(-17-) From: baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke)
Subject: Welcome to Mars!
Date: 31 Jan 1995 18:22:50 -0800
WELCOME TO MARS!
Donna Shirley, Mars Exploration Program Manager
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is going back to Mars for the first
time since 1976 with a small "fleet" of missions: orbiters, landers,
rovers, and maybe balloons and sample returns. And we are going in
partnership with other countries like Russia, France, Germany, Italy,
and Japan. Our plan is to fly at least two robotic missions to Mars
every opportunity (that is about every two years) from 1996 through
2005.
Robot spacecraft from the United States and Russia have been flying to
Mars since 1964. The last time we visited Mars with a fully successful
mission was with the Viking, which flew two orbiters and two landers in
1975 and 1976. The orbiters took pictures of the surface that were sharp
enough in some areas to see objects the size of a football field. The
landers took close-up images of two spots on the surface and did
experiments to search for life. While Viking did not find any life, the
possibility that life once existed on Mars is still there. But we now
know that finding evidence of life that exists now or in the past is
harder than we thought. Missions to Mars have been attempted since
Viking, but none have made all the scientific observations that were
planned.
On top of that, all the Mars missions that have so far flown have not
found out exactly what Mars is made out of. Do the rocks have carbon in
them? Oxygen? How much iron and aluminum? Another key question is:
Where did all the water go? Mars used to have a lot of surface water.
We know that because the orbiter pictures show river valleys and
channels. But it all disappeared a few billion years ago, except for a
little bit frozen into the polar ice caps. If people are ever to live
on Mars, we will need to find out if we can get water and other
materials from the Martian soil, air, or underground.
And we will have to answer these kinds of questions with a program that
costs much, much less than the previous Mars missions. For instance,
Viking cost, if we were buying it today, almost $4 billion. The first
two of our new missions, an orbiter and a lander, will cost less than
10% of that. And every two missions after that (which will fly to Mars
every two years) will cost less than 5% of the cost of Viking.
The Martian Chronicle will keep you posted on the work of the Mars
Exploration Program. We will tell you about our missions, what we hope
to find, and what we do find when we get there. And we will tell you
what is going to be happening and ways for you to get involved as we
build and fly our spacecraft. Other articles in the Chronicle will tell
you about our plans for educational outreach and public involvement.
Please e-mail me at donna.shirley@jpl.nasa.gov with your ideas on how
we can involve you and other people in exploring Mars.
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- T o d d E. V a n H o o s e a r -
``'''vanhoose@lalaland.cl.msu.edu - vanhoose@msu.edu - vanhoose@lalaland.cl.msu.edu
(._.) Michigan State University - East Lansing, MI USA
(_) Computer Laboratory - Department of Communication
`---' <A HREF="http://lalaland.cl.msu.edu/~vanhoose/">My Home Page</A>
"Give me ambiguity or give me something else."
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