Destination Mars Read online

  Published 2012 by Prometheus Books

  Destination Mars: New Explorations of the Red Planet. Copyright © 2012 by Rod Pyle. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Trademarks: In an effort to acknowledge trademarked names of products mentioned in this work, we have placed ® or ™ after the product name in the first instance of its use in each chapter. Subsequent mentions of the name within a given chapter appear without the symbol.

  Cover image © 2012 Media Bakery, Inc.

  Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht

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  Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data

  Pyle, Rod.

  Destination Mars : new explorations of the Red Planet / by Rod Pyle.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978–1–61614–589–7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–61614–590–3 (ebook)

  1. Mars (Planet)—Exploration. 2. Mars (Planet)—Surface. 3. Artificial satellites—Mars (Planet). 4. Space flight to Mars—Planning. I. Title.

  TL799.M3P95 2012

  629.43'543—dc23

  2011050583

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  Foreword by Robert Manning

  Acknowledgments

  1. The First Martian

  2. MARS 101

  3. In the Beginning: A Shining Red Eye

  4. The End of an Empire: Mariner 4

  5. Dr. Robert Leighton: The Eyes of Mariner 4

  6. Continuing Travels to Dark and Scary Places: Mariners 6 and 7

  7. Dr. Bruce Murray: It's All about the Image

  8. Aeolian Armageddon: Mariner 9

  9. Dr. Laurence Soderblom: The Eyes of Mariner 9

  10. Viking's Search for Life: Where Are the Microbes?

  11. Dr. Norman Horowitz: Looking for Life

  12. Return to Mars: Mars Global Surveyor

  13. Robert Brooks: It Takes a Team, Mars Global Surveyor

  14. Roving Mars: Sojourner, the Pathfinder

  15. Robert Manning, Mars Pathfinder: Bouncing to Mars

  16. Mars Express: On the Fast Track

  17. A Laugh in the Darkness: The Great Galactic Ghoul

  18. 2001: A Mars Odyssey

  19. Dr. Jeffrey Plaut: Follow the Water

  20. Twins of Mars: Spirit and Opportunity

  21. Dr. Steve Squyres and the Mars Exploration Rovers: Dreams of Ice and Sand

  22. Mars in HD: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

  23. Dr. Richard Zurek, MRO: I Can See Clearly Now…

  24. Twins of Mars: Spirit and Opportunity, Part 2

  25. From the Ashes, Like a Phoenix

  26. Peter Smith: Polar Explorer

  27. Mars Science Laboratory: Bigger Is Better

  28. Dr. Joy Crisp, Mars Science Laboratory: Dig This

  29. JPL 2020: The Once and Future Mars

  30. Mars on Earth

  31. The New Martians

  32. The Road Ahead

  Photo Insert

  Notes

  Bibliography of Print Sources

  Bibliography of Internet Sources

  Index

  The act of exploration is not what I thought it was.

  I have a hard time reconciling my childhood memories of the birth of space exploration with the reality that I have experienced as a professional in the field of robotic space exploration.

  I just barely remember the drama of John Glenn's heat shield in February 1962. I was too young to remember the play-by-play, but I followed the events closely a year or two later in grade school as my teacher read aloud a National Geographic story. John Glenn had just completed an American first: he had orbited Earth three times in his tiny Mercury spacecraft. As the last orbit approached, the nervous ground-control team calmly informed him that the light on the console showed a heat-shield malfunction, which probably meant that the shield would not stay in place when he reentered Earth's atmosphere after his third orbit. No worries though. They also professionally suggested that to ensure that the heat shield remained in place, he should not jettison the retro-rockets that where strapped around the heat shield in a three-arm hug. The retro-rocket straps should prevent the heat shield from slipping off during the extreme heating of entry. Easy to say, harder to hear when in orbit!

