Learn about water on Mars and other aspects of our celestial neighbor’s hostile environment when Dr. Steven Lee speaks today at the Orlando Science Center. Lee is an expert on the planet. He monitors Mars with the Hubble Space Telescope and helped develop the camera system aboard the Mars Climate Orbiter, a spacecraft that was lost before it reached Mars in 1999. He is science adviser for the traveling exhibition, “Mars-Quest,” which opens today at the science center and runs through May 6.
August 16th, 2000
Nelson vows to make Mars mission priority Florida Today
Democratic Senate candidate Bill Nelson said Tuesday if Florida voters send him to Washington, D.C., he will make a manned mission to Mars among his legislative priorities. “In my lifetime, what I want to see is a mission from planet Earth to planet Mars with an international crew that returns safely,” said Nelson, 57, who is at the Democratic convention promoting his candidacy. “I think we can do that. We have the technology. We just have to have the will to do.”
March 16th, 2000
Team probes Mars’ science and fiction Florida Today
Lecture/book signing by Dead Mars, Dying Earth author John Brandenburg: Dead Mars, Dying Earth theorizes the comet responsible for gouging Mars’ 120-mile wide Lyot impact crater 500 million years ago also blasted organic seed debris onto Earth, which in turn hastened the evolution of primitive aquatic life.
November 25th, 1999
Mars landing events and media coverage information Florida Today
NASA’s Mars Polar Lander is due to set down under rocket power on layered, icy terrain near the south pole of Mars on December 3, with the first signal received on Earth that confirms the landing expected at 3:37 p.m. EST. The two Deep Space 2 microprobes that are piggybacking on the lander will impact the planet’s surface at about this same time.
November 16th, 1999
Mars penetrator probes named for pioneering explorers Florida Today
NASA’s Deep Space 2 microprobes, due to smash into the surface of Mars near the planet’s south pole on Dec. 3, have been named Amundsen and Scott in honor of the first explorers to reach the South Pole of Earth.
November 10th, 1999
Mars Climate Orbiter review board to release report at briefing today Florida Today
News media are invited to participate in a briefing today by the NASA failure review board investigating the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter. The news briefing will emanate from NASA Headquarters and be broadcast at 1 p.m. EST.
November 7th, 1999
KSC at work on future Mars flight Florida Today
At 6 feet tall, the rocket will be shorter than your average NBA player. And it has to hoist only about 9 pounds of cargo into space. But this vehicle is giving Kennedy Space Center engineers a challenge and a chance to extend their launch expertise into the solar system by developing a rocket to blast off from Mars.
October 30th, 1999
Mars Polar Lander course correction burn today Florida Today
Ground controllers will refine the course of a Mars-bound spacecraft today so it can reach the Red Planet at the right spot for a planned Dec. 3 landing.
June 2nd, 1999
Exotic Earth bacteria shown to grow in a simulated Mars Florida Today
A methane-making, oxygen-hating microbe is able to thrive in Mars-like laboratory conditions, according to a researcher who says the experiment raises fresh hope about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.
May 28th, 1999
NASA’s Global Surveyor shows Mars’ canyons deep, volcanoes high Florida Today
The robot spacecraft that is orbiting Mars is giving scientists a better map of that planet than they have for some features of Earth, such as parts of Africa and South America. Scientists said Thursday that NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor has sent back its first topographical measurements. They show a heavily cratered southern hemisphere that is three miles higher than the smooth, northern hemisphere.