MARS has the most extraordinary power to fuel the imagination. From Jules
Verne and his War of the Worlds, to popular films like Total
Recall and, yes, even Mars Attacks, the Red Planet has inspired
some out-of-this-world drama. Yet in the past year the quest for hard facts
about Mars has eclipsed even the best science fiction.
It all began last year, when researchers announced that Mars may once have
supported life, and that the evidence鈥攁 meteorite chipped off
Mars鈥攍anded on Earth some 13 000 years ago. In July, Pathfinder bounced
into a dried-up flood plain and let loose a rover. The event created a frenzy in
the media, and tens of millions of people logged onto NASA Web sites to follow
events. Since then, Pathfinder and its rover have been busy. In
鈥淧ostcards from another planet鈥� (p 38)
you can see some of the best images and data these robots
have sent back.
There is more to come. Global Surveyor grazed the Martian atmosphere last
week. And NASA has promised to send two spacecraft to Mars every 18 months from
now on. A key question that planetary scientists hope to answer is why Mars
turned from a warm, wet paradise into a barren, frozen desert, and whether a
similar fate could be in store for Earth.
鈥淒eath of a watery world鈥� (p 34)
explores their strategy for doing this.
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These craft will also pave the way for human interplanetary flight. Whether
anyone actually travels to Mars is still wide open. NASA is uncommitted. But it
is designing its missions to study problems that must be solved before anyone
gets to go.
Unlike robots, people need oxygen, heat, food and a way to get home. That
will make a human mission hugely expensive. The cheapest round trip is estimated
at $20 billion, compared with the $150 million or so each for
Pathfinder and Global Surveyor. And there are plenty of critics who ask what
humans can do on Mars that robots can鈥檛.
Then there are the risks. Little is known about the effects on humans of
interplanetary travel. It is clear from
鈥�2011: A Mars odyssey鈥� (p 28), that the
journey to Mars would leave astronauts seriously weakened. Perhaps one of
Pathfinder鈥檚 successors would give a human crew weakened by months in space a
real run for their money.
The human desire to explore and conquer is not going to go away. Early next
century, a select group of scientists, technologists and politicians will have
to decide whether to ask a human crew to suit up, ready for a mission to Mars.
They could play safe, and stick with robots. Or they might take a giant,
imaginative leap for mankind . . .