Mars Science Laboratory "Curiosity": What if it fails? What if it doesn't?

The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity at work.

I was interviewed today about the future of the unmanned space program. These are always a bit difficult because, while I am among NASA and JPL's biggest boosters, as an outsider to NASA I also have the flexibility to lower the flag to half-mast (as opposed to flying it high, as I usually do) and speaking candidly. Today was one of those days. With the landing of Curiosity imminent, what is the future of Mars exploration, and planetary exploration, going to look like?

Let's step back for a moment. The US Mars program has had a roughly 70% success rate since it began with Mariner 4 in 1965. Mariner 3 never made it to Mars. Similarly, when Mariner 9 flew in 1971, Mariner 8 was also a no show. And etc. This is one of the reasons we launched spacecraft bound for the Red Planet in pairs, ala the Mariners, Viking, and others. One backstopped the other.

Of note: the Soviet Union/Russian Federation have an 11% success rate (this takes into account partial successes), so while ingenious and notable they are not a part of this discussion. Europe has done better (with Russian assistance in most cases), but with just a few efforts, it's too early to tell.

Why is it so hard to reach Mars? After gaining the moon, flying the shuttle into orbit 100-plus times, and scouting the outer planets, why does Mars still eat spacecraft? As recently as 1998/1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander failed, one due to faulty programming (the infamous metric/imperial units issue), and the other with a faulty sensor. The planet seems to have a grudge against being explored.

But let's look at the numbers again. Most of the US failures were early on. The Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter programs were both victims of the arguably misguided "Faster, Better, Cheaper" initiative begun under NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Parts of other spacecraft were used or recycled. Software was repurposed. And so forth. As the engineers at JPL will tell you off the record about "FBC," "Pick any two." They are right.

And don't forget- the further out you go, the more the errors are magnified. Trajectory, time exposed to intense radiation and brutal temperature swings, aging computer boards and more all take their toll. This is not an 8-day moon mission; we are talking many years in the harshest environment known.

So we know that the odds for success are with newer missions and modern equipment and software, which is expensive. And we wish for the ability to fly twin spacecraft, just in case. It's all about funding.

Despite these restrictions, JPL is still a PR jewel in NASA's crown. The vast majority of their missions, Mars or otherwise, perform so far beyond their primary missions it is almost laughable- if one was not so stunned by admiration. The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity? Designed to last 90 days, now in its eighth year, or some 3,020 days past its warranty. The Vikings did similarly well, with the Viking 1 lander performing yeoman duty for six years, and ceasing to function only after a bad command was sent up. It had plenty of ife left in its nuclear fuel. And so forth with the orbiters around Mars- unless they run out of maneuvering fuel, they just keep going and going. Mars Odyssey, the current record holder, has passed its first decade of operation in Martian orbit.

So back to MSL/Curiosity. Here we have the largest, heaviest and most capable rover (or lander) ever devised. But due to these characteristics it became prohibitively expensive and only one was built and flown. And to land this heavy machine a new and incredibly complex landing system had to be devised- one that is costing many sleepless nights around JPL as landing day nears. There's one shot- then we will know.

So, as the interviewer asked, what if MSL fails? I responded by asking, what if it succeeds? Other than the wonderful progression from Mars Pathfinder (1996) to the Mars Exploration Rovers (2003), success in planetary exploration usually breeds neglect. When the Vikings were amazingly successful on Mars, it took us 20 years to return to the surface, even while very smart people were still arguing about whether or not life had been found by its primitive analysis. There are other examples, but you get the point. The unmanned program of planetary exploration has always been the poor stepchild to manned spaceflight (though there is precious little of that at the moment), and JPL has made do with what was left. And in the process performed brilliantly.

Their reward as of today? Well, as regards Mars, they have one very expensive ($2.3 billion; more if operations continue over time) lander, MSL, which should soon be operational, and a small and specialized orbiter, MAVEN, scheduled for launch towards Mars next year. Beyond that, through to 2020, the manifest is barren. There are a total of 8 new missions planned, all in low Earth orbit, and most looking at Earth (they do good work- climate change, weather prediction and more, but are not exciting to most civillians). And between 2014 and 2019, ZERO new missions are currently approved. So back to Mars: after MAVEN, we will be left with whatever is functioning on the Martian surface (MER Opportunity and, with luck, MSL Curiosity), and overhead Mars Odyssey (not for much longer) and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. That's it.

So win or lose, the broad outlook is similar. Of course, if MSL is a success, the results should be staggering. Here, for less cost than a week of combat in Afghanistan of the bailout of a small S&L from a few years back, we will learn more about the history of water on the planet, and may well puzzle out the likelihood of living things there. And so much more: the results should quickly outstrip everything learned on the Martian surface to date. But success or failure, the future of Mars exploration beyond 2013 is bleak.

View of Mars from a Viking orbiter.

This is a long answer to the interviewer's short question. And the answer is: it doesn't really matter if MSL succeeds or fails as regards the big picture. Not because it is not brilliant, it is. Not because Mars is not important, it is! But because the United States has, in a major way, turned its back on its own impressive past in space exploration, as the civillian populace has becomes consumed with consumerism, we fight multiple (and seemingly endless) wars, and hope against hope that our economy will recover, even as we ship more jobs overseas. Exploration and science for its own sake has waned to the lowest point since NASA was founded (in relative terms). The political support for Mars is weak, and for the manned program is slowly fading. If we did not have the International Space Station (which we crew via Russian rockets), the astronaut office in Houston would be an empty cavern.

Success with MSL will be thrilling and amazing. Failure will be heartbreaking. But in either case, NASA and JPL need a major shot in the arm. Not just of cash, although that is important, but of enthusiastic support, political backing and new blood. To quote a propellant engineer from the Apollo days when he bumped into the astronaut inspecting the rocket he was about to ride to the moon: "Nothing on this rocket will fail because of me." NASA in general, and JPL in particular, must not be allowed to fail because of us... no matter what the outcome of Sunday night is.

Mars, Angry Dude

Mars, as seen by people of pre-scientific times, is traditionally represented as the god of war: a thing of fury, blood and death. Entertaining, but not the fellow you want at your Saturday afternoon BBQ. So I thought I'd take a moment here to detail some slightly alternative representations of Mars through the ages.

Ancient East Indian myths surrounding Mars, or Mangal/Angaraka as they referred to him (Mars seemed to be rewritten often by ancient cultures) referred to the planet/god as "auspicious, lke burning coal and the fair one." While warlike, Mars was also organized, energetic, and got things done. He would have made as good a modern office manager in the Bangalore tech-corridor as a godly general in combat. He was also, however, argumentative and temperamental, so perhaps not. In either case, he was said to provide great "administrative capability." Hmmm.

The Mesopotamians equated Mars with the god Nergal, representative of the underworld and all that this implies. While not as overtly warlike, to invoke Nergal did not portend a good day. That said, the Babylonians split the association with Nergal between Mars and the sun. In any case, he was in effect the governor of the dead population living below ground, and as such, did not have so much time for creating mayhem above.

In Egypt, Mars was associated with Horus among others. Saturn and Jupiter were also associated with Horus. When cavorting with Mars, the god became Horus the Red or Har Deshur. His head was that of a bird (either a noble falcon or somewhat comedic flamingo, depending on the source you believe), often seen in hieroglyphs. In another incarnation, Mars was the "good warrior," protecting the common man as the god Anhur (who began life as a war god- things tend to go full cycle in these tales).

While the Romans rocked-out to Mars as they sacked and pillage most of Europe, the Greeks, from whom they took most astrological inspiration, were not so fond of the Red Planet. While anointing him as a god, they often viewed him with some contempt, even revulsion. To them, Mars was more randomly destructive and destabilizing, as opposed to the later Romans who found his martial ferocity more appealing to their own bloody and disturbing sense of progress-through-conquest. The Greek Zeus even referred to Ares (Mars) as the god most hateful and repellent to him. He was regarded as hot-headed, impulsive and a liar, as opposed to Athena, his sister, who was a general's general. Feminist's unite!

Overall, it sucked to be Mars in Greece.

As mentioned, the Romans were more welcoming of Mars' destructive tendencies, emulating them across much of a continent. Alternative representations, however, see Mars as a god of agriculture (something Ares and others would have doubtless be revolted by!).

Later periods became more clinical, if not more objective.

The following is taken from a slim volume about Mars by the esteemed Willy Ley (1906-1969, part of the von Braun faction from Germany), which he wrote in 1966. The hardback version cost... 60 cents. Those were the days.

By the late middle ages (1500's), for instance, observers of the Red Planet had amassed a virtual catalog of Martian mischief. "Mars rules catastrophe and war, it is master of the daylight hours of darkness of Tuesday and the hours of darkness on Friday, its element is fire, its metal is iron, its gems jasper and hematite, and it rules the color red. Its qualities are warm and dry, it rules the color red, the liver, the blood vessels, the kidneys and gallbladder as well as the left ear. Being of choleric temper, it especially rules males between the ages of 42 and 57." Uh-oh...