  I remember thinking about those three little straps and the light on the console that said something was wrong. I could see the straps melting away and finally releasing the retro-rocket pack that was centered on the shield. How did they know that it would work? How could he trust their opinion? What if the retro-rocket pack slipped off sideways and took the barely attached heat shield with it? The controllers were very smart, I told myself. They must have used some advanced math to show that there was no concern. They must have confidently assessed the situation and known that John Glenn would make it home only if he did not jettison the retro-rocket pack too soon.

  OK. Now I know better. Yes, they were very smart. These people were focused and fearless; brilliant people who gave up a life of invention, entrepreneurship, and certainly far better pay to do something that no one else did. I really cannot say that they were selfless. In fact, they were selfish in a particular way. They wanted to be the people doing this. Not someone else. THEM. Pushing the envelope. Calmly feigning confidence as they told Glenn that the retro-rockets would hold on to the heat shield. Terrified, they nonetheless felt that their guess was the best guess. The best guess from anywhere on Earth. And the best guess was probably right and was the way to success. They wanted to be the ones who were right. Being right was worth the low government pay. But the truth is that they did not know. They could not know. They were human, and humans know only so much.

  So what do I know now? I know that space exploration is as exciting and as hard as anything humans have ever done. I think I sensed that in 1963 when I learned of this story and others that were playing out on black-and-white television screens across the country, including my family's TV. What I know now and what I have come to know for a long time is that space exploration is a deeply human endeavor.

  But the people who envision doing science on another world, the people who invent these machines and instruments, the people in the back rooms with the white shirts and black ties are not “rocket scientists.” They are simply people much like you. They are optimistic, can-do, hopeful, bright, and sometimes quite lucky. But they are definitely human.

  In the latter two-thirds of my career, I have been a Mars explorer. I have learned about both the amazing things people can do as well as our own limits as human beings. Perhaps that is what I did not know when I was a young newcomer to space exploration. I did not know about the moving boundary between what is possible and what is not. I did not know that every new idea, every new experience, every new mission was another layer that builds a foundation and pushes that boundary further and further aloft.

  I have been very lucky to have witnessed and participated the in the drama of Mars exploration for the past twenty years. I have witnessed the veil of the known being parted with each new mission. Whether it is a scientific discovery of vast water de
posits just under the Martian surface or a new engineering insight that tells us about better ways to land on Mars, these insights have built a remarkable era of discovery. Mars is not the mystery it once was, but it has evolved into a living place with dramatic vistas and secrets just below the surface. The missions and layers of discovery you will read about are real, made true by people who are driven by a deep curiosity and who are unafraid to go.

  Perhaps we are like John Glenn and the explorers of my childhood after all.

  Robert Manning

  Mars Science Laboratory Project Chief Engineer

  November 2011

  Pasadena, CA

  There are many people to thank for their contributions to this book, and I hope that I have recalled you all.

  First, I want to thank the excellent team at Prometheus Books. Linda Greenspan Regan, Steven L. Mitchell, Jade Zora Ballard, Ian Birnbaum, and Jennifer Tordy were all magnificently helpful and supportive. Meghan Quinn handled publicity with mastery. Catherine Roberts-Abel shepherded the book through its many versions, and Laura Shelley provided expert indexing (and, as it turned out, additional proofreading) services.

  John Willig, of Literary Services Inc. and my agent, made the book a reality and was wonderfully and unendingly optimistic and supportive throughout. Alex Aghajanian, lifelong friend and attorney, lent his services as always.

  The folks at Jet Propulsion Laboratory deserve a major tip of the hat. Rob Manning was supportive and encouraging, and carved out some of his very limited spare time to contribute both a chapter and the foreword for the book—and all this in the midst of readying the Mars Science Laboratory for launch. Guy Webster and Elena Mejia provided access to some of the top minds in Mars exploration today for interviews. And, of course, the people who labor countless hours behind the scenes to provide terabytes of data on the US Mars program online deserve recognition—it is, in my opinion, the finest data repository of its kind anywhere.

