(Multicom jingle)
(swooshing)
- [Astronaut] We are go for Mars entry.
Stand by.
In three, two, one.
(engines blasting) (beeping)
(swooshing)
Chute deployment.
Aeroshell jettisoned.
Main engine.
(main engine blasting)
- [Mission Control] 103%.
- [Astronaut] 8,000 meters.
- [Narrator] This is not science fiction.
Within this century, human beings
will embark on a journey to Mars.
(electronic chirping)
- [Mission Control] Z minus 10 meters.
Gear check.
(rockets blasting)
- [Astronaut] Four down and locked.
- [Mission Control] Four meters, three meters, contact.
Life support telemetry is green.
(swooshing)
(helicopter blades thumping)
- [Narrator] Today, on Earth the countdown
has begun of the 21st century's most heroic,
but deadliest expedition,
the first manned mission to Mars.
(dramatic music) (air hissing)
(metal creaking)
(rockets blasting)
The journey will take a new class of spaceship
unparalleled in ingenuity and a new breed of astronaut.
It is almost certain that people will die
in the attempt to fulfill a burning dream
to explore worlds beyond Earth.
- It is an amazingly complex undertaking.
- [Narrator] It will be a two-and-half-year odyssey
across hundreds of millions of kilometers of space,
one that will take sacrifice, daring,
and innovation on a scale never before imagined.
- These people are going to spending an awful lot of time
out there without any hope of resupply,
without any hope of rescue.
- [Narrator] The mission may answer one
of the universe's greatest mysteries, are we alone?
- The thought that you could overturn a rock on Mars
and see that, maybe, could be pretty exciting.
- [Narrator] This is the story of a daring voyage
that will change us forever.
It is the story of humanity's first steps on another planet.
The quest to explore the universe begins on Mars.
(swooshing) (inspirational music)
(dramatic music)
The future of human occupation of Mars
is now within our reach.
If we are to ever live there,
we must make the deadly red planet, blue.
Plans to make this science fiction fantasy come true
have already begun on Earth.
- Today, I announce a new plan to explore space and expand--
- [Narrator] In January 2004,
George W. Bush made a bold announcement.
- We will then be ready to take
the next steps of space exploration,
human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.
(audience applauding)
- President Bush stood up and said,
"We're doin' this, guys.
"I'm using my power, my presidential power,
"to say we're doing this."
And it has a powerful effect on NASA.
- [Narrator] It will be the greatest
scientific undertaking in history.
- [Engineer] You ready?
- [Narrator] Engineers all over the world
are already at work to get humanity to Mars.
(thumping)
It will also be the most deadly expedition ever attempted.
No spaceship in existence can make it to Mars.
And the voyage home is even more risky.
No one has designed a vessel that can escape
the red planet's gravitational pull.
The roundtrip journey will take a year
and as long as another year and half
on the red planet's surface.
No human being has ever survived that long in space.
Cosmic radiation or equipment failure
could kill the astronauts on the voyage
or violence after six months of stress.
If they do make it to Mars,
the poisonous atmosphere and cosmic radiation
make chances of survival slim.
And if anything goes wrong, there will be no rescue mission.
Doctor James Garvin is NASA's chief scientist.
- Getting people to Mars will be bigger
than any single leap in exploration
people on this planet have ever taken.
- [Narrator] At its closest,
Mars is 56 million kilometers away from Earth.
Traveling to Mars with enough supplies to stay alive
will be the greatest engineering feat in history.
- Mars is 1,500 to 2,000 times farther than the moon.
The amount of stuff you need to go and come back to Mars
is heavier than the International Space Station.
We have yet to move anything that big.
- [Narrator] 11,000 liters of water,
20 metric tons of dehydrated and packaged food.
In all, 520,000 kilos of supplies.
No single rocket can handle so much mass.
NASA now has a new, revolutionary plan.
(rocket blasting)
Step one is to launch as many as
10 rockets into Earth orbit.
NASA has dubbed the rockets Aries.
- The launch vehicle is the key to being able
to go do a Mars mission because we need
much more mass if we're gonna go to Mars.
