Crash landing at best, suicide dive at worst: NASA is ready for an Independence Day invasion of Mars, and it’s enough to make the most secular scientist get religion.
June 29th, 1997
Building Pathinder’s airbags no easy task Florida Today
Start with the world’s largest vacuum chamber, where air pressure can be regulated to simulate the thin atmosphere on Mars. Erect a 50-foot wall within the chamber, tilt it at a 60 degree angle, and bolt jagged rocks all over it so it resembles a steep Martian slope.
June 29th, 1997
Mars mission signals start of new era in space probes Florida Today
If all goes well, on the Fourth of July the mysterious Red Planet will reveal some of its secrets to a NASA probe that will snap pictures, sniff the atmosphere and dispatch a robot pal named Sojourner to check out rock samples.
June 11th, 1997
Prototype Mars Rover Completes Simulated Mars Trek Florida Today
NASA’s newest, six-wheeled prototype Martian rover – nicknamed Rocky 7 – has successfully passed its most rigorous field test yet, traveling six-tenths of a mile over rugged, Mars- like terrain, while conducting science experiments and snapping 580 photographs along the way.
May 2nd, 1997
Rough rides await Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor Florida Today
Launched into space from Cape Canaveral late last year, two spacecraft are now millions of miles from home – and getting a lot closer to danger.
March 5th, 1997
When the Pathfinder lands, will our sci-fi Mars perceptions be altered? Florida Today
Even as you read this, a spaceship is hurtling toward Earth’s most celebrated intergalactic neighbor. When the NASA Pathfinder probe finally sets down on Mars on Independence Day, it might help answer once and for all one of the most intriguing questions in the annals of science: Is there – or has there ever been – life on The Red Planet?
December 5th, 1996
Mars mission opens paths to more knowledge, wonder Florida Today
It was not enough to savor the moment, a moment that was a long time coming. No, on Wednesday morning, just six hours after the inky Florida sky was dazzled with the launch light of a robotic mission to Mars, a scientist stood in daylight at Cape Canaveral Air Station and was asked by a television reporter: When will man be going to Mars?
November 10th, 1996
Martian microbe triggers healthy debate on policy Florida Today
Now we know how Robinson Crusoe must have felt. In the classic novel by Daniel Defoe, the shipwrecked mariner spent years on a remote island before he discovered a stranger’s footprint in the sand. He wasn’t alone after all.
November 7th, 1996
Historic mission off to roaring start Florida Today
The Mars Global Surveyor rocketed away today on a 435 million-mile, 10-month journey to the Red Planet, the first step in a decade-long exploration effort by NASA to determine whether there was ever life on Mars.
November 7th, 1996
Surveyor launch marks first step in ambitious program Florida Today
NASA’s Mars Global Observer is speeding through the cosmos today, the first of a relatively cheap robotic brigade designed to search for signs of life on the mysterious Red Planet.