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Mars Exploration
February 13, 2004
INTRODUCTION
A plan proposed by President George W. Bush (R, 2001–09) to send a person to Mars is a bold, inspiring vision that fulfills the human need to explore. The program will give the U.S. space program some direction and revive the public’s fascination with space exploration.
The Bush plan sets an unrealistic and unnecessary goal. A manned mission to Mars will be far too costly and will sap government resources. Bush is using his plan for political gain, despite the fact that his initiative will likely not come to fruition.
AFP/Getty Images This image mosaic of the Martian surface was taken by the Spirit, an unmanned rover that landed on Mars in January 2004.
On Jan. 4, 2004, the spacecraft Spirit, an unmanned rover, touched down on the Martian surface following a six-month journey. Three weeks later, it was joined by another rover, the Opportunity. The twin landings marked the return to Mars for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which had last landed a spacecraft on the surface of Mars in 1997 with the Pathfinder mission.
Coinciding with the Mars landings was a recent announcement by President Bush (R) of a new direction for the U.S. space program. The highly touted plan called for the resumption of manned space flight to the moon, with an eye toward building a permanent installation there. More ambitiously, Bush proposed using the moon as the eventual launching pad for the human exploration of Mars, which he said should be the space program’s goal in the coming decades.
Bush’s announcement and the successful landings of the Spirit and Opportunity have cast the spotlight anew on Mars. Dubbed the “Red Planet” because of its distinct hue, Mars has long exerted a pull on the human imagination. Much of the interest in Mars lies in the question of whether life once existed there, or even if it exists there now. Indeed, the purpose of the Spirit and Opportunity probes is to further study recent findings that there is water on the planet, which scientists consider a crucial indication of whether life could exist there.
The renewed focus on Mars comes in the wake of some highly publicized failures. Flush from the success of the Mars Pathfinder in 1997, NASA launched two missions—the Mars Climate Observer and the Mars Polar Lander—that were both lost following their launches. In 2003, NASA suffered another blow when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during its reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. With Bush’s new initiative, analysts say the president is seeking to revitalize the space program and its standing with the public.
Despite Bush’s expressed commitment to landing a person on Mars, the odds of success are still slim, according to experts. They point out that two out of every three spacecraft that have been designed to orbit or land on the planet have met with failure. Among the most recent casualties has been the British Beagle 2, which touched down on the Martian surface in December 2003, but subsequently lost contact with mission controllers in Europe. [See 2004 Europe Launches Its Own Mars Lander (sidebar)]
The technical aspects of the mission aside, observers say that Bush’s proposal might fail at an earlier stage. Early response to Bush’s announcement has been decidedly mixed, raising doubts about whether there is sufficient political will to achieve the president’s goals. While some have cheered the administration’s plan as a bold, visionary stroke, others say it is a quixotic initiative that would be too costly to implement. Because Bush’s target dates for the mission are so far off—a return to the moon by 2020 and a manned expedition to Mars by 2030 at the earliest, according to some sources—many say that the Mars mission is simply the latest in a long line of grand goals for the space program that will remain unmet.
In the wake of recent developments, a debate has emerged over the human exploration of Mars. Supporters of the administration applaud the president’s plan as a daring initiative that reflects the human impulse to explore. They contend that by setting such a captivating objective, Bush has sparked a revival of the space program and public interest in space exploration. Backers argue that a mission to Mars, like other space missions, will reap substantial benefits, particularly in the realm of technological innovation. Countering critics’ charges that the program will be too expensive to see through, proponents say that the program’s cost has been overstated, especially in light of what humanity stands to gain from such a mission.
Meanwhile, critics denounce the president’s plan as unrealistic and unnecessary. Opposition stems from the plan’s projected cost, which opponents suspect could end up in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a price tag that they say is particularly objectionable in light of more pressing needs here on Earth. Skeptics point out that the exploration of Mars with robots and unmanned spacecraft is more than adequate for scientific purposes. Moreover, those who disapprove of the initiative charge Bush with touting the program for political gain during a presidential election year.
