Final Project

Allen F.

Legislator:  Tom Haywood, Senator

 

Throughout history, humans have relied on one method for attaining knowledge more than any other, first-hand experience.  For NASA, the benefit of landing humans on Mars could prove invaluable. Researchers on the planet would provide a wealth of information used to rapidly develop not only the space program, but many other scientific fields as well.  However, the first priority of any manned mission to Mars would have to be safety, and in order to ensure the astronauts safety many things must be learned about the planet Mars itself, one of these factors being its climate.  A climate orbiter provides data necessary for understanding the planets environment, but superior orbiters could be developed.  These orbiters could serve to tell us what would be necessary for a scientific expedition to Mars, the stresses faced once on the planet, the history of the planet and how to protect our astronauts on the planet.

In order to collect Mars’ climate data, the Mars Climate Orbiter was launched in 1998 as a part of the Mars Surveyor ’98 program.  Unfortunately the orbiter was destroyed when a navigation error caused it to miss its target altitude at Mars by about 80 kilometers.  Although this orbiter failed to serve its task, its objectives need to be completed.  The orbiter had five primary objectives: to monitor daily weather and atmospheric conditions, record changes on the Martian surface due to wind and other atmospheric effects, determine temperature profiles of the atmosphere, monitor the water vapor and dust content of the atmosphere, and to look for evidence of past climate changes.  All of these objectives are crucial for determining the nature of an expedition to the planet and the experiments that should be done on the planet.  The daily weather and atmosphere as well as the information on the wind and other atmospheric conditions provide for an understanding that enables us to build a suitable habitat for the conditions on Mars.  Factors such as Mars’ extreme temperatures and dust storms have to be considered in the design of the habitat.  For example, filters could be used throughout the habitat to get rid of the potentially harmful Mars dust.  Also the components of Mars’ atmosphere very obviously differ from the make-up of Earth’s and a Mars habitat must compensate.

The final two objectives of the climate orbiter can be perceived most amply as ways to understand what research would need to be done on the planet.  Obviously we can gather vast amounts of information by sending up probes and orbiters and landers, but the human experience that is earned by sending people to a planet cannot be totally simulated.  Humans’ ability to respond to situations and their intuitions set them apart from any machine.  But without technology such as the orbiters and landers, the human experience would more likely be a human disaster.

The climate orbiter itself must be built with extreme caution as to avoid another incident such as the orbiter destruction in 1999.  Two of the instruments still to be used on the new orbiter would be the color imager and an infrared radiometer.  The color imager would be used to acquire daily atmospheric weather images and high-resolution surface images.  The infrared radiometer would allow the measurement of the atmospheric temperature, water vapor abundance, and dust concentration.  The orbiter would have the long-term use of relaying data, like a satellite, to future NASA, as well as international lander missions on Mars.

In conclusion, it is clear that nothing compares to the knowledge that can be gained through the human experience, but the experience is not possible without the help of space traveling objects such as a Mars Climate orbiter.  Although the orbiter in 1998 failed, we must send up a new one in order to make the scientific gains desired for a successful study of and expedition to Mars.

Sources: mgem.arc.nasa.gov, space.com, solarviews.com

Last Updated:  09/10/01