- [Narrator] Aries Five is NASA's version
of an 18-wheeler, each designed to carry
130 metric tons from Earth into space.
1,200,000 kilos of solid fuel gets
this monster rocket off the launchpad.
(rocket rumbling)
Paul Delaney is a professor of physics
and astronomy in Canada.
- Aries is going to be the pivotal element
to get all the components into space
in preparation for going to Mars.
See, if Aries doesn't work well,
then we're just not going to Mars.
- [Narrator] Step two is getting
astronauts into Earth orbit.
This is Aries One.
It is the booster for the astronaut's
teardrop-shaped capsule called Orion.
(air hissing)
(metal creaking)
(rocket blasting)
Orion takes the astronauts to space
to coordinate the construction of the Mars craft.
The length of a football field,
it will take months for robots and humans to assemble it,
with a target date to be completed before 2030.
This will be the largest space vessel ever constructed.
Once completed, Orion will dock
to this huge interplanetary mothership,
transferring the astronauts for their journey to Mars.
(intense music)
Russia has its own competing design
to counter NASA's Mars plan.
Energia is Russia's version of Boeing
and they're about to unveil their own,
new manned space vehicle.
(clicking) They call it The Clipper.
The Russians hope to launch in 2018.
And this prototype looks like
a baby space shuttle, complete with wings.
(Sergey speaking Russian)
- [Interpreter] Clipper has basic flight characteristics.
It's just like a glider.
Because it has wings the landing will be
similar to that of an ultra-light.
- [Narrator] Like Orion, Clipper will carry cosmonauts
into Earth orbit and dock with
a Russian-built interplanetary spacecraft.
- [Narrator] Russia is designing a flight-worthy shuttle
and the United States is working
on a teardrop-shaped capsule.
Has a new space race begun, this time, the race to Mars?
(dramatic music)
They call it the Mars curse.
Of all the probes ever sent to Mars, 2/3 have failed.
Failure on a manned mission
would cost six people their lives.
No one wants to take that risk.
(rockets rumbling)
- [Astronaut] Lookin' nice out the window (speech fading).
- [Narrator] Today, the United States and Russia
will call upon their allies,
such as Canada, Japan, and Europe,
to make sure no one dies on the quest for Mars.
- I think you'll see that is a very, very
integrated international effort.
And I do not think any one country
has the resources, either fiscal or technical,
to do it by themselves.
And I think it'd be faulty for them to try.
- [Narrator] Not all Russian scientists agree.
(Leonid speaking Russian)
- [Interpreter] It is a very good thing
that the race between the two space superpowers,
Russia and the U.S., continues.
It is the natural aspiration of people to be the first.
- [Neil Armstrong] Roger, the EDA is progressing.
- [Narrator] After winning the space race to the moon,
NASA soon lost interest.
The last manned mission was in 1972.
- [Astronaut] Great, guys!
Now, that's about to change.
NASA's new manned vehicle Orion
can be docked to a lunar module
that will take astronauts to the moon.
The astronauts will build a permanent moon habitat
by 2025, a boot camp for the voyage to Mars.
- [Astronaut] There you go.
Beautiful, baby.
- [Narrator] But lunar training means nothing
until scientists on Earth figure out he best time to go.
(swooshing)
- It's unimaginably precise.
It's probably, the best analogy would be like
threading a needle in the West Coast from the East Coast.
- [Narrator] Earth and Mars are circling the sun
at different speeds and different orbits.
The Mars craft will set course for a moving target
traveling millions of kilometers.
(swooshing)
This critical task is being studied
by the European Space Agency.
Their job is to help decide the spaceship's trajectory.
ESA aerospace engineer, Loredana Bessone,
leads a team that's tackling this critical question.
Simply put, it's either gonna be a short hop
or a very, very long stay.
- As we all know, trajectories are gonna
drive our whole mission because it's gonna tell us
how much time we're gonna spend in space and...
- [Narrator] There are two choices.
Choice one is to leave from Mars
when the red planet is closest to Earth,
56 million kilometers away.
This option requires the least fuel
and fuel is weight.
That's the plus side.
