SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT: Our Life on Mars

As Kathy Sawyer wrote in her article standfirst (National Geographic: February 2001) appropriately named: A Mars Never Dreamed Of , "the more scientists see of Mars, the more mystified- and astonished- they are about the powerful forces that shape its terrain." This week, an enlightening snippet of extra-terrestial information has been exposed to Earth. Nasa's 'Curiosity Mars'- once again, an apt name- has drilled, collected and is at present ingesting the 'grey powder' to be later sent to two on-board labs. The collected sample will undergo a rich and thorough series of complex chemical scrutinisation, and the results should indicate whether life ever was (or is) present on the Red Planet. 

I say, "should indicate" but then I know that this hasn't been the first time this thought-provoking paradigm shift has been explored. This afternoon, I have dug deep through my National Geographic archives, and have supplemented my lunch with some fourty-year old articles, and enriched the hours with ploughing through more than four decades of overwhelming astronomical achievements. In the 1960s, a decade overshadowed possibly by Neil Armstrong's landing on the Moon, Mariner IV made an equally successful flypass around the Red Planet. The article I have before me now, from December 1967, is on first perusal, quite ambitious. After all, it estimates only a decade is needed before "we could be ready for interplanetary travel", and yet at the time of going to print, nothing of Earthly design had entered Martian territory. I have some reservations about whether "Exploration of the Earth's land surface is almost ended" as Carl Sagan believes, but the author concludes: "Mars moves through our skies in its stately dance, distant and enigmatic, a world awaiting exploration."

Six years after suggesting man could walk around on Mars with "comparative ease" to Earth- its gravitational pull is lower- assistant editor for the National Geographic writes that "Mars is a far more complicated body than we had thought." Mariner IX had found that about 50% of the planet was volcanic, ultraviolet spectrometry revealed a puzzling yet geologically fascinating profile, and there seemed to be an appearance of a riverbed.

The Mariner operations had been successful in terms of their original intention, but gathered data and fresh information were inspiring more questions; perplexing queries that only a landing on Mars could answer. And so, on July 20th and September 3rd 1976, Viking 1 and 2 touched down respectfully. As the National Geographic from January 1977 delves into some considerable detail, the mission was productive. The arms of Viking 2 could expose Martian soil, temperature sensors could transmit data back to Earth and seismometers kept a sensitive record of any Martian tremors. By the end of the year, 99% of all the detailed knowledge about Mars had been learned, and biologists chewed the caps of their pens as to how life could exist. Could small creatures "eat the permafrost" or the dust grains that carried water molecules? One scientist working on the Viking operation imagined much larger creatures, admitting "I almost expected to see camels". In defence, the images Viking collected, could have just as easily been taken in the Sahara or the Mojave.

Mars exploration seemed to take a pause, or perhaps even a twenty year sabbatical, but as reported in an article from August 1998, Dan Goldin from NASA believed the next voyage to Mars should be "faster, better and cheaper." In 1998, Sojourner departed its mother ship Pathfinder and landed successfully to carry out yet more examination. It was "cheaper" (about a fourteenth cheaper than Viking) but only travelled 110 yards, and still no concrete statement on the possibility of life. What had been achieved were 16 APXS readings, which can ascertain the elemental chemistry or rocks and soils. The National Geographic provided readers with 3D glasses, to aid an espying of 3D Mars. (I seem to have an extra pair in my edition.)

Sojourner was continuing Martian scrutiny after a quiet couple of decades in the late 1990s, and President Bush proposed to send manned missions to the planet by 2019. (That's six years away, and I'm not sure we're ready.) I can remember going on TV in 2003 and on Xchange with me was a scientist who brought in a model of a Mars Rover; another robotic mechanism which would take to space in 2004, but never survived the landing and the possibility of sending a manned mission out looked more doubtful as a consequence. Less than a decade ago, however, in July 2005, the National Geographic reported on yet two more successful explorations of Mars; both Spirit and Opportunity landed in 2004 and found "direct and convincing evidence that water sloshed across Mars over 3 billion years ago." The probes also detected Goethite, a sure sign of water. Four years later, as the Phoenix mission took place, it's more of a case of not 'if' life existed, but 'when'. "Mars was a habitable world at some point early in its history. We don't know exactly when...Future missions will have to figure that out."

Five years later, as I am writing, Mars Curiosity is ingesting material which should bring us closer to determining the environmental conditions which could have supported microbial life many billions of years ago. From Viking and Pathfinder to Spirit and Opportunity, and now Curiosity, the names we pin upon the most successful of Space Missions capture our hope and wanderlust for Mars. "Space exploration is in the finest human tradition; many feel that it is a pre-requisite for our continued survival as a species" as Carl Sagan wrote. That sentence- that philosophy- was published over fourty years ago. We have drilled and dug, sieved and sampled, pondered and proposed so many theories of Life on Mars. Questions have yet to be answered. We shall never, I don't expect, name a ship "Success" because man will forever be drawing the question mark. The story of Mars has no fixed conclusion; at present, we haven't even found the beginning. We haven't even taken the book down from the shelf.