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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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In the mid-1990s the U.S. embarked on a new strategy for exploring the Red Planet. In response to the 1993 failure of the Mars Observer mission—a billion-dollar, decade-in-the-making probe that mysteriously lost contact with ground controllers just before it was scheduled to go into orbit around the planet—NASA administrator Daniel Goldin decided to shift to smaller, less expensive spacecraft and create a sustained exploration campaign by sending one or two probes to Mars at every launch opportunity. (These opportunities come every two years or so, when Earth and Mars are properly aligned.) The new strategy spread out the inherent risk of interplanetary travel and ensured that the engineering experience and scientific data acquired by one mission could be rapidly used by the next. The approach has proved a brilliant success, putting three NASA spacecraft into orbit around Mars and three rovers on the planet’s surface (Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity). The Phoenix Mars Lander, which left Earth in August, is expected to reach the Red Planet next May, and NASA plans to launch the Mars Science Lab in 2009.
Subsequent missions are in jeopardy, however. Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, warned in July that at least one of the future Mars probes may have to be scrapped to free up funding for a much costlier mission, tentatively scheduled for the 2018–2020 period, that would collect samples of Martian rock and bring them to Earth. Moreover, highly placed scientists and program leaders report that the new plan may actually require the sacrifice of all other Mars spacecraft after 2009.
Putting aside the question of whether the redirected funds would actually be devoted to the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, such a reorganization would be a very bad idea. A one-shot mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth for laboratory analysis is not really a good way to address the central question of Mars science. The Red Planet is a critical test bed for the hypothesis that life is likely to arise wherever the appropriate physical conditions—notably, the presence of liquid water—prevail on a planet for a sufficiently long time. Scientists now know that Mars probably had standing bodies of water on its surface between three billion and four billion years ago, when there was already plentiful microbial life on Earth. Because asteroid and comet impacts facilitate the transfer of rocks between Mars and Earth, the discovery of microfossils on the Martian surface would not in itself prove that life arose independently on Mars. To settle the question, researchers would need to find living organisms on the planet and examine their biochemistry. These organisms, if they exist, are most likely to be found in groundwater. Thus, the most important goal of the exploration program is to identify sites on Mars where groundwater is within practical drilling distance of the surface. This task can best be done not with an MSR mission but with a comprehensive scouting program involving orbiters, rovers, drillers and robotic aircraft with ground-penetrating radar.
Furthermore, even if one concedes considerable importance to the MSR mission, it is doubtful whether the reorganization plan is the right way to get there. If NASA halts its Mars exploration for a decade, all the best people will leave the team and be replaced by those who enjoy drawing charts and schedules. Instead of wrecking the current Mars program and hoping for the best, the space agency should build on it. New orbital spacecraft and aircraft should extend the reconnaissance of the Red Planet and identify sites containing potential fossils and near-surface groundwater. With such discoveries building well-justified public interest, NASA will be able to ask for extra funding to add an MSR mission to the queue. While the space agency is preparing the mission, it can send rovers and drillers to the most promising sites and cache samples that could reveal the truth about life on Mars. In addition to providing major scientific discoveries, such a mission might well give NASA the boost it needs to send human explorers to the Red Planet.
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12 Comments
Add CommentWell said indeed. It would be so sad if any more planned missions were cut back due to fund shuffling by NASA. It seems we are beginning to get a grip on the red planet at last, It would be catastrophic to have gained so much ground only to slip back again like we have done with the Moon after Apollo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI feel this is one of the most important steps for humankind we have ever undertaken. I hope others feel the same and will voice their opinion's to those in power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRarely does science win with a 'silver bullet' approach. The gradual accretion of knowledge is the way to go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisafter spending 10+ billion on that recreational vehicle/pile of junk orbiting earth with little or no science actually being done on it, I would love to see robots and rovers scurrying about Mars...drilling for water and getting stuck in the mud on the tube!
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Edited by bluegoo at 12/10/2007 10:51 AM
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Edited by bluegoo at 12/10/2007 10:53 AM
I agree that an incremetal approach is needed. The ultimate goal should be a Martian colony (taking care to avoid contamination of possible indiginous life). Only human exploration, however, will generate excitement, and real funding: A vigorous lunar colony would allow us to learn needed techniques for long-term survival, but only 2 days from rescue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisok lets send a lander with a robot arm with a grass seed plunger and a water tank, stick the seed in the ground with the arm, set the auto water system on and lets see if the seed will grow? then their will be life on mars. if this seed will not grow then their is no need for us to go their!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's keep this decision in context: One of the last things Bush would want to see discovered is proof that life can arise anywhere, on its own. That could arouse increased interest among students in the science of biology and thereby (shudder) evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, given his administration's track record in, well, everything, maybe I'm giving them too much credit for thinking more than one move ahead.
The Chinese are intent upon getting into space in a big way - even to putting a man on the moon. I think this may stimulate the nation into putting more money into NASA. Also, we can't discount the potential contribution of private companies which are beginning to develop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI applaud Dr. Zubrin for his continued efforts to get us to Mars. I think the only sample return mission to Mars should be part of the first human mission to Mars. If we could divert even half a percent of the Defense budget to NASA, this conversation wouldn't be necessary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the biggest reasons to keep this program going is the unifying effect on the global population. With all localized news it happens all too often that populations are broken apart into its "special interest groups" it is time to find topics and projects we can all focus on together!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiserror
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Edited by gaetanomarano at 02/12/2008 1:09 AM
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissorry, but, I find the Zubrin's "cheap" Mars mission project very very risky and with high chances of failure
also, I don't think a Mars mission can be accomplished with "chemical" rockets like those suggested by Zubrin and planned by NASA for the mission
it NEEDS a nuclear engine for the main Earth/Mars/Earth travel
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http://www.ghostnasa.com/
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