The minus side is that the astronauts
can only come home when Earth and Mars
are once again close together.
In other words, they must live for 18 months
on the desolate and deadly red planet.
- They have to wait for the celestial mechanics
to "come back into alignment."
You're talking about Earth and Mars
being in the right places at the right time
to allow the vehicle coming back safely to Earth.
(rockets rumbling)
(metal rattling)
- [Narrator] Then there's choice two,
a short stay mission that's riskier.
The spacecraft swings by Venus
and uses the planet's gravity as a slingshot.
This saves on fuel,
but the window to reach Venus is short.
If they miss it, the astronauts will not come home.
- There's no tide to carry you back to Earth.
The planets move too quickly.
We don't have rockets big enough.
- [Engineer] What it looks like.
- [Narrator] The ESA working group believes
the short stay mission is too risky.
Astronauts will therefore spend 18 months
on the surface of Mars,
with no chance of leaving early
and no chance of rescue if something goes wrong.
(mumbling in foreign language)
Meanwhile, the Russians are blazing
their own trail to the red planet.
Shrouded by scaffolding,
engineers lead by designer Leonid Gorschkov,
have built a mock up of the world's first
manned interplanetary spacecraft.
(Leonid speaking Russian)
- [Interpreter] We've made it a long way towards the goal
and we are practically ready to start the production
of the ships for the Martian expedition.
- [Narrator] After 40 years of trial and error,
building the Mir Space Station,
the Russians have hands-on experience.
- [Interpreter] The orbital stations
are the predecessors of the Mars ship.
The real spacecraft will be bigger.
It's supporting structure, shafts,
and the shape will be the same.
- [Narrator] Like NASA, Russian will launch rockets
carrying huge pieces of the Martian craft into orbit
and assemble the craft in space.
Massive amounts of food, equipment,
and supplies will follow, on other rocket launches.
(radio transmission in Russian)
Then there's a new problem,
building the technology to fire
the vessel's rockets in space.
- [Launch Commentator] Two, one,
and liftoff as Space Shuttle Discovery.
- [Narrator] The Space Shuttle is hurled out
of the atmosphere and into orbit,
all from the thrust of the initial launch.
It doesn't fire its main engines once in space.
It's been over 30 years since NASA last fired manned rockets
outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
- That is something that, for a long time,
we've forgotten about.
We have not done human class,
in space propulsion since 1972.
- [Narrator] Rockets are chemical-powered.
They require millions of pounds of fuel
and in space travel, weight is the enemy.
(rocket rumbling)
NASA engineer Stan Borowski has one
possible answer for the future,
a fuel-efficient nuclear propulsion system.
- The benefits of nuclear are its higher gas mileage,
which is twice that of the best chemical rockets.
That means we need less propellant,
and fewer numbers of heavy-lift launch vehicles.
(swooshing)
- [Narrator] Fewer Aries launches equals lower costs,
as much as $2 billion per mission.
That's a lot for the cash-strapped NASA.
- But if we wanna go for good
for sustainable exploration storage,
the engineering solution that gives us nuclear propulsion
will be a more efficient solution in the long run
to opening up the solar system for people.
- [Narrator] The technology for a nuclear rocket
is already within our reach.
But it will still take at least 12 months of travel
from Earth to Mars and home again.
And that poses a new problem.
How do you keep six astronauts
from driving each other crazy?
- [Mission Control] Mars One,
you are go for the trans-Mars injection.
- [Astronaut] Roger.
We are go of the DLI burn.
- [Narrator] A few weeks after leaving Earth's orbit,
the first crew to Mars crosses the threshold
where humans have never ventured.
It's the point of no return.
- When you go beyond that single bound with Earth,
and you're on a positive trans-Mars
injection path to Mars, you're not comin' home.
You're goin' to Mars.
- [Narrator] If there's an engine failure,
the crew would disappear into the depths of space.
- [Launch Commentator] And liftoff of the 25th
Space Shuttle mission and it is--
- [Narrator] Death is nothing new
in the human endeavor to explore space.
The world watched it unfold
with the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
- [Mission Control] Roger, go to drop off.
(deep rumbling)
Go to 15 seconds.
