THE MARS FORNTIER U.S. AND RUSSIA IN QUESTS THAT MIGHT BE SPECTACULAR

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 16

THE MARS FORNTIER U.S. AND RUSSIA IN QUESTS THAT MIGHT BE SPECTACULAR

! Reprinted from the “Economist" by arrangement)

Landing on Mars is going to be harder than landing on either the earth or moon. If the Russians pull it off in the next few weeks, they will have done something that the Americans cannot hope to touch for another four years. This would go a long way to wipe out the memory of the string of Soviet space failures that culminated in the death of three cosmonauts this summer. For if any planet’s surface is worth exploring it is Mars’s with its peculiar surface conditions and the growing laboratory evidence that life of a sort could survive there.

The Russians have never) got even within camera dis-1 tance of Mars before, j although they have tried repeatedly on almost every suitable occasion. Each time their Mars probes have failed somewhere on the journey out. The Americans have overwhelmingly the better track record. Three of their probes have got close enough to Mars in the past to photograph it from various distances. On November 13, Mariner 9 raised the whole Mars programme to a new dimension by going into orbit round the planet and peering myopically through the dust storms at cratered landscapes more smashed about than even the moon’s. Mariner 9 should be able to map Mars progressively over the next three months. It would now be being hailed as a great American triumph were it not for the knowledge that two 4j-ton Russian Mars probes are closing in behind it. Why so big? There is no sensible reason why the Russians should use equipment as huge as this unless they intend to try for at least one Mars landing. Mariner 9 weighs only half a ton. The Russians have already landed probes on Venus, but Mars could be rather more difficult. It has enough of an atmosphere to create re-entry problems not present on the moon, but not enough of one to allow parachutes to be used to soften the landing. If the Russians want their instruments to work after landing, they are going to have to use a good deal of ingenuity to cushion the moment of impact. But the rewards would be spectacular. Until the dust subsides and gives them a clearer view, the best pictures that the Americans have show the surface of Mars alternating between flat and featureless plains; heavily cratered areas like those on the moon; and regions where the rocks are flung in every direction as if there had been an enormous earthquake or a violent and sudden subsidence. Much weathering has probably taken place, caused partly by the sharp change from moderate daytime to icy night-time temperatures and partly by the huge dust

istorms that are a regular. Weird and wonderful ' teature of life on Mars. j apparatus is being designed I nckpd in not-,- i' n Amer 'ca to check these Locked-m watei new theories. Robot labora-

If there is any water, it is likely to be locked in! permafrost beneath the' frozen carbon dioxide coat-1 ing the poles. It is a matter, of opinion whether this, coating is a thin, light-! reflecting layer of a few milli-i metres or something more; like the Arctic snow and l ice here on earth, blown into! drifts several yards deep.! The pictures could support! either version. The firstl photographs the Americans took of Mars could only! show features more than' two miles wide. Although the next set of pictures, taken from 2000 miles away, reduced this to something under 1000 feet, this is hardly high-resolution photography. Mariner 9 should get at times to within 750 miles. In the thin Mars atmosphere, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, this should] give spectacular results in terms of detail. But now scientists want to know something more. They want to know about Mars soil, with a burning curiosity they never had about the moon. Laboratory experiments published this spring show that it could contain organic chemicals of the kind out of which living matter is built.

Reproduce conditions on Mars in a test-tube—its atmosphere, its soil and the continuous ultra-violet radiation coming through from space—and, according to some impressive American work, organic molecules begin to synthesise under the influence of the ultra-violet. It looks a slow process, but Mars has been around a long time. The accumulation of organic chemicals there could be considerable, particularly if the dust storms, by regularly turning the soil over and burying them, saved these chemicals from being broken down again by the same ultra-violet radiation that formed them. The building blocks for organic life could, therefore, be blowing around Mars, waiting only for a catalyst that will link the chains into something more animate. This throws a new light on the eventual colonisation of Mars from earth.

tories are being fitted with booms and scoops and sticky pieces of string that can be trailed across the surface and reeled in for chemical , analysis on the spot. Unfor- | tunately, repeated economy ■ drives have pushed off until the mid-1970s the date when lan attempt will be made to (send these laboratories to I Mars. ; The Americans could hardly speed up the process now even if they wanted to. I Under the best conditions. Mars is seven months flying time from earth. Mariner and the Russian probes have been travelling through space since May. Mars comes as close as this only once every 15 months, which limits the opportunities for dispatching robot laboratories. The next does not come round until 1973, and a robot could | not now be got ready in time. If their equipment worked, the Russians could therefore pull off a huge propaganda victory as well as an impressive scientific one. Almost, any data from the actual surface of Mars would be I welcome. We should know i within a month.