Word: martian
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...drive through the Martian countryside should begin this Friday, July 4. At about 10 a.m. Pacific time, after a seven-month journey, NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft will deposit the robot car--dubbed Sojourner--on the Martian surface, marking the first time an American spacecraft has kicked up the Martian soil since the Viking landings in 1976. More important, it will be the first time that NASA has been able to move an unmanned vehicle from place to place on a foreign world. "I truly believe," says project scientist Matthew Golombek, "that Pathfinder will change our view of Mars...
Before the little rover can traverse the Martian surface, of course, it must reach the Martian surface, and that won't be easy. The 1,300-lb. spacecraft will slam into the planet's atmosphere at 16,300 m.p.h., ultimately causing it to experience deceleration forces of 20 Gs. The vehicle's cork-and-silicon aeroshell should absorb most of this body blow. Both a parachute and a retrorocket will slow its plunge, and an array of airbags will inflate to cushion the shock of landing. And finally, the spacecraft will simply drop to the surface, striking the ground like...
...until coming to rest. Still, controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were pleased. "It's been wonderfully dull," Flight Director Rob Manning said after the lander completed its seven-month journey. Whether the craft survived the impact intact was not immediately known, but NASA received radio signals from the Martian surface that suggested that it landed in the best position, with its base petal on the ground. Scientists were also happy that the lander came within 12 miles of the target point and was healthy, with all electronic subsystems running. If all continues to go well, the 22-pound...
Could the Heaven's Gaters distinguish pop fable from cold truth? Can we? Once we could. Not many of us took My Favorite Martian or Mork & Mindy as sacred texts. Frankenstein may have been a parable of science gone haywire and Dracula a metaphor for the wages of sex, but we knew they were just stories. Invasion of the Body Snatchers didn't spur an epidemic of podophobia...
...Curtis Cleven, launch operations manager. If successful, the craft will be the first-ever inter-planetary rover, slated to land on July 4, 1997. Several hours after Pathfinder parachutes down, the petals on the spacecraft will unfold; a six-wheeled, 23-pound rover will come out to roam the Martian surface, examining rocks and beaming back data. The launch has been tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday...