adventures
on mars
If ever
we were to grant Most Favored Planet status, Mars would win it hands
down. We have been enamored with the Red Planet since long before
fertile imaginations transformed its windy canyons into alien canals.
Not that Mars always repays our affections; in fact, the angry god
of war turned out to be a pretty shy dancing partner. In its pas
de deux with the sun, Mars passes by Earth for only six to eight
weeks every 25 months. We are starting, slowly, to take advantage
of that teasing opposition, making two fumbling passes in three
decades -- once in 1976, when we got to first base, and again in
1997, when we began to grope around.
And what did Mars offer in return? A diamond in the rough -- meteorite
ALH84001, the first tentative sign that life once existed on its
dusty plains. Our engagement thus sealed, we plan a permanent marriage
with this most difficult of planets; a lifelong commitment to manned
missions, terraforming and colonization.
--Chris
Taylor
Building
the Space Empire: Mars
Time
Online
Mars Sojourner Photo Essay
Time Online
Mars
Reconsidered
Two fiascoes in a row may force NASA to rethink the idea that faster,
cheaper spacecraft are always better
Time Magazine: December 20, 1999
Digging Mars
Time Magazine: December 14, 1998
Uncovering the Secrets of Mars
Time Magazine: July 14, 1997
The Last Time We Saw Mars
How cheap is NASA's new "better, faster, cheaper" design philosophy?
Time Magazine: July 14, 1997
Visit to a Smaller Planet
Time Magazine, July 14, 1997
Where
Are the Neighbors?
Roger Rosenblatt on Mars and our cosmic loneliness
Time Magazine: July 14, 1997
Next Stop: Mars
It's been 20 years since a U.S. Spacecraft visited the red planet.
Now a fleet is poised to take off.
Time Magazine: November 11, 1996
Next: Rovers, Scoopers and Maybe even Astronauts
Time Magazine: August 19, 1996
Is
There Life on Mars?
It's not the 'X Files', but a report of evidence of onetime microscopic
Martian life captures the imagination.
Time Online Special
Life on Mars
Time Magazine: August 19, 1996
|
