Today At 3pm New Lander Will Add To Humans' Fascination With Mars
/ CBS Detroit
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — In our solar system family, Mars is Earth's next-of-kin, the next-door relative that has captivated humans for millennia. The attraction is sure to grow with Monday's arrival of a NASA lander named InSight.
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CA - MAY 03: The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas-V rocket is seen with NASA's InSight spacecraft onboard, Thursday, May 3, 2018, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the "inner space" of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. (Photo Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
InSight should provide our best look yet at Mars' deep interior, using a mechanical mole to tunnel 16 feet deep to measure internal heat, and a seismometer to register quakes, meteorite strikes and anything else that might start the red planet shaking.
IN SPACE - MAY 25: In this handout photo provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona, the plains of the northern polar region of Mars is seen after the The Phoenix Mars Lander made a successful landing on May 25, 2008 on Mars. The Phoenix Mars Lander will search for teh basic signs of life in the surface ice on Mars. Less than half of the Mars missions have made successful landings. At a cost of $420-million, the Phoenix Mars Lander has flown 422-million-miles since leaving Earth last August. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona via Getty Images)
Scientists consider Mars a tantalizing time capsule. It is less geologically active than the twice-as-big Earth and so retains much of its early history. By studying the preserved heart of Mars, InSight can teach us how our solar system's rocky planets formed 4 1/2 billion years ago and why they turned out so different.
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CA - MAY 03: Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator, NASA JPL, discusses NASA's InSight mission during a prelaunch media briefing, Thursday, May 3, 2018, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the "inner space" of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. (Photo Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
"Venus is hot enough to melt lead. Mercury has a sunbaked surface. Mars is pretty cold today. But Earth is a nice place to take a vacation, so we'd really like to know why one planet goes one way, another planet goes another way," said InSight's lead scientist Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Today's Earthlings are lured to Mars for a variety of reasons.
The NASA InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket on May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. - NASA on May 5 launched its latest Mars lander, called InSight, designed to perch on the surface and listen for "Marsquakes" ahead of eventual human missions to explore the Red Planet. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
Mars — "an incredible natural laboratory" — is reasonably easy to get to, and the U.S., at least, has a proven track record there, noted Lori Glaze, NASA's acting director of planetary science.
The cherry on top is that Mars may have once been flush with water and could have harbored life.
HALE CRATER, MARS - UNSPECIFIED DATE: In this handout provided by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, dark, narrow streaks on the slopes of Garni Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on surface of present-day Mars. These dark features on the slopes are called "recurring slope lineae" or RSL. Scientists reported on September 28, 2015 using observations with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer on the same orbiter detected hydrated salts on these slopes at Hale Crater, corroborating the hypothesis that the streaks are formed by briny liquid water. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona via Getty Images)
"Trying to understand how life is — or was — distributed across our solar system is one of the major questions that we have," Glaze said Wednesday at a news conference.
"Are we alone? Were we alone sometime in the past?"
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 05: The Atlas 5 rocket carrying the Mars InSight probe launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, as seen from the San Gabriel Mountains more than 100 miles away, on May 5, 2018 near Los Angeles, California. The InSight probe is the first NASA lander designed entirely to study the deep interior structure of Mars. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
In two years, NASA will actually seek evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars — if, indeed, it's there.
On Monday, the space agency announced Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Mars 2020 rover, which will gather samples and stash them for a return to Earth in the early 2030s. The crater's ancient lake and river system are brimming with diverse rocks, making it a potential hot spot for past life.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 05: The Atlas 5 rocket carrying the Mars InSight probe launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, as seen from the San Gabriel Mountains more than 100 miles away, on May 5, 2018 near Los Angeles, California. The InSight probe is the first NASA lander designed entirely to study the deep interior structure of Mars. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Repeat, past life. NOT present.
