They even announced de-funding ISS's SCIENCE budget for FY2007! That means no more American science on ISS through roughly 2010. I'm totally OT, will stop.<br /><br />The orbital Mars missions provide the most important information, IMHO, mostly because of their global coverage. The rovers & landers are important, but extremely local. We already knew water existed on Mars before the MER rovers, other instruments had long ago determined that the ice caps were part H20 and part CO2 ices.<br /><br />Two missions I would like to see for Mars: the Pinback Apaloosa and some kind of lander network. MIT's recent bouncing-balls concept is interesting for the landers. Pathfinder was originally an engineering demo for 8 or 10 landers that would be seismic and weather stations.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>