The Red Planet Possibility of life, exploration and beyond

Introduction The Myth and the civilization The Exploration Life on the Red planet? The Future Conclusion

The Myth and the Civilization The canals, the face and the civilization that our imagination created

The Canals In 1876 Italian priest Pietro Secchi observed straight line pattern on the surface of Mars 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli published a map of Mars, assigning names and called the feature “canali”, or “ Channel” The popular notion that intelligent life form constructed the canals was argued persuasively by Percival Lowell in his 1895 book

The face on Mars In 1976, spaceship Viking 1 spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face What could it be for? Does it signify some kind of Alien presence?

The Civilization There was a wide believe that Mars is populated by Intelligent life form

Life Came From Mars?! Can an asteroid from Mars possibly “contaminated” Earth with bacterial life form?

The Exploration The Russian and USA’s Mars exploration effort

The Russian Attempts The Soviets, being a player in the space race, sent more then a dozen of spacecrafts to Mars mar/soviemar.htmhttp:// mar/soviemar.htm

The US Launches The US also began its own Mars exploration projects, including the Mars Global Surveyor, the Pathfinder rover, and the recently launched Spirit and Opportunity

Mars 1-6 Orbiter/Lander The U.S.S.R.’s Mars project is the first attempt to send a space craft to Mars Mars 2 Lander became the first artificial object on Mars when it crashed onto the surface

Mariner1-9 Orbiter/Lander Mariners are the first probes that successfully sent back data of Mars with 4 successful missions.

The Mars Global Surveyor In 1998, the Mars Surveyor was sent in Mars orbit with its camera pointed towards the face. Another mission in 2001 showed clearly that the face is no more then mesas. And no, the face doesn’t open up, and no, “open sesame” does not work on Mars (just a stupid comment made on “Mission to Mars”, it’s better if you never saw the movie)

Mars Pathfinder Mission Mars Pathfinder is the first rover sent to Mars. It was designed as a technology demonstration of a way to deliver an instrumented Lander and a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of the red planetMars Pathfinder is the first rover sent to Mars. It was designed as a technology demonstration of a way to deliver an instrumented Lander and a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of the red planet

Spirit/Opportunity Mission In 2004, when the distance between Earth and Mars is at its minimum, twin rovers are sent over to Mars in the Delta rocket. Their mission is to look for signs of liquid water and evidence of life. Spirit Opportunity

Life on the Red planet? Can life exist on this dry and hostile planet?

The Building Block of Life As we have learned in class, the four essential elements for life are H,O,N,C. We’ve also learned that water, as far as our knowledge can tell, is the single most important solvent for life to form If water exists, or existed on Mars, then there is a possibility of life

Water?! "We have concluded the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water," ---Steve Squyres, Opportunity mission, 2004 As we all know, water is one f the most important bases of life, providing solvent and enabling chemical reactions The bedrock in which Opportunity took its sample from

But How?? There was a high concentration of water soluble salts in the bed rock, which, at least on Earth, can only be formed by evaporation of salted water. Previous missions by Mars Global Surveyor also provides evidence by picturing possible seabed accumulation.

A Race with Time and Battery Life There is a lot more to be discovered, and more question to be answered, but we don’t have much time left with Spirit and Opportunity The rovers have a design life of 90 Martian days, and 90 days was a long time ago The overworked, underpaid rover Ok…this is actually the picture of a Lander returning sample to Earth, not an overworked rover exploding…so?

The Future 2050 Men on Mars? The possibility and expectation

The Moon, and the Mars “With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond. “ ---President Bush, January 2004

Taking Baby Steps The first step towards manned mission to Mars is the completion on the ISS( International Space Station) which in only staffed with two emergency crew at the moment With the shuttle fleet grounded, the only link between ISS are the Russian launchers. To replace the shuttle and get astronauts back into space, NASA has been instructed to produce the Crew Exploration Vehicle, a heavy duty reusable vehicle.

The CEV

Back on the Moon The Second step is the returning to moon The moon is a perfect place to test technology for human habitat station that will be used for long term stay on Mars, and the ability to transport such module from Earth to space

Modified CEV For Mars

Man on Mars!! With the technology proven and the ability to transport crew through space, a manned mission will be sent on Mars A manned mission will accomplish more in the way that the experts sent there will know what they are looking for and can perform a “smarter” analysis on the samples found

Conclusion Life on Mars? Or not?

Inconclusive…Again?! Ok, so nothing is solid on the evidence of life on Mars yet, but at least we’re sure there’s no intelligent life form there, I mean, being a bad neighbor like us who crashes space crafts onto their planet every once in a while…I’d have been pretty annoyed. The fact is that we don’t have enough information to prove or disprove that life existed on Mars or not. Sending a space craft over might look easy, but truth be told, even NASA screwed up half of the mission. One little mistake, even a single degree of an error in the navigational system, can send the space craft into some weird orbit that will never reach Mars.

Questions?