Science

Happy Anniversary, Spirit

In Science on 3 January 2010 with Comments Off

Six years ago tonight, I sat amongst hundreds of people at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. The standing room only crowd had surged past the capacity of the auditorium, forcing the facility to open up the planetarium next door for the overflow.

Nearly everyone there likely could have stayed at home, enjoying the comfort of their own living rooms or dens, thanks either to cable television or the Web. Instead, all of them deliberately went out of their way not to watch the evening’s events on their own, but instead in the company of others who also deliberately went out of their way not to watch the evening’s events on their own.

Six years ago tonight, the Mars Exploration Rover named Spirit approached the red planet for entry, descent, and landing. In two rooms at OMSI, hundreds of Oregonians watched NASA TV together. They held their breath in sync with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers on screen during the so-called Six Minutes of Terror. They burst into applause when the indication came that the airbag-cocooned lander was bouncing on the surface. And they settled into the anxious rhythm of bated breath and ecstatic applause as the EDL team reported each new indication of success.

Three weeks later, what I can only assume were mostly the same hundreds of people descended upon OMSI all over again, as the EDL team repeated their success with Spirit by landing its sister rover, Opportunity, on the other side of Mars.

As most should know by now, the Mars Exploration Rovers were never designed to operate much past three months. It’s anyone’s guess who actually knows this, because the attention of the press, and the public long since has drifted elsewhere.

I’ve said it ad nauseam, and I will continue to say it every time one of the rovers marks another milestone: In any civilization worthy of that term, the scientists, engineers, and technicians of the Mars Exploration Rover program would be considered as rock stars. In my book, there was no greater human accomplishment in the past decade than successfully landing not one, but two, rovers on Mars to conduct groundbreaking scientific exploration — and then have them still plugging away as best they can, despite countless obstacles and painful setbacks (Free Spirit!), a full six years later.

If for some reason you’ve never done so before, do yourself the favor of watching two editions of the program NOVA: “Mars: Dead or Alive” (Hulu or Netflix) and “Welcome to Mars” (Hulu or Netflix). The achievement matters, and should be remembered. If you’re anything like me (the first job I ever wanted was Outer Space Moving Van Driver), you probably won’t make it through dry-eyed.

Spirit and Opportunity: some of us are still watching, as we have been all along. And our grateful thanks continues to go to the entire Mars Exploration Rover team for giving us the gift of being witness to this mission in our lifetime.

Note: The graphic at the top of this post is taken from this MER@6 collection of posters and desktop wallpapers.