NASA and future Mars mission

July 20, 2014 has marked the 45th anniversary of the first moon-walk. "It was 45 years ago that Neil Armstrong took the small step onto the surface of the moon that changed the course of history," said NASA in a recent statement. July 20, 1969 will forever be engraved in our memories. Since the Apollo mission, the US space programme went through major overhauls in exploring space. In the 21st century, human curiosity paired with the scientists' infectious inquisitiveness took space programme into a whole different level.

Mars, otherwise known as the Red Planet, was the next destination for many within NASA, and the space community at large. The planet always held a fascination for mankind. Voyages to the Mars have revealed a lot of unexplained mysteries. Conditions on Mars vary wildly from what we know on our own planet Earth. One fact stands out above all others: the possible presence of liquid water on Mars, either in its ancient past, or preserved in the subsurface today. Where there is water, life is found in the vicinity. It is this exciting programme, that we were a part of, when one of us had joined the NASA Langley Research Centre, as a postdoctoral fellow in the early Nineties.

Many exciting things were happening at NASA Langley Mars exploration research in terms of space radiation protection (which was my area of expertise). In long duration flights such as the Mars mission, radiation from all over the universe may impact the astronauts and the instruments in the space craft. The radiation would be in the form of galactic cosmic rays, which may travel at very high speed. On impact with the body tissues (and computer electronics), the rays break up into smaller fragments which can be highly ionizing, and thus detrimental to human health. The research was to understand the nuclear physics of fragmentation of the cosmic rays. The goal was to devise appropriate shielding for the astronauts and the spacecraft to minimize immediate and long term damage to both. As a result, scientists today understand the nature of the hazard much better.

NASA's Mars Mission programme stalled after 1992, during the Clinton administration. President Clinton and the US Congress did not share late president Ronald Reagan or George HW Bush's passion in space exploration. Reagan and Bush were following the early American pioneers who explored the US continent all the way to the Pacific Ocean, on the US West Coast. When Clinton won the US Presidency in 1992, there was a full blown economic recession. The president saw little value in pursuing the 'next frontier,' and his liberal arts background perhaps did not help in understanding a goal that emphasized scientific exploration of a planet that we knew so little about.

Mars missions did not stop altogether, however. "The United States launched Mars Observer on September 25, 1992 after a 17-year gap since its last mission to Mars. Launched November 7, 1996, Mars Global Surveyor became the first successful mission to the red planet in two decades. It has continued to observe the planet from a low-altitude, nearly polar orbit ever since. Mars Pathfinder (Dec 4, 1996) was originally designed as a technology demonstration of a way to deliver an instrumented lander and a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of the red planet. Mars Climate Orbiter (Dec 11, 1998) was designed to function as an interplanetary weather satellite."

Two robotic geologists named Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of the red planet in January 2004. These robotic explorers have travelled for miles across the Martian surface, conducting field studies and atmospheric observations. Both rovers found evidence of ancient Martian environments where intermittently wet and habitable conditions existed.

Building on their success, the next rover mission, the Mars Science Laboratory, carrying the Curiosity rover, arrived at Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. Curiosity collected Martian soil and rock samples. It analyzed these for organic compounds and environmental conditions that could have supported microbial life now or in the past.

Buoyed by the success of the rover missions such as Curiosity, NASA has made plans for a new robotics mission to the Red Planet in 2020. It would address key questions about the potential for life on Mars. "The rover would be based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory architecture; including the proven guided entry and sky-crane landing system that carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface in 2012." Designed to launch in 2020, this mission would take advantage of a favourable launch opportunity when Earth and Mars are in advantageous positions in their orbits. "Future missions will be driven by rigorous scientific questions that continually evolve from discoveries by prior missions." Technologies will enable us to explore Mars in ways we never have before, which will hopefully result in "higher-resolution images, precise landings, greater surface mobility, and even the return of Martian soil and rock samples for studies in laboratories here on Earth."

For exploration of the Outer Solar system, NASA has formed Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG.) This group was established this year (2014), to "identify scientific priorities and pathways for exploration in the outer solar system." OPAG is primarily a community based forum as it was designed to plan and prioritize future Mars mission exploration in the next few decades. All scientists or non-scientists can access this and review NASA's "goal" and "objectives" in terms of Mars mission. NASA's future exploration will most definitely include, "Airplanes, Balloons, Subsurface Explorers, and Sample Return Missions."

Since the current Obama government hasn't allocated any substantial funding for the Mars mission, then why continue on this track of exploring an unknown planet? As we said at the beginning, the Red Planet has held an immense fascination for mankind. The more we learn about this planet, the more we realize how much we do not know. NASA scientists do not spend too much time thinking about funding. They have seen the pitfalls since the Clinton era in funding for NASA. Scientific research has to go on and they work under the premise that the 2020 mission will take off as planned.

The scientific return of this exploration is priceless, but the technological understanding and concomitant economic gains made during the research phase are equally valuable. Whether the exploration programme continues or the 2020 robotics are sent successfully, really depends a lot on what's happening for the rest of the year in Washington DC in 2014. After that the 2016 presidential election will surely give us a clear indication of whether Space Exploration beyond this earth is a priority for the esteemed members of the US Congress. Only time will tell.

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Zeenat Khan is a fiction writer, and a newspaper columnist. Ferdous Khan is a theoretical nuclear physicist who worked at NASA Langley space radiation programme during the Reagan-Bush years.