Titan flyby

The amazing Cassini robotic explorer continues its work around the planet of Saturn, most recently making another close flyby of the mysterious planet Titan, capturing this image (and much other science data). Click on the picture for a larger view.

It frustrates me that this relatively inexpensive project that's getting such a big bang for the buck gets so little attention in the media, and has utterly failed to capture the attention of most people. It's not often I run across someone, either socially or at work (with technical people!), who has ever even heard of the Cassini-Huygens probe. Something about the Mars rovers (their motion?) really captured the imagination of the public in a way that Cassini-Huygens has failed to do. And I think that indirectly this leads to NASA making choices to emphasize the incredibly expensive and almost fruitless manned space programs over the wonderfully productive (and comparatively cheap!) robotic missions. It's a darned shame...