Roving Mars

---

00:
40:27,854 -- 00:40:31,290

i( narrator) Space exploration/i

ibegan with dreaming,/i

2

00:
40:31,358 -- 00:40:34,657

ithousands of years/i

iof humans staring into the heavens/i

3

00:
40:34,728 -- 00:40:37,891

iand wondering,/i

i"How did this begin?"/i

4

00:
40:37,965 -- 00:40:40,092

i"What else is out there?"/i

5

00:
40:40,167 -- 00:40:44,228

iThe earliest answers/i

iwere given in myth and poetry./i

6

00:
40:44,304 -- 00:40:48,240

iNow they are sought by/i

ispace-age technology,/i

7

00:
40:48,308 -- 00:40:51,675

iand while each mission/i

iincreases our knowledge,/i

8

00:
40:51,745 -- 00:40:55,943

iit also leads our imagination/i

ifurther and further./i

9

00:
40:56,016 -- 00:40:58,416

iHow did life begin?/i

10

00:
40:58,485 -- 00:41:01,784

iDid it happen more than once/i

iin the universe?/i

11

00:
41:01,855 -- 00:41:04,449

iThe answer may lie on Mars./i

12

00:
41:34,021 -- 00:41:38,082

iMars today is desolate,/i

idry and barren,/i

13

00:
41:38,158 -- 00:41:41,616

iand at first glance has little in common/i

iwith our own planet,/i

14

00:
41:41,695 -- 00:41:47,600

iand yet from orbit we see what look like/i

idried-up lake beds and canyons -/i

15

00:
41:48,435 -- 00:41:51,836

iclues that,/i

ithree or four billion years ago,/i

16

00:
41:51,905 -- 00:41:55,841

iMars may once have been/i

iwetter and more Earth-like./i

17

00:
41:55,909 -- 00:41:59,936

iAnd since life blossomed/i

ihere on Earth, the question is,/i

18

00:
42:00,013 -- 00:42:03,278

idid it ever take place on Mars?/i

19

00:
42:14,761 -- 00:42:18,629

iTo answer this question,/i

iNASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory/i

20

00:
42:18,699 -- 00:42:22,066

ibrought together/i

ia team of scientists and engineers/i

21

00:
42:22,135 -- 00:42:28,563

iwhose mission was to discover if Mars/i

iever had what was needed to support life./i

22

00:
42:28,642 -- 00:42:32,100

iA geologist and astronomer/i

iat Cornell University,/i

23

00:
42:32,179 -- 00:42:35,637

iSteve Squyres was chosen/i

ito lead the science team./i

24

00:
42:35,716 -- 00:42:39,516

iAs principal investigator,/i

ihe would direct the team's search/i

25

00:
42:39,586 -- 00:42:44,523

ifor life's most essential resource -/i

iwater./i

26

00:
42:44,591 -- 00:42:47,958

i( Squyres)/i I've worked on the question

of water on Mars for 28 years,

27

00:
42:48,028 -- 00:42:52,522

You can't learn what you need from

a telescope, You must be a geologist,

28

00:
42:52,599 -- 00:42:56,899

A geologist is sort of like

a detective at the scene of a crime,

29

00:
42:56,970 -- 00:43:00,167

Something happened here

a long time ago, What happened?

30

00:
43:00,240 -- 00:43:04,700

Was it warm? Was it wet?

Could life have existed here?

