Missions to Mars - What the past showed us. What the future will reveal - Scientific - http://maxpages.com/stargate/The_Missions_to

Mars has no garden spots, even at the equator. The surface never gets above freezing. The air is a wisp of suffocating carbon dioxide. And although the landscape bears scars of water-carved canyons, the pink skies yield only frost and dust, not nurturing rain. If it's that bad in the Martian tropics, you would think no one would ever want to go to the poles. But NASA has targeted them as the next site for planetary exploration. On december 3, scientists will get a close-up of a Martian spring, when three probes descend on the just-thawed highlands of the South Pole. The Mars Polar Lander will ease itself down like an old fashioned Viking spacecraft, but snapping pictures all the way. The other two probes, part of the Deep Space 2 project, will scream out of the skies and land with a thud. "its's like putting your computer on the freeway and hitting it with a truck going 500 miles an hour," says JPL engineer Sarah Gavit, who managed the project.

Together with an orbiting weather satellite, this mini-armada will begin scanning for clues to one of the Red Planet's biggest mysteries: Where did all the water go? With any luck, they will find a record of 100,000 years of climatic history, determine how much water lies permanently frozen beneath the surface, and just maybe solve the riddle of whether life once held forth on the Red Planet. Or if any might still linger there today.

A timeline of probes to the Red Planet

1965

Mariner 4, the first successful probe to Mars, snaps 22 pictures of the surface

1969

Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon during Apollo 11. A few days later, Mariners 6 and 7 find cratered Martian deserts and a polar cap of dry ice.

1971

The first Mars orbiters, Soviet-built Mars 2 and 3, map the surface. A lander fails 20 seconds after touchdown.

1972

A global dust storm blankets the planet. Mariner 9 orbits for weeks, waiting for the storm to subside. The mission provides a clear view of mammoth volcanoes, a giant rift valley, and the northern ice cap.

1976

The Viking mission, with two orbiters and two landers, gets the first close look at the Martian surface. Alas, no signs of life.

1989

The Soviet-built Phobos 2 disappears just before placing landers on Phobos, a Martian moon. Russians say aliens kidnapped it.

1990

President Bush wants to send astronauts to Mars; the half-trillion dollar price tag puts the plan on hold.

1993

Three days before entering orbit, Mars Observer vanishes.

1996

NASA researchers turn up signs of fossilized primitive life forms on a Martian meteorite.

1997

Sojourner roams Martian landscape. Mars Global Surveyor sends back images of dried riverbeds.

1999

Mars Climate Orbiter monitors the weather. Mars Polar Lander prospects for water. Deep Space 2 crashes to the surface.

2002

Mars 2001 orbiter will map the distribution of minerals on the planet's entire surface and detect radiation harmful to humans.

Mars 2001 lander will study the soil. One experiment will try to make rocket fuel on the surface, much as human explorers may one day do.

2004

A gadget-filled rover will fill a canister with samples of various rocks. the samples will be launched into orbit and picked up later.

Mars Express, the first European mission to the Red Planet, will look for clues to Mars' past climate and relay signals from other rovers.

2006

A U.S. mission will launch samples into orbit. A Fench mission will pick them up.

2007-13

Every other year, probes will be sent to Mars. They wll scout for life forms and good landing sites.

2019

About 50 years after the moon landing, humans reach Mars.

Courtesey Discover Magazine

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