NASA Mars mission to test planet for ability to sustain life

[Don Jaguar]

By Marc Kaufman, Published: November 19

NASA’s most high-stakes, ambitious planetary mission in decades is scheduled to launch next week with a goal right out of science fiction: to learn whether Mars was, or ever could be, home to extraterrestrial life.

If the unmanned Mars Science Laboratory lifts off and travels a 354 million-mile path to Mars, it will lower to the surface a sedan-size rover called Curiosity, which has the potential to change our understanding of the cosmos.

The $2.5 billion mission comes at a crucial time for NASA. The agency faces intense budget scrutiny as it seeks to find a post-space-shuttle identity. Furthermore, NASA is under great pressure to justify its spending. With the project 30 percent over budget and two years late, much rides on its outcome. A failure would embolden doubters who argue that the country can’t afford NASA.

A success could do the opposite and possibly lead the way to further exploration and a push to send astronauts to the planet.

“With this mission, we really enter the modern era of astrobiology, the search for life beyond Earth,” said James Green, NASA’s director of planetary sciences. “And we have the technology and know-how to make some extraordinary discoveries.”

While the agency’s past six Mars missions have succeeded, flying to our nearest planetary neighbor remains inherently difficult. Overall, more than two-thirds of the 43 Mars missions — including flybys, orbiters and landers — attempted by space agencies around the world have failed.

In addition, NASA is attempting something it has never done in the science-lab mission: It will use a new multistage landing system to lower the one-ton rover on a tether that some are likening to a “sky crane.” If it succeeds, the system is expected to be the prototype for rover landings on Mars and elsewhere.

The Mars Science Laboratory was initially scheduled to launch in 2008, but technical problems remained unsolved in the months before liftoff and cost overruns made them impossible to fix quickly.

The new window to launch opens Friday and lasts about three weeks. If all goes according to plan, the spaceship will get to Mars in August.

Despite attempts by the then-Soviet Union, Russia and other nations, the United States is the only country that has flown to Mars and landed a working spacecraft on its surface. (The Soviets touched down twice, but the landers failed.) NASA has had a successful Martian touchdown and mission six times, including its two Viking landers in 1976.

Viking was a fledgling life-detection mission, but the scale of the Curiosity endeavor is so much greater than past efforts that many are putting it into a category of its own.

The rover is twice as long as the next-largest ever sent into space, and it will carry 10 of the most sophisticated science instruments ever deployed. It can also drill holes in the surface, shoot lasers at rocks and analyze the chemical content in the resulting spark, and drive as far as 12 miles in its almost two-year lifetime. In addition, scientists have the benefit of 35 additional years of research into conditions on Mars and what life needs to survive.

NASA Mars mission to test planet for ability to sustain life - The Washington Post

 

[Don Jaguar]

No one interested to live on mars.

 

[Developereo]

My personal feeling is that even if they find microbes, the vast majority of non-scientists will yawn it away. Unless it is a macroorganism that you can see with the naked eye, most people won't care.

I know scientists and the media will be abuzz about the 'principle' of extra-terrestrial life but, given that we have found Martian rocks on Earth, the two planets are not as mutually uncontaminated as one might hope.

 

[true_indian]

My personal feeling is that even if they find microbes, the vast majority of non-scientists will yawn it away. Unless it is a macroorganism that you can see with the naked eye, most people won't care.

I know scientists and the media will be abuzz about the 'principle' of extra-terrestrial life but, given that we have found Martian rocks on Earth, the two planets are not as mutually uncontaminated as one might hope.

Should that stop further exploration to Mars then? What's the use of this diatribe then?

 

[Avisheik]

No one interested to live on mars.

True, but everyone wants to claim mars for themselves