Public Opinion on Mars Exploration
Considering all the potential costs and benefits, do you favor expanding the space program by building a permanent space station on the moon with a plan to eventually send astronauts to Mars this way?
- Favor 43%
- Oppose 52%
Robots 67%
- Humans 38%
Not sure 5%
In January 2004, President Bush (R) unveiled a plan to resume manned flights to the moon and eventually launch a manned mission to Mars. The president’s announcement coincided with the arrival on Mars of the Spirit, the first U.S. probe to land on the Martian surface since the Mars Pathfinder in 1997. Aimed at revitalizing the space program, Bush’s proposal has met with skepticism among lawmakers and the public, who are concerned primarily about the cost of such a program. A poll taken Jan. 9-11 by the Associated Press and the Ipsos research group found that a slim majority oppose Bush’s Mars initiative.
Source: APIipsos
Jeremy Eagle
The Beginnings of Mars Exploration
Mars among all of the planets seems to hold the greatest appeal and mystery for people. Popular culture is rife with references to Mars, with the possible existence of life on the planet a major reason for the fascination. Apart from the moon, scientists say, it is the easiest extraterrestrial body for both humans and unmanned expeditions to explore. Even though Venus, because of the disparities in their orbits, is closer to Earth for more of the year than Mars, the latter’s atmosphere is more hospitable for human exploration.
The U.S. made its first attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars in 1964. The mission of the craft, Mariner 3, came on the heels of several unsuccessful attempts in 1960 and 1962 by the Soviet Union, the U.S.’s main rival in the so-called space race. Like those earlier launches, Mariner 3 failed to achieve its goal, becoming trapped in an orbit around the sun shortly after its launch.
Later missions found greater success, however. In 1965, the Mariner 4 spacecraft flew within 6,000 miles of the planet. That was followed by Mariner 6 and Mariner 7, which flew even closer to the surface in 1969. The purpose of the missions was to take photographs of the Martian surface.
In July 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the culmination of NASA’s $20.4 billion Apollo program. The first moon landing has since come to be considered NASA’s signature achievement, a feat that in many ways has overshadowed NASA’s subsequent accomplishments. Following the triumph of the Apollo program, NASA began to devise other ambitious projects, including the development of the space shuttle and manned missions to Mars.
Although the space shuttle program progressed steadily throughout the 1970s, hopes for a Mars expedition soon faded. As federal money began to be channeled into social programs, many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, came to see the space program as an unaffordable luxury. As a result, NASA’s budget, adjusted for inflation, fell sharply in the early 1970s, leading to the scaling back of its more ambitious proposals.
Despite the diminishing of the space agency’s role, it nonetheless continued with its efforts to learn more about the Red Planet. In 1971, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union successfully launched probes to orbit Mars and to photograph its surface. The Soviet mission that year, Mars 3, also landed a small capsule on the planet’s surface, although it malfunctioned only seconds after it touched down.
Meanwhile, the U.S. launched its Viking program in the mid-1970s, an ambitious and expensive project that proved successful. The program consisted of two landers, Viking 1 and Viking 2, that touched down on Mars in July and September 1976, respectively. They transmitted a series of photographs back to Earth and conducted experiments on the Martian soil and atmosphere.
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NASA scientists celebrate following the successful landing of the Mars Spirit rover on Mars in January 2004. Agency officials hailed a recent initiative of President Bush (R) to return a man
Recent Efforts Yield Mixed Results
Throughout the 1980s, planetary exploration took a backseat to the space shuttle program and other projects. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush (1989-93) directed NASA to plan a Mars human landing by 2020, but that program was soon quietly dropped after lawmakers balked at the projected costs.
In 1992, NASA attempted to revisit Mars with the Mars Observer. The mission, however, was hardly the triumphant return to the Red Planet NASA administrators had envisioned. In August 1993, the $1 billion spacecraft, which was meant to conduct geological and climatic surveys of the planet, disappeared.
