Jessie Taft
Mr. Schalek
Physics
Period 6
20 November 2018
The Past, Present, and Future of Mankind on Mars
Mars; known in Greek as Ares, the God of War, and also known as the Red Planet, is the fourth planet from the sun, the closest planet to the Earth, and is the most studied planet other than the Earth (Mars Facts). There are records about Mars dating back 4,000 years which chart the movement of the planet. Back in 1870, and Italian astronomer named Giovanni Schiaparelli believed he saw channels “canali” on Mars. His word was mistranslated into English, and led to the believe that Mars had canals on it, which then in turn led to Percival Lowell, an American astronomer to create detailed maps after observing Mars for decades (National Geographic). Mars was mainly studied through ground telescopes, despite it being somewhat difficult as the planet is quite small, but the real exploration of Mars began when the first man made machines were sent to Mars to photograph and analyze the conditions on the surface to look for traces of ancient life, such as specific organic molecules, water and elements, and to learn more about this planet that is the second closest planet to us. This ended up being the Mariner 4, the first spacecraft to land on Mars in 1965, thus beginning the history of Mars space missions.
When the Mariner 4 landed on Mars in 1965, reports revealed an atmosphere than was thicker and had more radiation that scientists had originally thought it would. This was also when scientists realized that the canals that Lowell thought he had found, turned out to be nonexistent (National Geographic, Mars Missions). By discovering this information, it was also shown that it would be dangerous for people to travel to Mars. After the Mariner there were other missions that were supposed to take place, but never ended up happening due to issues on Earth, such as JAG; a probe that was supposed to collect soil samples from Mars and bring it back to Earth or the Post-Apollo, which was canceled by President Nixon after spending too much on the Vietnam war. The next crafts to actually land on Mars were part of the Viking Missions. These crafts gave us “our most complete view of Mars” (Nasa Viking Project). The Vikings took images, took soil samples, deployed seismometers among other Mars related things to help give humans as much knowledge about this planet, and it’s features, as possible. There are about 8 active missions at this moment, including the 2001 Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001, which is currently still in orbit (Mars Odyssey, NASA). One mission a few years ago was the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which was launched in 2016 (Missions to Mars, Planetary.org), but ultimately crashed as it landed, due to the descent sequence ending too soon (Schiaparelli, NASA). The most recent mission to Mars was NASA’s InSight. After traveling 300 million miles over a course of 7 months, on November 26, InSight landed on a “smooth expanse of lava” on Mars’s surface (Insight, NASA). This mission is extremely important as it is the first mission with the purpose of studying the interior of Mars. According to NASA’s website, the mission’s objective is to learn about phenomena such as tectonic activity and meteorites, and also answer the question about how these planets formed in the first place.
One special feature about Mars is that it was discovered to have had water on it in huge proportion in the past, equivalent or even surpassing the amount of water that is on Earth. It is seen that Mars has “dry riverbeds, that it imply it was quite wet in the past” (Mars Was Once All Wet, NASA). Because of these riverbeds and this implication, NASA has made a primary goal involving Mars missions, which is to discover what actually happened to all of this water, and also to figure out how much, if any, water still remains. The answers to these questions will also help determine whether or not Mars was capable of supporting life. The Mars Curiosity’s goal was to find out if there were conditions on Mars that would have sustained life. The Curiosity has achieved multiple accomplishments, such as finding out that Ancient Mars had the correct chemistry to support life, along with an ancient streambed where there used to be water. It did also find some negative, such as the fact that there was no methane in the air, and that the radiation levels on Mars could possibly threaten people. The Curiosity also has “ a neutron-based hydrogen detector for locating water” (Curiosity, NASA). It has also been found that Mars has dry ice on it’s poles during the winter season, when the sun isn’t shining on it. When spring comes, the ice quickly turns into vapor, carbon dioxide, and erodes the surface (Dry Ice on Mars). It is very possible that Mars used to have life on it, which brings about so many other questions, such as were those who lived there similar to today’s humans on Earth? And if there was life at all, how did it end? Does Earth have the same future because of what we are doing and is there a way to stop it? Hopefully with more research,missions to Mars, and with more time, all of these questions will be answered.