- The future doesn't belong to faint-hearted.
It belongs to the brave.
Nothing ends here.
Our hopes and our journeys continue.
- [Narrator] NASA has lost 17 astronauts.
Russia admits to four, but some observers
believe the number may be much higher.
NASA chief scientist believes a mission to Mars
would take more lives than those lost
in the early days of the Space Program.
- So, what was the probability of success for Apollo,
looking back in time?
Was it one in 10?
A mission to Mars is more likely to be
in a failure probability of one in 10
and one in five.
- [Narrator] Garvin has no illusions.
Untested technology, the sheer distance,
and the hostility of the Martian environment
make casualties probable.
Then, there's the human factor.
One of the greatest risks
of the Mars voyage is cabin fever.
Extended missions on the International Space Station
are nothing compared with the Mars voyage.
Can any six people live together for a year
in a space the size of a small apartment
without someone cracking up?
Jerry Linenger spent five months
aboard the Russian Space Station Mir.
He can't imagine the impact of
a two-and-half-year mission to Mars.
- I was actually shocked of my time on Mir,
of how isolated and how cut off and stuck with myself
that I felt during that time.
And also, of how vulnerable I was.
You have to perform at a pretty high level,
but those psychological things keep eating at you.
And I saw some pretty serious psychological problems
developing, people kind of going off the cliff.
- We are loading, software first.
- [Narrator] The journey to Mars is an exercise in boredom.
Days slip away in a numbing ritual of science experiments,
aerobic exercise, dehydrated meals, and sleep.
Email communications with loved ones back home
come with a time delay of up to 23 minutes,
given the spaceship's distance from Earth.
There's very little to do and nowhere to escape.
(swooshing)
Russia has conducted intense experiments
to push its cosmonauts to the outer limits.
Deprived of sleep for three days,
this cosmonaut is put through the paces
of mundane tasks around the clock to see if he'll snap.
But nothing on Earth can prepare a crew
for the psychological hardships on a mission to Mars.
(Rotislav speaking Russian)
- [Interpreter] If we can solve the problem
of finding an ideal crew,
then the Mars mission will be a success.
If we make a mistake, these conflicts will kill the crew,
just like a disease.
- [Narrator] The psychological anguish is only one problem.
The physical affects are much more serious.
Bones and muscles weaken radically in zero Gs
and NASA still doesn't have solutions.
Jerry Linenger spent 132 consecutive days
in space aboard Mir.
That's less than 1//3 of the travel time to Mars and back.
- I was almost shocked that I had lost 65%
of my strength level and lost about 13%,
14% of my bone mass in those weight bearing areas.
- [Narrator] One solution is to
create gravity within the spacecraft.
NASA engineer Stan Borowski has a plan
still in its infancy.
The spaceship with rotate through space like a propeller.
- After the primary departure burn from Earth occurs,
we jettison the propellant tank
and now we position the vehicle
and can use small RCS thruster located
on the front and back of the vehicle
to spin it like the propeller on an airplane.
By doing that, we're able to generate
artificial gravity for the crew.
- [Narrator] The effect of zero Gs inside the spacecraft
are minor compared with the threats outside,
space swarms with massive solar storms
and streams of cosmic radiation.
The radiation on a voyage to Mars is the equivalent
of 3,000 chest x-rays, unless there's protection.
Engineer and veteran astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman
has an idea straight from science fiction,
a force field protecting the Mars craft
from cosmic radiation.
- The radiation is there.
The human body doesn't like radiation.
If we're going to ever really become
a space-faring civilization,
radiation protection has got to be a part of the equation.
(intense music) (air swooshing)
- [Narrator] What kind of crew has the courage
and the stamina to handle these deep space challenges?
In the earliest days, NASA recruited fighter pilots.
A danger junkie is the last person wanted
on a two-and-half-year mission to Mars.
- But you also want them to be highly skilled
and highly reliable in the skills
that they bring to the mission.
And those skills, they'll be a set of generic skills,
the ability to work with technology, repair technology,
understand how to make computers
and networks work and habitability systems
and repair spacesuits and space rover.