The Mars Observer’s failure sparked debate among agency administrators and policy makers regarding NASA’s future and purpose. Partly as a result of the debacle, NASA adopted a new operational strategy. The new strategy was dubbed a “faster, better, cheaper” approach to space exploration, entailing an increase in the total number of NASA missions, but on a smaller scale and at less expense than had been the norm in the past.
The first Mars mission launched under the new strategy, the Mars Pathfinder, validated the agency’s reform efforts. The $266 million Pathfinder landed on Mars in July 1997, where it conducted tests of the Martian surface and sent back photographs to Earth. In addition to the Pathfinder, the Mars Global Surveyor, launched at the same time, orbited Mars and gathered information about the planet’s atmosphere.
The Pathfinder mission was soon overshadowed by two highly publicized failures in 1999. The Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, which cost 165 million, respectively, were both lost following their launches. The former had been on a mission to monitor the climate and seasons of a Martian year (the time it takes Mars to orbit the Sun—about two Earth years), while the latter had been meant to conduct explorations in a region near the planet’s South Pole.
The consecutive failures threatened to derail NASA’s long-term Mars exploration program. According to the program, NASA was to have launched one or more Mars missions every 26 months over several years—in 2001, 2003 and 2005. One goal of the missions was to create a network of landers and orbiters on and around the planet, which would transmit a continuous flow of data back to Earth.
In 2000, an independent panel reviewing the failure of the missions concluded that management lapses and underfunding were to blame. A second panel reviewing the Mars exploration program reached the same conclusion. The panels’ reports seemed to point up the limits of the agency’s “faster, better, cheaper” strategy, despite the fact that it had also produced successful missions.
The setbacks did not slow NASA’s efforts to learn more about the planet, however. In June 2000, NASA announced the discovery of evidence by the Mars Global Surveyor that there might be sources of liquid water on or just below the surface of Mars. Images transmitted by the satellite showed features on the planet that appeared to have been formed by water flows in the relatively recent past. Later that year, in December, the Mars Global Surveyor transmitted photographs that contained new evidence that there had been lakes and seas of liquid water on the planet in the past.
In February 2001, two teams of scientists reported that they saw new evidence that there had once been microbial life on Mars. The scientists said that microscopic magnetite crystals found in a meteorite from Mars displayed some of the same distinctive physical characteristics as magnetite crystals produced by certain bacteria on Earth. Skeptical scientists, however, said that further research should be done and that the findings were not yet conclusive.
NASA in March 2002 made public the first images received from the Mars Odyssey, an unmanned spacecraft orbiting Mars since October 2001. The photographs were the most detailed images of Mars that had yet been captured. Scientists also said that Odyssey had detected the likely presence of frozen water over a large area of southern Mars, bolstering previous findings.
In 2003, NASA’s Mars program proceeded apace with the launch of Spirit and Opportunity in June and July, respectively. The robots, called Mars Exploration Rovers, were to land in two locations believed to have been covered with water in the past, to determine whether water had been there long enough to support the emergence of life forms.
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D, Ohio), a presidential candidate, has accused President Bush (R) of pushing his new plan to land a person on Mars for political purposes.
Bush Pushes Mars Exploration
Spirit touched down on the Martian surface in January 2004, the first landing on Mars since Pathfinder in 1997. The Spirit rover rolled off the lander and onto the surface Jan. 15, 11 days after its landing. The rover, a six-wheeled, golf cart-sized craft, was to conduct numerous tests on the Martian soil. Within weeks, the Spirit mission yielded the most detailed photographs ever of the planet’s surface.
Following the Spirit’s landing, Bush unveiled a new plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the mission as a platform for manned explorations of Mars and beyond. Bush presented a new course for the U.S. space program, shifting the long-term focus from the space shuttle and an International Space Station to the building of a new manned space vehicle that will return humans to the moon within 16 years.