Currently NASA has a major mission planned for 2020 called the Mars 2020. It is expected to leave Earth from Florida in July of 2020 and land on Mars’s Jezero Crater in March of 2021. It took NASA crews five years to decide where the destination of this rover would be. With this mission, NASA hopes to find more information about ancient life on Mars, and also to collect more soil samples of the ground to help identify life-sustaining aspects of Mars. The reason this crater was chosen was because it has “landforms dating back 3.6 billion years ago” and it has rich terrain (NASA Announces Landing Site for Mars 2020 Rover). Scientists also believe that this crater could hold elements and organic molecules that are essential to having life. Not only is this rover collecting all these details, it also apparently will be taking with it a helicopter, which will then be flown on Mars, making it the first helicopter to be flown on a planetary body that isn’t Earth. If this helicopter works, it could completely change the way Mars is explored. More ground can be covered with less spacecrafts, and therefore more soil samples and air samples can be collected from different areas. Back in December of 2017, President Donald Trump signed a directive to push NASA in a new direction of sending a manned mission to Mars via the Exploration Campaign. This campaign aims for low-orbit earth travels and human travels to Mars as well (Moon to Mars). This campaign also wants to use data and samples collected by the Mars 2020 Rover to help as a building block towards getting astronauts a ticket to the Red Planet, and the campaign also wants to develop strategies and standards for long and deep space travels such as the one to Mars which is some seven months, if not more.
Mars has some extraordinarily similar qualities to those that are here on Earth. Scientists have observed evidence of volcanism and erosion on Mars that can contribute to our understanding of these processes. By learning more about the Red Planet, we can learn more about our own planet. Exploring Mars is the first step towards exploring other planets and moons in our solar system, which could be valuable in terms of resources, like minerals, for humankind. Exploring Mars with machines like Mariner 4 and InSight are a preliminary step towards exploring Mars by sending possible future manned missions. There may or may not be have been life on Mars in the past, but with our machines there now and humans there in the future, someday, there will again be life on Mars.
The Mars InSight after landing on Mars in November 2018
The first Mars Rover, Mariner 4
Young Mars compared to Present Day Mars
Works Cited
“10 Things: Mars Helicopter – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 31 Aug. 2018, solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/472/10-things-mars-helicopter/.
“Dry Ice on Mars | Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2165/dry-ice-on-mars/.
Dunbar, Brian. “Moon to Mars Overview.” NASA, NASA, 29 June 2018, www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/overview.
“Exploration | Mars – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 26 Nov. 2018,
solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars/exploration/?page=0&per_page=10&order=launch_date%2Bdesc%2Ctitle%2Basc&search=&tags=Mars&category=33.
“In Depth | InSight – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 27 Nov. 2018, solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/insight/in-depth/.
“In Depth | Mars Odyssey – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 25 Jan. 2018, solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/mars-odyssey/in-depth/.
“In Depth | Schiaparelli – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 26 Jan. 2018, solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/schiaparelli/in-depth/.
“Mars Facts.” Nine Planets, nineplanets.org/mars.html.
“Mars Missions: A Time Line of Success and Failure.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 1 Mar. 2013, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130228 -manned-mission-mars-psychology-space-science/.
“Mars Was Once All Wet – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 8 Dec. 2017, solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/224/mars-was-once-all-wet/.
“Missions to Mars.” The Planetary Society Blog, www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/missions-to-mars.html.
“NASA Announces Landing Site for Mars 2020 Rover – Solar System Exploration: NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, 20 Nov. 2018, solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/764/nasa-announces-landing-site-for-mars-2020-rover/.
“Viking Mission to Mars.” NASA, NASA, nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking.html.