After a pair of disasterous losses almost a decade ago, NASA was forced to scale back our Mars exploration programs. Over half of all attempts to land on Mars (by all nations) have ended in failure. But after the earlier polar lander crashed on the Red Planet in 1999, NASA went back to the drawing board and made some changes. Last night all of that hard work paid off.
ABOVE: Phoenix may be the key to proving that "life" exists or existed somewhere other than on Earth (artistic rendition, but this is what Phoenix likely looks like right now)
Being the nerds we are, my wife and I watched coverage last night of the dramatically dubbed 'Seven Minutes of Terror' (the time between entering the Martian atmosphere and touching down on the planet, which is the most likely period that something could go wrong). It was a very exciting and complicated seven minutes, where the lander had to go from over 12,000 mph to 5 mph in seven minutes, using the heat generated while entering the atmosphere to slow down. During the process, the lander had to enter the atmosphere, shed its heat shield, release a supersonic parachute system, use carefully timed thrusters and land softly on the harsh planet surface. The landing went off without a hitch, and NASA's future plans for Martian exploration may very well have been saved with it. The only other successful landing on Mars of this kind, "the soft landing", was in 1976 with the Viking rovers which landed in Mars' equatorial region. The other rovers that are still running around on Mars taking pictures landed through a different process. If we are to send people to Mars, which NASA intends to do sooner than you might think, we have to show that we can perform these "soft landings" regularly.
The key to the Phoenix is not the cameras that will send us amazing photos of a part of Mars we've never seen up close. The key is an eight foot long arm that looks kind of like it is part of a Tonka dump truck. This arm will dig in the soil of Mars. The reason we were so interested in landing in the polar regions is that it is believed that there is ice just under the surface, a sort of permafrost. Scientists think that this ice may contain organic compounds, the raw ingredients for life as we understand it. If we find that...I don't really need to explain the implications. If we find evidence in our tiny little outpost of a solar system of "life" on two separate planets, then the likelihood of many instances and possible varieties of life in other systems becomes astronomically high. That is incredibly exciting. Funny enough, some scientists believe that Mars is not even the most likely place to find life outside of Earth within our solar system. That would be Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. But for now, we'll be satisfied with finding evidence on Mars.
ABOVE: One of the first photos sent back from Phoenix last night. Doesn't look like much, but scientists are very excited about the patterns on the surface that you can see in the picture. This indicates repeated freezing and thawing, meaning ice and water.
5 comments:
This stuff is fascinating. But two points:
1. NASA might have plans to put somebody on Mars before too long, but there are still lots of barriers in the way.
2. We need to be spending money on something much more important, galaxy-wise.... details on my blog tomorrow. Hope you're enjoying the holiday....
Oh yeah, well my blog...
I understand there are lots of barriers in the way. But The Shuttle program is wrapping up in a year or two, and then all of the focus will be on Project Constellation, which is geared towards having a semi-permanent presence on the moon. The moon base will, in turn, be used for our manned voyage to Mars.
My wife and I went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston a week ago, and took the tour where they were talking about the details of Project Constellation. What is interesting is that they are going back to the Apollo model (capsules, Saturn V-like rockets, etc.)
By the way, I would highly recommend a visit to the Johnson Space Center (which is basically NASA's HQ and where mission control is located). Take the tours of mission control, the "rocket park" where they have a Saturn V rocket (massive) and other rockets from space programs of yore. They also take you to the training facilities, where they had a prototype Constellation capsule there. Awesome stuff.
I'll definitely take that tour someday. Thanks for the tip. It does sound like fun, and deep space (and the deep sea) completely fascinates me.
I know it's your blog. I was just kidding around. Cross-promotion, you know how it is!
Repeated freezing and thawing?
I think I dated Mars once.
Wakka Wakka!
JMW, I was just playing around. Battle of the blogs and so forth. Yours is the first I recommend after my own.
The Johnson Space Center is worth visiting. I wouldn't say it is worth a trip to Houston solely for that purpose, but if you are in Houston anyway, it is one of the sites worth visiting. The main visitor's area is kind of cheesy, but the tours you can take more than make up for it.
For instance, when we went last weekend, we got to see Mission Control in action. NASA folks were working, and we got to see real time footage of the space station with astronauts working, etc. When I went there the time before, the tour took us to the historic mission control that was used for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. That was really cool to see as well. One factoid that has stuck with me was that each computer in historic mission control had less "computing power" than your average laptop these days. Yet we sent men to the moon.
And the Rocket Park is very cool. They have a real Saturn V rocket there (it was for one of the Apollo missions that was scrapped due to budgetary cuts). You really don't appreciate the scale of those rockets until you see one in person. It dwarfs the Statue of Liberty, to give you an idea.
The new Rockets for the new program are bigger than the Saturn V. In fact, there will be two rockets that will be launched within 30 minutes of eachother. One is the Ares V that will carry the cargo and supplies (this is the rocket that will be bigger than the Saturn V). Then there is the Ares I which will carry the capsule and crew. They will rendevous in orbit, then head to the moon together (and eventually Mars).
On the tour last week, they said they hope to send men to Mars by 2030.
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