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 05: Michael Meyer (L), Lead Scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program discusses recent findings by the MAVEN mission at NASA headquarters November 5, 2015 in Washington, DC. During a one year period that NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has been investigating Mars, evidence was found of solar flares stripping away atoms in the planet's atmosphere. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, said the Martian surface is too cold and dry, with too much radiation bombardment, for life to currently exist.
Recorded observations of Mars — about double the size of Earth's moon — date back to ancient Egypt. But it wasn't until the 19th century that Mars mania truly set in.
circa 1880: Italian astronomer and senator, Giovanni Virgino Schiaparelli (1835 - 1910). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli began mapping Mars in the 1870s and described the observed channels as "canali" — Italian for channels. But with the recently completed Suez Canal on many minds, "canali" became understood as artificial, alien-made canals.
The NASA InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket on May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. - NASA on May 5 launched its latest Mars lander, called InSight, designed to perch on the surface and listen for "Marsquakes" ahead of eventual human missions to explore the Red Planet. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
Adding to the commotion, the U.S. astronomer behind the Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona, Percival Lowell, decided the channels were transporting water from the poles for intelligent civilizations living near the equator.
Lowell's musings influenced H.G. Wells, author of "The War of the Worlds" in 1898. The 1938 radio broadcast of the science-fiction novel terrified many Americans who thought Martians were actually invading.
387656 08: Writer Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles) signs autographs at the "Hollywood Collectors and Celebrities Show" April 7, 2001 in North Hollywood, CA. (Photo by Newsmakers)
Ray Bradbury's classic 1950 novel, "The Martian Chronicles," kept up the Mars momentum.
HAWTHORNE, CA - SEPTEMBER 17: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens to a question at a press conference where he announced the Japanese billionaire chosen by the company to fly around the moon, on September 17, 2018 in Hawthorne, California. If the project is successful Yusaka Maezawa would become the first private citizen to fly around the moon. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Fast-forward to the 21st century, and SpaceX founder and science fiction enthusiast Elon Musk is leading a real-life charge to Mars. He envisions hundreds of thousands of people streaming to Mars in giant SpaceX ships and colonizing the red planet to continue the species.
Just this past week, Musk revealed new names for the interplanetary ships and booster rockets: Starship and Super Heavy.
HAWTHORNE, CA - SEPTEMBER 17: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at a press conference at SpaceX headquarters where he announced the Japanese billionaire chosen by the company to fly around the moon, on September 17, 2018 in Hawthorne, California. If the project is successful Yusaka Maezawa would become the first private citizen to fly around the moon. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Musk is so passionate about Mars that he hopes to die there one day, although he stresses not on impact.
While NASA is holding out for its own Mars missions with crews, it has turned its more immediate attention back to the moon. An orbiting outpost near the moon could serve as an embarkation point for the lunar surface and even Mars, according to officials. It also would serve as a close-to-home proving ground before astronauts zoom 100 million miles to Mars.
PASADENA, CA - AUGUST 5: Attitude Control system engineer Martin Greco (L) and Activity lead Bobak Ferdowsi (R), work inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory on August 5, 2012 in Pasadena, California. The MSL Rover named Curiosity is equipped with a nuclear-powered lab capable of vaporizing rocks and ingesting soil, measuring habitability, and whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbe. (Photo by Brian van der Brug-Pool/Getty Images)
All the observations and reports coming back from NASA's robotic explorers at Mars will help the human Mars pioneers, according to Thomas Zurbuchen, chief of science missions for NASA.
That's the charm of Mars, according to scientists.
HIDDEN VALLEY, MARS - AUGUST 4, 2014: In this handout provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows wheel tracks printed by the rover as it drove on the sandy floor of a lowland called "Hidden Valley" on the route toward Mount Sharp. The image was taken during the 709th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Aug. 4, 2014). That was one day before the second anniversary, in Earth years, of Curiosity's landing on Mars. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS via Getty Images)
Going to Mars is "a dream," said the French Space Agency's Philippe Laudet, project manager for InSight's seismometer. "Everything is captivating."
2018 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
