When it comes to exploring the planet Mars, a half-billion-dollar investment can go a long way. Recently, NASA’s Maven spacecraft continued the space agency’s remarkable run of engagements with Mars by successfully entering orbit around the red planet after a 442 million-mile journey.
For the next few weeks, NASA will calibrate Maven’s instruments so that in November, it can begin its unprecedented year-long exploration of the planet’s upper atmosphere. If all goes according to plan, Maven, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, will gather data that will yield clues to how Mars went from a warm, wet world millions of years ago to a cold and dry one today.
Meanwhile, Mission Control will be the first to say that these trips to Mars aren’t easy. Nothing is guaranteed when it comes to launching unmanned spacecraft and pointing them toward distant planets.
Though Maven will never land on the Martian surface, it still had to traverse millions of miles and enter into orbit traveling at 10,000 mph. It was a nerve-racking few minutes for the flight engineers monitoring its maneuvers and praying that their dozen or so years working on the project weren’t in vain.
Those who dismiss these unmanned space explorations as a waste of money and resources underestimate the economic and spiritual value of scientific inquiry. What we pay in the short run to explore our little corner of the universe is a bargain compared with the compound ignorance of doing nothing to expand our capacity for wonder.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
