Mars Exploration Rovers: An Interactive Space Exploration Adventure

ABOUT YOUR ADVENTURE

YOU are living through a time of exciting space exploration progress. Engineers and scientists are working with ever advancing orbiters and rovers to explore Earth’s neighbor planet, Mars.

In this book you’ll explore how the choices people made meant the difference between success and failure. The events you’ll experience happened to real people.

Chapter One sets the scene. Then you choose which path to read. Follow the links at the bottom of each page as you read the stories. The decisions you make will change your outcome. After you finish one path, go back and read the others for new perspectives and more adventures. Use your device's back buttons or page navigation to jump back to your last choice.

YOU CHOOSE the path you take through history.

CHAPTER 1

MYSTERIES OF THE RED PLANET

On the evening of October 30, 1938, Orson Welles performed War of the Worlds on the radio. The broadcast was intended to sound like a news program. The first startling words many listeners heard were:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed… Wait a minute! Someone’s crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or… something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks… are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be… [shouts of awe from the crowd]

Humans have long been curious about Mars, one of Earth’s closest neighbors.

War of the Worlds used sound effects and the voices of actors to pretend Martians were invading Earth. Some listeners panicked, thinking that Earth really was under attack. Many of them even called the police.

Nobody could fault people for believing in Martians in 1938. American astronomer Percival Lowell described seeing canals crisscrossing the planet. Lowell thought Martians were using these canals to carry water to farms and cities across a drought-stricken planet.

During the next 30 years astronomers work to get a better view of Mars. Bigger and better telescopes help a little, but millions of miles separate Earth from Mars. To get a really good look, we need to go to Mars ourselves.

From 1960 to 1971 engineers build and launch 17 different robotic spacecraft toward Mars. Nearly all of them either fail or survive only a short time.

In 1971 engineers finally succeed in placing a spacecraft into orbit around Mars. Pictures sent back to Earth by the Mariner 9 spacecraft don’t show any canals. Instead, Mariner 9’s cameras reveal dry riverbeds, ancient flood plains, and gigantic canyons. It looks like Mars was once a very wet planet. But there is no sign of water anymore. To discover where the water has gone and search for Martian life would require sending many more spacecraft to Mars.

In 1975 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) prepares to launch a new mission to Mars. NASA designs the Viking missions to include four spacecraft — two orbiters to photograph Mars from space and two landers to study the planet on the ground. NASA will join each orbiter with a lander and launch them to Mars as the twin Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions.

Technicians inspect the Viking 2 lander at the Kennedy Space Center.

On August 20, 1975, Viking 1 launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Viking 2 leaves Earth three weeks later on September 9. When the Viking twins arrive at Mars, the orbiters and landers will split and begin their separate missions.

You can join the teams working on either part of these exciting missions. The orbiters will examine Mars from space and search for future landing sites for robots and humans. The landers will study the planet’s rocks, soil, and air and search for any signs of life.

But be warned, exploring Mars is very risky. Choose the wrong path and your spacecraft could be lost in space or doomed to a fiery crash on the red planet.

To join teams working on Mars orbiters, press here.

To join teams working on