NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit lander touched down on the surface of Mars Jan. 3.
It was on Jan. 15, however, that Spirit’s six wheels made contact with the Martian ground. Scientists and rover technicians spent nearly two weeks removing obstacles from Spirit’s path and making sure that all systems on the rover were fully functional.
Since Spirit’s launch out of Cape Canaveral on June 10, 2003, the golf cart-sized rover has traveled over 300 million miles to land on Mars Jan. 3 at 11:35 p.m. EST. The rover comes in two parts: the lander, which brought Spirit to Mars, and the rover itself, which will maneuver around the planet’s surface.
When Spirit finally did roll out onto the face of Mars, the rover didn’t head far from home: its first trek took the rover less than ten feet from the lander. On Jan. 16, the rover extended its robotic arm and examined the Martian soil with a microscope fitted on the end of the arm.
Spirit is only the first stage in President Bush’s plans to revitalize the American space program. Bush’s announcement Jan. 14 outlined his plan to build a colony on the surface of the moon and send a manned flight to Mars.
The President’s plan to build a moon colony is a long-term one: Bush predicted the colony to be built by 2030.
Several plans for the colony exist from observatories, to mining camps, to testing grounds for Mars expedition technology.
Steven Wheeler, a sophomore computer major, said, “Bush just wants to see if there’s oil on the moon and go get that too.”
However, Michael Benson, a writer for the International Herald Tribune in Slovenia, says, “Bush’s election-year vision of where to take America’s space program is muddled.” He also comments that, “[W]hen a single, decisive, dramatic goal would seem to be crucially necessary, Bush wants to have things various ways.”
Still, no one can say that Spirit and its cousin rover, Opportunity (scheduled to land Jan. 24), haven’t made an enormous impact on America’s view of NASA.
Master watchmaker Garo Anserlian expressed his pride in being a part of the Spirit program. When the NASA team went public with the news of Spirit’s landing, he said, “I saw that some of them had two watches on and I thought, one of them was mine! I was proud as an American that it landed and secondly that my watches will be used.”
Since its landing on our nearest planetary neighbor, Spirit has sent back dozens of photographs of Mars, some in full color. For NASA’s latest photographs, go to http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.