All those will be critical.
- [Narrator] NASA has already decided on
a mixed crew of men and women for its Mars mission.
Sex in space is a real possibility
on the long, lonely haul to Mars.
But NASA's official policy is sex is okay,
as long as personal relationships
don't jeopardize the mission.
- It happens everywhere on Earth.
It'll happen on the way to Mars
and just stop worrying about it.
Just let people who have the right skill set
right across the board go
and the other problems will take care of themselves.
(swooshing)
- [Narrator] The final obstacle facing
the Mars astronauts is time.
A lot can change on Earth over two years,
things that can be too much to bear,
helpless, in the loneliness of space.
- My son was a little over a year and half years old.
My wife was pregnant.
An issue that comes up is, you know,
what if something bad happens to your family on Earth?
Should they send you that message
and tell you that you lost your son?
You know?
It would be a tough time.
I get choked up just thinking about it, you know?
- [Narrator] The challenges facing astronauts
on their journey from Earth to Mars
are devastating and deadly,
but nothing can prepare them
for the dangers that await
as they ready to land on the red planet
and face its merciless climate.
(dramatic music)
Mars is a planet of hostile extremes,
unspeakably desolate, unbearably cold,
swept by massive dust storms,
ridden with craters and canyons,
it is Earth's arch enemy,
a planet of death.
December, 1976.
NASA's ring of global space antennae are fixed on Mars.
In the dead of night, pictures from the red planet
taken by the Viking lander.
(garbled radio chatter)
(people cheering)
Dr. James Garvin was an intern on the Mars Viking program.
Now, he's NASA's chief scientist.
- Viking went with experiments designed
to ask about modern, extant life, microbial life.
It looked, at the end of Viking,
Mars looked like apolar, sterile desert.
(swooshing)
- [Narrator] Despite its merciless environment,
Mars and Earth share some similarities.
The sun rises in the East and a Mars day
is just 40 minutes longer than that on Earth.
But the planet has just over 1/3 of the gravity
and an extremely thin atmosphere.
The atmosphere on Mars is mostly
carbon dioxide and is deadly.
Near the equator is Valles Marineris,
the largest canyon in our solar system.
With walls 10 kilometers high,
it's large enough to hold 100 Grand Canyons.
To the north, is an ancient volcano called Olympus Mons.
Towering 35,000 meters, the summit is about
three times higher than Mount Everest.
The average temperature on Mars is about -60 degrees Celsius
and at night can plummet to -100 degrees.
Relentless winds blow up dust clouds
that create huge electrical fields.
And the clouds themselves can engulf
the entire planet for months on end.
Monster-sized dust devils spiral
80 kilometers into the atmosphere.
A manned space vehicle could never land
in one of Mars's vicious dust storms.
So, on Earth, a couple of unconventional storm chasers
help NASA learn about what
it might be like on the red planet.
(truck engine sputtering)
- [Brett] Do you see the big red barn to the left?
- [Steve] Yes, I do.
That's the monster I was hopin' to catch.
Oh, yeah.
- [Narrator] In Arizona, scientists Stephen Metzger
and Brett Foss are racing headlong
into terrestrial dust devils.
- Oh, yeah, this is worth the trip, right?
On Earth, a good 20 meter-wide dust devil
that lasts for 20 minutes can fling
several metric tons of dirt into the air.
On Mars, it's the same dry land as Earth.
But Mars is one big desert,
springing up dust devils all over the place all the time.
- Mars is renowned for dust storms.
So, you could have huge sandblasting activity
flying around you.
Whichever way you wanna cut it,
landing is going to be a challenge.
- [Narrator] The Mars astronauts may have to
wait in orbit until the dust storms settle.
Planetary cartographer Ruslan Kuzmin
helped NASA find landing spots
for its robotic missions to Mars.
(Ruslan speaking Russian)
- [Interpreter] We have to be specific
when choosing a landing site for humans.
We must choose a site which is safe
and is potentially suitable for future sites and landings.
Our main tasks are to examine the water history
and the possibility of life now and in the past.
These criteria will determine
the choice of the landing site.
