Well first if I go back to paragraph 3 NASA states that they thought from sending the pictures to the public it is a good way to attract public attention to fund mars missions.

"The face" became very popular when NASA first sent it to the public. Also, on paragraph 7 the author states that when the Mars Global Surveyor flew over Colonia, they found out that "the face" was just a regular natural landform. In the year of 2001 the Mars Global Surveyor was able to snap a picture of the landform, as said by Gavin

"The picture actually showed the Martian equivalent of a battle or mesa-landforms common around the American West". I don't think the landform is an ancient artifact or any Asian artifact I just think it's a normal landform that happens to look like a human or Asian face. Even if NASA was lying to us the landform benefits NASA. When they first snapped the photograph and shared it with the public it received a lot of public attention. Many people funded the missions to snap more photographs of the landform to get a better look at it. It was basically was a waste of time and money because it ended up being just a regular landform and not an Asian artifact as the world believed it was at the time.