  Robert Brooks, also of JPL, is a friend of many years and spent a number of hours with me, guiding me through the sometimes-Byzantine history of Mars exploration at NASA, as well as contributing to this book.

  Loma Karklins at the Caltech archives was unstintingly helpful in finding somewhat obscure material from that institution's glorious past. Without her assistance, most of the interview material prior to Mars Pathfinder would be absent.

  Chip Calhoun from the American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives, also contributed to the archival efforts. He and the rest of the institute staff gave many hours of assistance retrieving material that is available nowhere else.

  Many top researchers and planetary scientists gave me their limited and valuable time for interviews. In no particular order, they are:

  Dr. Peter Smith of the University of Arizona

  Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell Universit

  Dr. Joy Crisp of JPL

  Dr. Richard Zurek of JPL

  Dr. Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center

  Dr. Laurence Soderblom of JPL

  Dr. Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society and Pioneer Astronautics

  Dr. Jeffrey Plaut of JPL

  Dr. Bruce Murray of Caltech

  And, posthumously:

  Dr. Robert Leighton of Caltech

  Dr. Norman Horowitz of Caltech

  Gloria Lum provided expert grammar checking and creative input for the text, as she always has for my books, as well as unselfish support all around. Emil Petrinic gave the manuscript a thorough fact-checking, as did Bob Brooks, Dr. Jack Giuliano, and Robert Manning. True friends all. Jason Clark spent countless hours transcribing interviews late into the night.

  Ken Kramer, friend of thirty-five years and a professionally trained psychotherapist, doubtless utilized some of his education in our many late-night chat sessions during the authoring process. Likewise Rodman Gregg, film producer, and Scott Forbes, entertainment professional. My son, Connor Pyle, gave up many evenings with his dad so that I could indulge myself in the magnificent mystery of writing about something I love. Leonard David, space journalist par excellence, lent support and the occasional answer to the unanswerable. Likewise Andy Chaikin, author of some of the best space-history books of all time. Jeanie and Joe Engle of NASA receive the same credit.

  And to the folks who agreed to read galley copies of the book: Dr. Steven Dick, formerly NASA's chief historian; Roger Launius, senior curator at the Smithsonian Institution; Steven Fentress of the Strasenburgh Planetarium; Tony Cook of the Griffith Observatory; Leonard David, a premiere space journalist; and Piers Bizony, bestselling space author.

  Book writing is a solitary yet collaborative experience, and without the advice, assistance, and support of these people, such efforts would not be possible. My heartfelt thanks to you all.

  July 20, 1976: The Viking 1 orbiter instructed its lander to begin the separation sequence to start the long journey to the Martian surface. It was just after midnight at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, but as the probe was automated, no commands had been exchanged for some time. The onboard computer initiated a final round of systems checks. The explosives that joined the lander to the orbiter were armed…

  Anxious flight controllers, largely powerless at this distance, could only watch the time-delayed data as the onboard computers made their own decisions. At 00:00 onboard computers fired the pyrotechnics, separating the Viking lander, which soon fired its own braking thrusters to begin the slow fall out of Martian orbit. In the dusky skies above, the orbiter from which it had recently separated continued on its mission. Below spread the ruddy expanse of Mars: dusty, cold, unexplored…and in about three and a half increasingly turbulent hours, home.

  The Viking 1 lander, at ten feet wide by seven feet tall, was part of the largest and most expensive US unmanned mission to date. The orbiter, eight feet wide and ten tall, with a solar-panel span of thirty-two feet, shared the distinction. In a few weeks, Viking 2, a virtual twin, would arrive on Mars on an identical mission, but within a different landing zone on the opposite side of the planet.

  The people who had sent Viking to this dangerous rendezvous waited out the landing confirmation signal in tense quiet. Only the most necessary words were spoken. There was an eighteen-minute delay between Earth and Mars at this distance; whatever happened to Viking now would be of its own doing. Many scientists on this program estimated a 50-50 chance of success, even with two landers. It was, in essence, a blind landing on a rocky, undulating landscape.