- [Narrator] In 1976, the Viking mission found no evidence
of life on Mars, but it's possible that Viking landed
in the wrong place, like looking for a jungle in Arizona.
The manned mission to Mars will land
in an area where it appears that water once flowed.
Water means potential life and scientists
already know just where to look.
- Mars also has presented us, recently,
with evidence that liquid water
has flowed not just in the distant past
or in the middle history of Mars,
but also in very recent times.
The Martian surface has, in many places,
very discreet, finely incised gully system.
- [Narrator] For the human mission to Mars,
where to land is critical,
but, not as critical as the landing itself.
After a six-month voyage,
the spacecraft is finally orbiting Mars.
Now, the crew must snap out
of intense boredom and into action.
(electronic chirping)
Psychologists fear that they will be suffering
from a syndrome known as attention tunneling.
- Often in heavily automated systems,
you can go from prolonged periods of boredom
to moments of intense performance demand, very rapidly.
And you want to train people
to deal with those transitions,
those rapid transitions.
- [Narrator] The Mars landing module
separates from the main vehicle,
which will stay in orbit.
The exhausted astronauts now face
the most dangerous part of the entire mission,
entering the atmosphere
and getting the lander safely to the surface.
- Landing on Mars is hard because of many things.
Number one, we have a large atmosphere, rarefied,
relative to home, to go through, with its own dynamics.
When people and even machines today go to Mars,
the last 50 to 100 kilometers are the most perilous.
(rattling)
- [Narrator] Once the descent begins,
there's no turning back.
In less than six minutes,
the crew will either be safely on the surface
or they will be dead.
(rockets rumbling)
The landing module is protected by a heat shield
that will help slow the lander to keep it from burning up.
Adam Steltzner is an engineer with NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
- You're basically burning a hole through the sky on Mars,
ionizing the atmosphere as you move through it
and punching a hole of burnt ionized gas.
And that hot gas is looking constantly
for methods of getting into cracks
and burning the rest of the spacecraft up.
(thumping)
- [Narrator] After entry,
the lander sheds its protective shell.
Weighing up to 60 tons,
the lander hurdles through the Martian atmosphere.
- [Astronaut] 8,000 meters.
- [Narrator] NASA is experimenting
with an inflatable heat shield to slow it down
so the astronauts don't burn up
in the 3,000 degree heat of re-entry.
- We decelerate at higher altitudes
where there's less density but less air to be hitting.
And so, the heat generated is much less.
And what this does for us,
it allows us to land larger masses on the surface
than we could ever put into a rigid aeroshell construction.
(swooshing)
- We're picking up wind.
- Copy that, switching to backup.
- [Mission Control] Standing by for transmission.
(intense music)
- [Narrator] Millions of kilometers away,
the world must wait more than 11 minutes
to find out whether the crew is alive or dead.
(suspenseful music)
(soft music)
Six months through space and six minutes
burning through the Martian atmosphere,
the lander touches down safely on the red planet.
(swooshing)
- Going to Mars is really a huge step for human beings.
It'll be a big step for engineers.
It'll be a big step for scientists,
but I would tend to argue
that it's gonna be (people cheering)
an even bigger step for humanity as a species.
- After 11 1/2 minutes, word reaches planet Earth.
But then reality sets in.
For the next 18 months, this hostile planet is their home.
If anything goes wrong, there is no hope of rescue.
- We will be operating, basically, out of the loop
of handshaking with Earth,
of calling Houston or Europe
or wherever we run the missions.
We will be doing it on our own.
- [Mission Control] You are go for EVA.
- [Astronaut] Roger, handle coming down.
(thumping)
(air hissing)
(metal cranking)
(serene music)
- The first time humans set foot on the planet Mars,
we will be living on two planets.
It will be a significant moment in history.
(swooshing)
- [Narrator] Months earlier,
a series of cargo ships deployed food,
water, supplies, Mars rovers, and living quarters.
The astronaut's lives depend on landing
within a few hundred meters of the supply depot.
- If you don't land near that stuff, you're not coming home.
You know?
If you're 200 miles off course,
and you have no vehicle with you
that could travel 200 miles over the surface of Mars,
you're gonna die.
