Making Tracks on Mars

Narrator: Inside this rocket.

Is the rover that could find life on mars if it lands.

Grant: We've got to go from.

Thousands of miles an hour to zero.

And not do a bug on a windshield.

The new rover is called perseverance.

Zimbelman: Perseverance is the most sophisticated.

Piece of robotic hardware ever launched off of the earth.

Narrator: It will search mars for signs of life.

While Smithsonian scientists roam the earth for reference.

Purdy: The search for life is one of the biggest questions.

Humans have.

Narrator: Previous rovers set the stage.

Now perseverance could reset our view of the universe.

Schulte: We're gonna get one shot at this.

Narrator: Meet the rocket, the rover and the helicopter.

That could change how we explore mars and beyond.

It's all riding on perseverance.

February 18th, 2021.

The sky is orange.

Under bright sunshine, it's minus 80 degrees fahrenheit.

The 8-year old curiosity rover dutifully carries on.

Otherwise, mars is quiet as a desert.

But here comes the new kid on the block.

After seven months of smooth sailing through space,

The bumpy ride begins.

Schulte: As the spacecraft encounters,

The upper part of the atmosphere it will heat up.

Once it slows down enough,

Then the heat shield will come off.

And we will deploy a parachute.

Grant: But we're still literally.

Hurtling towards the surface,

Even after being on that parachute for a ways.

Remember, this is a car-sized object.

That weighs almost a ton.

Narrator: No human steers it.

But it has just seven minutes to thread the needle,

Or this next martian explorer will crash and burn.

Meet perseverance, our newest mars rover.

Purdy: It's a huge beast of a machine.

And it is chock full of scientific instruments.

That are going to explore the surface of mars.

Narrator: At nasa's jet propulsion laboratory.

In California, perseverance comes together in a clean room.

If it's going to find life, it can't bring any life with it.

Stricker: It's really important to make sure that.

We send a clean rover to mars because.

If we do find something on mars, we have to make sure.

It's something that actually came from mars.

And not something that hitched a ride.

Narrator: They're building the most complex rover ever.

Including 23 different cameras.

Mastcam-z mimics human eyesight.

By capturing stereo panoramas.

A chemistry cam on the robotic arm.

Can zero in on the tiniest fragment.

And for the first time ever,

Video cameras will record the rover's descent and landing.

From four angles.

Grant: So with perseverance, for the first time,

We effectively have the opportunity to make movies.

Narrator: Some of these cameras reach 5k resolution.

That will beat the pixels off of

This.

Grant: Prior to 1965, the best views of mars.

Came from earth -based telescopes.

We really had no idea.

Of what the detailed surface of mars looked like.

Narrator: In the absence of data, humans dreamed.

We had centuries to conjure up ideas about mars,

Some scientific, some silly.

Purdy: The popular view of mars is that it did have life,

There were aliens on it.

You have this entire sci-fi industry built upon that.

Man: You speak wisely. I will go.

Narrator: Nothing said martian fantasy.

Quite like "little green men."

Man: I know. I don't think.

You'll be causing any more trouble.

Narrator: Creative minds careened out of control.

Until

July 14, 1965.

Earthlings in California anxiously await a signal.

From their latest attempt to reach mars.

Man: Two, eight (indistinct)

Narrator: The first two spacecraft failed.

But mariner 4 has a shot.

Purdy: It was intended to take.

A few pictures of the surface as it flew by.

Narrator: After a 7-month journey,

Mariner 4 has less than 30 minutes.

To get the first close-ups of mars.

Grant: The idea that you're gonna see something.

For the very first time, if it works,

Is not only cause for tremendous excitement,

But also tremendous trepidation. Will it work?

Narrator: Images comes in as data,

Taking six hours per picture.

Finally, the printer comes to life.

But mars looks dead.

Grant: The initial reaction was,

"oh my gosh, it looks like the moon."

Purdy: It was just this sort of dry, desolate, cratered surface.

And I think that that kind of punched a hole in the whole.

Romantic idea that there were martians.

Narrator: Mariner 4 snaps just 22 photos.

As it blows by mars.

But they rock our little corner of the cosmos.

Zimbelman: That was an enormous surprise.

And the beginning of our understanding.

That mars is not the

Mars of science fiction.

But I think as a geologist, it's an even better place.

With all of these amazing things to look at.

Narrator: With each mission,

Mars comes into better focus.

Mariner 6 takes 75 photos.

Mariner 7 snaps 126.

Then our first orbiter, mariner 9,

Circles mars for nearly a year.

And takes more than 7000 shots.

Grant: Mars was sort of unveiled globally.

For the first time to human eyes.

Narrator: Now we see more than just craters.

We see canyons and what look like dry riverbeds.

Grant: There were clearly branching systems.

Of channels that were merging in a downhill direction.

And of course, the most likely and logical origin for those.

Was by running water.

Narrator: Mariner 9 doesn't reveal.

When or why the water disappeared.

But it jolts us toward a new theory.

Maybe mars isn't like the moon.

Maybe it used to be more like.

Earth.

Smithsonian scientist, Ross irwin,

Studies how water can shape a planet.

And possibly spark life.

Irwin: About three and a half billion years ago,

Mars had many rivers on its surface,

Which were about this size and carved valleys.

About the size of the one behind me.

When the mariner 9 spacecraft arrived at mars,

It was a surprise to see these river valleys.

All over the place.

Narrator: Subsequent missions.

Revealed other earth -like features.

Irwin: In some cases, we have alluvial fans.

Where erosion of a mountain front.

Has deposited sediment in a fan.

Out across the floor of a basin.

And then we also have deltas.

And just like river deltas that you see here on the earth,

These river deltas on mars represent deposits of.

Sediment out into a standing water.

All of these eroded river valleys and sedimentary deposits.

Were compelling evidence of flowing water.

On the surface of mars,

But it left a lot of unanswered questions.

How long was the water there?

Were these environments really favorable.

For the origin and persistence of life?

Narrator: If ancient mars had surface water long enough,

It may have supported life and left evidence.

Just like on earth.

Irwin: This type of rock is very good for.

Preserving evidence of past habitability.

So it's not just indications that.

This environment may have been suitable for life,

But it's also very good at preserving evidence.

Left behind by life itself.

Obviously on mars, we're not looking for fossils,

But we're looking for indications of.

Whether there was bacteria on the surface of mars.

During these wetter periods early in its history.

Narrator: The only way to look that closely at mars.

Was to get on the ground.

Mariner 4 did a drive-by.

Mariner 9 kept circling around the block.

Then viking opened the door.

Schulte: The anticipation for these missions was very high.

These landers were going to soft-land on the surface.

And actually look for evidence of life.

In the surface materials of mars.

Narrator: In 1976, viking skids.

Into the martian atmosphere.

It will either make history, or crash violently.

Building perseverance to operate successfully on mars.

Is one challenge.

Getting it to mars is another.

About every two years, the orbits of earth and mars.

Put them in the same general neighborhood.

But still millions of miles apart.

Grant: Mars is really far away.

And getting the spacecraft there to a specific point.