  The Viking 1 lander was, for the first time in its short life, completely alone.

  The tiny craft plummeted into the thin Martian atmosphere at 10,000 mph, still firing its braking thrusters. These rockets were models of simplicity. The fuel was a monopropellant and needed no ignition source and no other chemical mixed with it to explode into thrust. Further, instead of using complex pumps to feed the engine, the propellants were pressurized by stored helium gas. There was little to go wrong once they fired.

  The lander was encased by a heat-resistant aeroshell, a dish-shaped structure that protected it from the heat of entry but also placed more demands upon its small digital brain. For as it plummeted through the upper reaches of the tenuous Martian atmosphere, Viking's computer was focused not just on a successful landing but also on conducting research in this wispy environment. Nothing is wasted in space exploration, and this early descent phase was no exception. As the computer labored to steer the craft, data began flowing in from sensors mounted on the aeroshell, providing data about charged particles surrounding the descending craft. Within the parade of arcane obsessions in the mind of the planetary scientist, understanding how the solar wind—high-energy particles streaming forth from the sun—interacts with the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere is a thrill. The measurements now being recorded on the onboard tape drives should shed some light on this question. But Viking cared not; it simply stored the data for eventual delivery to Earth. Recording data was its raison d'être, and to this task it app
lied itself from its first moments.

  At about 180 miles in altitude, another instrument switched on: the mass spectrometer. This would measure the makeup of the upper atmosphere, analyzing the thin gasses present to provide a more detailed accounting of the “air” to augment the painstakingly gathered information already gleaned from Earth-bound telescopes. This first US spacecraft to enter another planet's atmosphere would accomplish multiple objectives, but primary among them was searching for one capable of supporting life as we understood it in 1976.

  At about sixty miles high, this group of instruments switched off and another set became active. These performed an elegant analysis of the pressure, density, and temperature of the lower atmosphere by measuring the slowing of the craft. It was a bit like a waltz with a nonexistent partner, where one's success is measured via self-observation rather than direct feedback from the surroundings. But it was enough.

  At about seventeen miles, the trajectory shifted: the aeroshell was sufficiently aerodynamic that it began to generate some lift, and Viking began to glide across the Martian sky. All this was by design; it was another way to scrub off excess velocity. Eventually, weight and drag took their toll and the craft began its steep descent once more.

  The continual hiss of the rockets was joined by the roar of the thickening atmosphere, which, while thin, would soon be enough for the single parachute, set to deploy at nineteen thousand feet, to slow the machine sufficiently to land in one piece. This slowing to a sane rate of descent would be aided by more rocket engines. These were ingeniously designed as three clusters of eighteen tiny nozzles that would provide adequate braking propulsion without disturbing the surface upon which it alighted. All this, plus the fanatical sterilization of the spacecraft, was critical to preserving the sanctity of the ground below. For this was central to its primary mission—the search for life.

  The onboard radar was scanning the ground, providing excellent data for range to the surface. What it was not providing was any idea of how rough that surface might be. The Viking team back on Earth had searched for the best landing place it could find with Mariner 6 and 7 photographic surveys, and later with results from Mariner 9, but it was barely better than a rough guess. At the Mariner 9 camera resolutions, the best images heretofore available, items smaller than the Rose Bowl were nearly invisible. Anything smaller than that had to be inferred from the analysis of surrounding terrain, and this was more alchemy than science, based on Earth-bound geological assumptions. Teams had agonized over these images for years. Then, data from the just-arrived Viking orbiter cameras resulted in more eleventh-hour angst about the landing area and a new site was selected at the last moment. Now all JPL controllers could do was aim the gun, close their eyes, and squeeze the trigger. In short, Viking was what lab folk later referred to as a BDL—a Big, Dumb Lander. Much of what happened from now on was based on luck. Viking could crash and mission control would be blissfully unaware until eighteen minutes after the fact, when the signal would simply vanish.