- [Narrator] Their only hope of
long-term survival is the Mars habitat,
an interplanetary version of the motor home,
only this camper protects against deadly solar radiation.
(metallic chiming)
- It does amazing damage to the
top surface layers of your skin.
And if you get subjected to it often enough,
of course, the penetration to more sensitive organs
in your body, the chance increases.
- [Narrator] Outside the protection of the Mars habitat,
the astronauts will face a world of deadly extremes.
(ominous music)
(swooshing)
To work in a freezing, wind-blasted, poisonous atmosphere
would require a space super suit of unparalleled design.
- [Astronaut] To adjust your trap racer.
- [Narrator] NASA has already begun field testing
a prototype Martian suit in Arizona's Meteor Crater.
- [Test Engineer] 86.
- One of our big challenges is mobility, flexibility.
And what I would also group with that is weight
because there's a big trade off between the two.
- [Narrator] This new suit currently weighs 95 kilograms.
NASA hopes to cut that weight in half
before the Mars mission.
- The spacesuit itself has its own life support system,
its own thermal control unit, and enough mobility
to get you around on the surface of Mars
and protect you in this very hostile environment.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] One of the astronaut's first tasks
is to seek answers to the burning question,
was there life on Mars or is there life there still?
Scientists seek answers in a remote desert on Earth.
Like Mars, the center of Chile's
Atacama Desert is a dead zone.
- On Earth, we find little oases of death
on a planet that's alive.
On Mars, we'd be searching for little oases of life
on a planet that's dead.
- [Narrator] Astrobiologist Chris McKay
is searching for life that could survive
the hostile Martian environment.
McKay has discovered microbial life in this waterless world
and he hopes his work will give astronauts a clue
to where to begin their search on Mars.
(electronic chirping)
Life-seeking robots will assist in the search on the surface
and in caverns where organisms might be protected
from the deadly environment above ground.
One such mechanical helper is NASA's robonaut.
Controlled remotely, its human shape and five-digit hands
help an astronaut drive it via a virtual reality link.
The robot can perform complex tasks
dozens of kilometers away from the Mars habitat,
saving the astronaut forma slow death from cosmic radiation
or a swift death from suit failure.
If life is found on Mars, it poses a new problem.
(swooshing)
Could one of these microbes be harmful,
even deadly to humans?
And what might happen if a Martian microbe
was unleashed on Earth?
John Rummel is NASA's biocop,
protecting us from just such a catastrophe.
- Well, if there is life on Mars,
we would, of course, like to learn about it
before we brought it back.
Life on Mars is very unlikely to present a risk to humans
as a pathogen, but it may be that it's a microbe
that our immune systems wouldn't recognize.
It may be something that causes
a problem with the environment.
So, we wanna make sure that
things are brought back contained.
(beeping)
- [Narrator] This means the Mars
astronaut could be quarantined.
After two and a half years away from friends and family,
they might have to tough it out a little longer
in a bioscrubbing tank.
Back in the days of the moon landings,
NASA used an Airstream trailer.
The Mars mission would take
something much more sophisticated.
- I think a Mars return mission
would be very, very different than
the way we did the lunar return missions.
Being aware of the situation
of returning from another planet,
a planet where there
is a chance that life could be present.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, high in the Canadian Arctic,
NASA scientist Pascal Lee believes that
if the Mars explorers seek life,
they must follow the water.
- Everywhere there is liquid water on Earth,
there is life.
Might there even be still life on Mars today
wherever liquid water might be present.
- [Narrator] Recent NASA photos of Mars
show extraordinary evidence of running water
within the last decade.
NASA believes that there may be a water supply
as close as 100 to 400 meters below the planet's surface.
Back on Earth, on the bleak rim of a crater,
a team, under the direction of Dr. Brian Glass,
is testing a drill for future astronauts
who will be seeking water
during their 18-month stay on Mars.
- Say, Gill, how deep are we at the moment?
- We're about 206.1 centimeters.
- [Brian] My drill took three days to go two meters
into frozen, broken rock.