31

00:
43:04,778 -- 00:43:07,713

The key is in the clues,

and the clues are in the rocks,

32

00:
43:08,315 -- 00:43:11,113

On Earth, a geologist

can find an interesting rock,

33

00:
43:11,184 -- 00:43:14,210

crack it open with a hammer

and just look at what's inside,

34

00:
43:14,287 -- 00:43:18,383

But we're not ready to send

a human geologist to Mars yet,

35

00:
43:23,964 -- 00:43:26,660

So we had to build a robot geologist,

36

00:
43:26,733 -- 00:43:30,464

and the only place this could be done

was NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

37

00:
43:30,537 -- 00:43:33,938

where some of the most innovative

engineers in the country work,

38

00:
43:34,007 -- 00:43:37,170

We're talking about a robot,

a rover that can go to Mars,

39

00:
43:37,244 -- 00:43:42,011

land on the surface, take a look around

and then cut the cord and go -

40

00:
43:43,250 -- 00:43:46,219

carrying everything it needs with it -

41

00:
43:46,286 -- 00:43:51,656

cameras, instruments,

communications equipment, everything,

42

00:
43:52,592 -- 00:43:58,497

Something that can look inside rocks and

can tell us what clues those rocks hold,

43

00:
44:05,505 -- 00:44:08,201

This place to me is almost sacred,

44

00:
44:08,275 -- 00:44:13,338

This is the place where our rovers are

assembled before they leave this planet,

45

00:
44:13,413 -- 00:44:17,440

Everything that we do

in this room must be perfect,

46

00:
44:22,522 -- 00:44:25,491

Over 4,000 people

have worked on this mission,

47

00:
44:25,559 -- 00:44:29,825

For every single piece of this spacecraft,

down to the tiniest one,

48

00:
44:29,896 -- 00:44:33,195

there was a person somewhere

who conceived it, who nurtured it,

49

00:
44:33,266 -- 00:44:36,827

who took it from a concept

to something real,

50

00:
44:40,106 -- 00:44:44,304

lt's taken this team three years

to design and build and test these rovers,

51

00:
44:44,377 -- 00:44:46,675

and we still have work to do,

52

00:
44:49,850 -- 00:44:52,910

We can only launch when

the two planets are properly aligned,

53

00:
44:52,986 -- 00:44:56,888

and that's just a month away,

but we still have tests to run,

54

00:
44:56,957 -- 00:45:02,987

We're working in shifts, almost around the

clock, and we don't know if we'll make it,

55

00:
45:09,769 -- 00:45:13,364

i( man)/i There's no one person who can get

their arms around this thing and say:

56

00:
45:13,440 -- 00:45:17,342

''l understand everything

about this vehicle,''

57

00:
45:18,645 -- 00:45:22,012

lt's now burst the bounds of our brains,

58

00:
45:24,384 -- 00:45:27,217

This rover is more than

just a roving geologist,

59

00:
45:27,287 -- 00:45:31,155

This rover also has to be a spacecraft,

60

00:
45:31,758 -- 00:45:34,818

lt actually has to

fly itself from Earth to Mars,

61

00:
45:34,895 -- 00:45:39,423

ln addition, it has to do

the very subtle and quick timing control

62

00:
45:39,499 -- 00:45:43,833

of all the things that happen

as it enters and lands the vehicle,

63

00:
45:44,771 -- 00:45:48,263

We had to stuff

all that intelligence and capability

64

00:
45:48,341 -- 00:45:53,506

into that little six-wheel vehicle back there

so that it could get there safely on its own,

65

00:
45:56,149 -- 00:45:59,209

i( Manning)/i l call our spacecraft

the ''origami spacecraft,''

66

00:
45:59,286 -- 00:46:02,778

which means it's really

a complicated series of folds,

67

00:
46:02,856 -- 00:46:06,485

We punched holes in the lander petals

for the wheels to snake through,

68

00:
46:06,559 -- 00:46:09,756

We've had to fold everything

into these complicated shapes

69

00:
46:09,829 -- 00:46:13,993

to get this system

to fit inside this tetrahedron,

70

00:
46:17,671 -- 00:46:23,303

lt's beautiful, but at a price,

and that price, in this case, is complexity,

71

00:
46:26,579 -- 00:46:29,104

i( Squyres)/i There have been

missions to Mars since the '60s,

72

00:
46:29,182 -- 00:46:33,812

there have been dozens of them,

but two-thirds of those missions failed,

73

00:
46:33,887 -- 00:46:36,447

Mars is a spacecraft graveyard,

74

00:
46:39,759 -- 00:46:44,287

A spacecraft has to travel

about 300 million miles to get to Mars

75

00:
46:44,364 -- 00:46:46,924

at about 60,000 miles an hour,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes