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It’s a sentiment that has continued to resonate since the world watched NASA land the Perseverance rover on Mars on Thursday.
“Touchdown confirmed. Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin looking for signs of past life.”
Pure joy spilled out of mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the rover team leaped from their chairs and erupted into cheers and applause.
It is a moment to be preserved and played in an infinite loop – those seconds when anxiety dissipates in the face of meeting hope and possibility.
In this magnificent moment of flight, it doesn’t matter that so many of us are watching from the places where we have quarantined ourselves for almost a year. As humans, we were together, united in joy. We jumped, laughed and cried with them, full of excitement.
They did it. We did it. In a year of seemingly endless bad news – and especially as the pandemic continues and winter storms affect much of the country – something wonderful has been accomplished.
“It was a dream come true,” Ken Williford, associate scientist for the project, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday evening.
President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris all shared their joy and congratulations on social media for the successful landing.
Even Ringo Starr felt compelled to share the joy and tweeted his congratulations to NASA, along with the observation, “David Bowie will be happy with peace and love.”
Almost instantly after the confirmation of the landing, Perseverance sent a message: Pictures of its landing site, confirming the safe end of its long journey.
A mission of firsts
Mohan’s words, the ones we all needed to hear, came not only after enduring the “7 Minutes of Terror” as Perseverance surged through the Martian atmosphere – but almost 10 years of planning, hard work. and exceeding the odds.
The thousands of people who worked to bring Perseverance to life lived up to the mission’s namesake when they had to prepare the rover for a July 2020 launch during a pandemic. Then there was the agonizing wait for her to land safely on the Martian surface.
Perseverance must have landed in the most dangerous Mars site ever. One graphic shows her landing site, circled in red – which would have meant some “death” if she landed on those rocks or cliffs. But in an impeccable manner, due to the tireless work of many, she landed in a safe blue spot.
So much was rolling over it. Perseverance isn’t just another rover – there is no such thing. It takes years of work, planning, coordination and innovation to design and build an SUV-sized robotic explorer that will land and drive autonomously on another planet.
It carries technological advances that could pave the way for a human mission to Mars, such as the MOXIE instrument that will convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.
And its cameras and microphones will deliver unprecedented sights and sounds of Mars for the first time. Did we mention there’s also Ingenuity, the first helicopter to fly to another planet?
As the JPL motto says, “Dare Mighty Things”.
He borrows from a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “It is better to dare powerful things, to achieve glorious triumphs, even in failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, for they live in the world. gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. “
Why bother with a robot?
The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars are not “Wall-E” – we know that. Yet the idea of robotic explorers venturing to the surface of another planet on behalf of humanity is still hugely impressive – even though NASA has landed rovers on Mars since the Sojourner experiment in 1997.
And we can’t help but project personalities on these rovers – especially when they have lovely social media accounts run by smart folks at NASA.
The Curiosity rover account replied, “Robots before boots. I’m so proud of you, @NASAPersevere, and the work you will do to pave the way for future astronauts and search Mars for signs of ancient life.”
Why should we care about a robot at the end of the day?
On the one hand, they’re basically a part of us, an extension of Earth now sitting on Mars. Almost 11 million people have submitted their names to hitchhike with Perseverance on silicon chips.
“There is something special about the early days, because we just landed a representative from planet Earth on a place on Mars where no one has ever been,” said Mike Watkins, director of JPL, after the Thursday landing.
For me, it has become a very personal thing. Following this rover’s journey from concept to stunning reality has been inspiring.
Along the way, I have met a large number of people who have dedicated years of their lives to this mission. It’s impossible not to feel caught up in their motivations, their hopes and their passion to explore.
Together, in the face of so many challenges, they created a technological marvel with a fitting name: Perseverance. His search for evidence of ancient life on Mars could help answer this fundamental question at the heart of humanity: Has life ever existed on another planet?
Seeing Perseverance during a visit to JPL in the summer of 2019 was a highlight. I was struck by the fact that this machine, only a part away from me, was going to land on another planet.
Throughout her journey there were so many moments of wonder. It’s impossible not to feel an inexplicable connection with this 6-wheeled robot. This will only get deeper as Perseverance explores Mars.
The tire tracks that rovers leave on the surface of Mars could one day have human tracks next to them. The robots go there first, so we can follow along. Helicopters like Ingenuity could even serve as scouts for human and robotic explorers.
Mars is a point of enduring fascination for us as humans for a multitude of reasons, said Steve Jurczyk, acting administrator of NASA.
“Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system,” he said. It’s also more accessible than other planets, and given that Mars was probably habitable billions of years ago, it’s definitely worth exploring for signs of past life.
Perseverance is just the first of a multi-level effort made possible by international collaboration and future missions that will bring samples collected by Perseverance from Mars back to Earth.
The students who watched the historic landing could one day be the scientists analyzing these coveted samples or working on future missions to Mars.
“The future of Mars exploration is so vast and exciting,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Directorate of Science Missions.
“It also involves many other nations and leaders. Many of them are still in school, even kindergarten or younger, and those leaders we will need to achieve these incredible goals.”
Keep the hope of the day of landing and let’s follow Perseverance’s journey to discover Mars.
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