- [Narrator] Drilling on Mars will be
even slower and more dangerous.
Again, technology will replace
human beings to avoid catastrophe.
- [Brian] What my project does is in some sense,
it replicates a human drilling team.
So, we have software that does that,
listens to the drill, what noise is it making,
how the shaft wiggles as it goes down,
just like a human would.
- [Narrator] Will we find life on Mars?
The evidence so far is promising.
(dramatic music)
(booming)
23 million years ago, a giant asteroid
slammed into Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic.
It created Haughton Crater with enough force
to hurl rock into space,
leaving scientists to theorize
that debris of other planets
might have likewise fallen to Earth.
The breakthrough came in 1996.
Scientists on an Antarctic expedition
discovered a small meteor from Mars.
Inside the rock were faint traces
of what many believed was life.
The debate continues over the microscopic evidence,
but the discover gave scientists a tantalizing
clue to an extra-terrestrial mystery.
(swooshing)
650 million years ago, ours was not
the only blue planet in the solar system.
Mars was also a water world.
- Mars was a water planet.
Some colleagues believe that in that first billion years
of planetary history, when the planets cooled down
and Mars and Earth were the two best habitable
zone planets that we can possibly imagine.
(booming)
- [Narrator] But, in a mysterious cosmic cataclysm,
Mars was transformed.
Its oceans dried up, its atmosphere dissipated,
debris from the Martian surface
was scattered throughout the solar system.
The discovery of the rock in the Antarctic
left a burning question.
Did life on Earth originate on Mars?
And are human beings, then, really Martians?
(soft music)
The challenge of sending humans to Mars is staggering.
Countless billions of dollars of hardware,
millions of kilometers across deep space,
lethal cosmic hazards en route,
and even more on Mars.
Fatalities are almost certain.
Is it worth the risk?
What's the return benefit?
- To push technology, to learn new things,
to open our eyes to another world
that may tell us about future courses of events on our own,
to give ourself a new perspective on our own.
(inspirational music)
- We need to be challenged,
as a civilization, as a people.
And without challenge, we lack direction,
we lack purpose.
And I think that Mars is the kind of challenge that we need,
we desperately need.
- [Narrator] If the quest to Mars discovers evidence
of life different than our own,
it will open up a real scientific possibility
of other intelligent beings in the universe.
It's a revolutionary concept,
multiple, intergalactic genesis.
- What we hope to find on Mars
is an evidence of life that represents a separate origin
so that we know that in our own solar system,
life started twice.
And if it started twice in our own backyard,
then we know that the galaxy is full of life.
- The thought that you could overturn a rock on Mars,
and see that, maybe, would be pretty exciting.
(rocket rumbling)
- [Narrator] After about 18 months of research,
the Mars pioneers will begin the long journey home.
(swooshing)
The first expedition will leave behind
a base camp for future explorers.
They will bring more advanced spacecraft,
rovers, and habitats.
The 21st century Mars base will grow into a small colony,
fulfilling the human quest
to inhabit a once forbidden frontier.
Our journey to the red planet will begin with baby steps.
It may end with human occupation.
Modern science already has the know-how
to make the red planet blue once more.
This is a serious challenge.
The time may come when we need to escape from Earth.
- Because if we've got a comet or asteroid
heading our way right now,
we're basically no better off than the dinosaurs.
There's nothing we can do except look up
with a stupid expression on our face
and watch it all come crashing down.
(rocket rumbling)
- [Narrator] In 2005, the quest for Mars began
with NASA's launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,
now circling the red planet,
the MRO seeks a site for the first manned landing craft.
It is the communications link from Earth to Mars,
blazing the trail for the greatest expedition in history.
- MRO will lay the groundwork for where the people must go.
MRO is the big step that will bridge the gap
from the all science Mars program
to the science and people Mars program.
- [Narrator] Exploration, knowledge,
a search for life in the universe.
These goals unite people from around the world
in the greatest quest of all time.
There will be conflicts, controversies,
and almost certainly casualties,
but the course is set.
The impossible dream is within our reach.
There's not turning back.
We're on our way to Mars.
(inspirational music)
(Multicom jingle)