Cameron's Mars rover 3D camera plan bites dust

James Cameron. Photo / Supplied

When one of his Hollywood blockbusters runs over budget or behind schedule, as they almost always do, James Cameron tends to confound the naysayers by eventually producing a hugely lucrative commercial hit.

But the Oscar-winning director of Titanic and Avatar has suffered the indignity of being told that Nasa has scrapped plans to equip its new Mars rover, Curiosity, with two of his state-of-the-art 3D cameras.

The space agency said it was insufficiently confident that his devices would be working in time for the mission's scheduled launch this northern summer.

Cameron had embarked on the project with a San Diego tech firm, Malin Space Science Systems, several years ago. The idea was to attach a pair of 3D zoom-lens devices, similar to ones his staff developed for Avatar, to a boom extending from the roof of the buggy-sized rover, which is due to touch down on the Red Planet in 2012.

Provided they owned a set of 3D spectacles, the public would then have been able to join Nasa scientists in viewing cinema-quality footage. But now that Cameron's big idea has been vetoed, Mars aficionados will have to make do with images from two relatively outmoded fixed-lens cameras, which were developed with the film-maker's's help several years ago.

"While Curiosity won't benefit from the 3D motion imaging that the zooms enable, I'm certain that this technology will play an important role in future missions," Cameron said.

The decision to pass over Cameron's latest innovation reflects an understandable reluctance by Nasa bosses to take risks with the Mars exploration project. It is, after all, already costing about US$2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) at a time when the agency, in common with many publicly funded organisations, is facing budget cuts.

John Grotzinger, a scientist working on Curiosity, said that they had run out of time to properly road-test Cameron's device. "The possibility for a zoom-camera upgrade was very much worth pursuing, but time became too short for the levels of testing that would be needed for them to confidently replace the existing cameras."

The mission aims to establish if Mars can support life.

- Independent