What is of interest to this middle aged writer of science histories (me) is that a) the unnamed "Middle Ages" author (as opposed to this middle-aged author) got a few things right within the ragged fantasy he spun. For instance, hematite has been found on Mars by the Mars Exploration Rover in copious quantities, part of the wave of proof that water once existed there in great volumes. How the heck did this now-turned-to-dust fellow know that? Coincidence, I am sure. The reference to iron is a bit more straightforward, as the ruddy aspect of Mars in the night sky certainly looks like a spot of rust. But again, iron oxide was what has been found in those distant sands. However, warm and dry it is not, and my gallbladder can malfunction quite well without the intervention of Mars, or Venus, or Peewee Herman for that matter, thank you very much.

Moving on.Later in the same tome (in German, as translated from Latin), the anonymous scribe tried his hand at planetary poetry:

"Third planet am I, named Mars,
Fiercest and angriest of all the stars,
By Nature I am hot and dry,
Choleric my temper, though people sigh,
Of the twelve signs, not all are friendly
But Ares and Scorpio attend me,
While in their realms my fearful rays
Cause murders, death and fear all days.
My highest seat is Capricorn,
In Cancer of my might I am shorn.
Through all twelve Signs I abound
And in two years sweep clear around."

Ley, of course, recreated the rhyming in English from his native German. While lampooning the original writer, he was not such a poet himself it would seem. Overall, the "poem" does not seem to contain much of interest, other than charting Mars' relationships with other members of the zodiac. Nonetheless, his evil, warlike reputation is confirmed once again. This is the more traditional representation of the Red Guy.

After this, by the time Galileo and others began turning telescopes to the sky, Mars became more of a "what" than a "who." The Age of Reason took away a bit of the fun, and drama, of man's relationship with Mars. That is, until people like Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell began to intuit the idea of advanced life forms and massive canal-based engineering projects from swimming telescopic images.

But that's another story!

End of an Empire

I remember it well... the day I realized that the Martian empire of Percival Lowell, Edgar Rice Burroughs and so many others vanished into the red sands of Mars. It was late July of 1965, I was a tender nine-years of age, and had spent countless hours devouring any and all books about Mars in our meager elementary school library. The jury was still out... was there life? Were there beings there? Was the "Wave of Darkening" really plant life waxing and waning with the seasons? Did the canals of late 19th Century fame exist?

Then from CalTech and JPL the results were made public. Mariner 4 had flown past the planet, snapping 22 images and revealing the truth. Mars was an arid desert: dry, desolate and cold beyond imagining. Via incredibly ingenious techniques, most unappreciated by this allegedly precocious lad, the scientists had seen Mars for what it really was... a dead world. It would be years before the dynamics of wind and water there would be observed; many more before they would be understood. The important thing was this: science had robbed me of a beloved (and adolescent) vision of our neighboring planet.

But there were holdouts. The popular press still circulated ideas that there might be life- even beings- holed up underground and beyond observation! Hope, though sputtering like a flame in a stiff breeze, remained.

But before long, other probes flew into the Great Darkness and journeyed past, then orbited, Mars; finally landing there in 1976. While the resulting data was intensely exciting to scientists and mature readers, to a young man, the news just got worse. Mars was dead.

Fortunately, this was the golden era of Apollo. Soon the adventures of a few select men who traveled to, then trod upon the lunar surface supplanted the news from the Red Planet. The moon was deader than Mars would ever be, but America had done it, and the laurels of accomplishment could never be taken form us. Humanity had visited another world. And surely, Mars would not be far behind.

As I grew into adolescence, I read the plans of North American Rockwell and others for follow-on missions to my favorite planet with breathless glee. Surely the amazing hardware of the Apollo program would be utilized for the Next Logical Step, to visit the next logical destination. No sane government would throw away such grand accomplishments. Mars was in our future.

Well, it still is. We all know what happened after Apollo wound down with the orbital link-up between an Apollo Command Module and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. That was it. The remaining boosters rusted outside NASA's space-age facilities in Florida, Houston and Huntsville. The Lunar Modules and other hardware remaining from the cancelled flights of Apollos 18, 19 and 20 were relegated to various museums.

So the question remains: who will go, and when. With China on an aggressive course toward a space station of their own, India and Japan angling for crewed spaceflight and other nations dreaming of joining the game, it is an open query.

But for now Mars remains the domain of robots, primarily of US origins, orbiting along silent paths above its arid plains and roving its dusty surface. We may yet find some form of life there; frozen water has been found in copious quantities and where there is water, life may well follow. It will not likely be bipedal or humanoid; if extant, it will likely be mere lowly bacteria. But if it is there, we wil find it, eventually. And if we find it, we will visit in person. Someday.

The dream lives on.