“Today we set a new course for America’s space program,” Bush announced in a speech at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “We will give NASA a new focus and vision for future exploration. We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and to prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own.” [See 2004 Excerpts from President Bush’s Speech on His New Vision for the Space Program (sidebar)]
While Bush did not set a date for a Mars mission, sources within the administration say that the earliest date for such a journey would be 2030. The president proposed spending 1 billion of that would come from a hike in NASA’s budget, while the rest would come from reallocating funds from other programs within the agency’s $86 billion budget. According to the administration, NASA’s overall budget would stay at about 1% of the federal budget. However, some in Congress questioned whether the figures laid out by Bush would be sufficient to fund the venture. Meanwhile, Opportunity landed on Mars in late January. The rover sent back dazzling photographs of the planet’s surface, including images of bedrock that one geologist called “a scientific jackpot.” The second rover arrived as NASA controllers sought to fix the Spirit, which had suffered some malfunctions days after it first rolled out onto the Martian surface. Despite the setback, scientists said that Spirit might resume normal operations within two to three weeks.
Supporters Argue
Mars Initiative Should Be Pursued
Supporters hail Bush’s plan to send a person to Mars as a bold, visionary move. They say that in pushing the program, Bush is abiding by the human impulse to explore and discover, the very same trait that has driven humanity’s progress throughout history. As Bush himself noted in his announcement, “Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit.”
Those who support manned Mars exploration see Bush’s plan as giving a deeper purpose to Americans’ lives. They see it as part of the continuing narrative of human striving. “Why not go to Mars? We can’t be here in this world just to fill our bellies and consume health care and stretch out our days as long as possible,” writes columnist Holman Jenkins Jr. in the Wall Street Journal.
Backers view the Mars exploration program as an investment that will reap benefits down the road. As with previous space missions and the space program as a whole, they point out that far-reaching plans like Bush’s yield new advances in science and technology and can even help the economy. Supporters say that the space program has already led to innovations in robotics, biology, chemistry and medicine. Developing a manned Mars exploration program, they say, promises to spur American scientists to develop even more innovations. “When NASA does cutting-edge work, new products are devised and people, Americans, are put to work producing them,” contends author Homer Hickam in a Wall Sweet Journal column praising Bush’s plan.
Yet another popular selling point for Bush’s plan is that it will draw support for the space program after years of neglect by the public, according to proponents. Since the moon landing, the public seems to have lost interest in space exploration, they contend, paying attention to NASA only after disaster strikes. Bush’s plan to send a person to Mars will captivate the public anew, they add.
“I think if NASA is going to continue in the business of human spaceflight, then it definitely needs a destination,” suggests Greg Klerkx, former senior manager of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, an independent space exploration and research institution in Mountain View, Calif. “I think one of the reasons that people have lost interest in human spaceflight over the past couple of decades is that there hasn’t been any clear goal or any clear destination.”
By pushing for a manned exploration of Mars, defenders contend, Bush will be giving NASA some badly needed direction. Recent failures, such as the break-up of the Columbia space shuttle, seem to have sapped the agency of energy and focus, they say. “The president’s vision is exactly what NASA needs: a bold, unifying mission that honors America’s 40-year legacy of triumph and sacrifice in human space flight,” say House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R, Texas).
Supporters dispute critics’ assertions that unmanned exploration of Mars would be just as beneficial and successful at far less cost than manned expeditions. They argue that while some unmanned flights to Mars have been successful, humans are uniquely skilled and better able to conduct such a daunting mission. “There’s no greater fan of robotic exploration than me,” says Steven Squyres, chief scientist for the Spirit mission. “But the best exploration, the most complete exploration, the most comprehensive exploration is going to be done by humans.”
Finally, proponents say that the cost of the program has been overstated by its opponents, and that manned Martian exploration will in fact be less expensive than people believe, particularly considering the benefits. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe provides a cost breakdown of the plan: