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Gotta give it up for NASA on this one... they strapped a whole bunch of chotchkies onto a couple six-wheeled golf carts, churched them up with some solar panels (alternative energy baby) and wrapped them in space duct tape.  Then they strapped them to a rocket and sent them on to Mars where the deployment process looked eerily similar to one of those plastic guys with a parachute coupled with some super bouncy balls. 

The mission was supposed to last for something like 3 months, assuming the plastic army guy/super bouncy ball deployment strategy actually worked, and then they would run out of power rendering them unable to be recovered.  Three years later they are still cruising around with no end in sight!