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 Mars:
The Outpost of Imagination
By Sally Morem
 Note to Readers: I wrote this essay for the Minnesota Space Frontier Society’s newsletter,
 L-5 Points
. It was originally published in a huge MarsSpecial Edition in the spring of 1986. Other than fixing a few typos and  grammatical errors, I haven’t updated this essay. This was where we werewith reference to Mars in 1986.
There is something about the planet Mars that grips the human imagination.For hundreds of years, it seemed to fulfill our deepest yearnings for another world—a world in which resided all manner of strange beings—a world asfilled with life as our own.Planetary space probes have shown us that Mars is not the planet we hadhoped for. But, with hard work and scientific ingenuity, our descendantscould transform it into a place that would rival our most beautiful fantasies.
Mar in Imagination
Before astronomers understood what planets really were, Mars wasattributed with human characteristics. The distinctive red color remindedthem of blood and violence. Each ancient civilization had its own name for the War God. The Babylonians called it Nergel, the Greeks worshippedAres, and the Romans gave it the name which we use today—Mars.Much later, Copernicus showed that Earth was an ordinary planet orbitingthe Sun. Then, telescopes revealed that the other planets were solid bodiesof matter, like Earth, or balls of gas moving through space. People thenrealized that Mars was open to interplanetary travel, if only the means could be found.
 
Since observers had seen clouds, canals and seasonal changes on the surfaceof Mars, they were led to believe that it was Earth’s twin. However, Mars issomewhat smaller and colder than Earth, so scientists speculated that itsinhabitants were adapted to these conditions. Astronomers also determinedthat Mars had a thin atmosphere which led storytellers to describe Martianswith huge, lung-filled chests.Europeans were so sure that Mars was the home of intelligent life that whena group of Parisians offered a reward to the first person to make contact withextraterrestrial life, meetings with Martians were disallowed. The Frenchthought that these would be too easy to achieve.Writers began populating Mars with a wide variety of intelligent aliens.When Schiaparelli described what he called “canali” on the surface of the planet, imaginations soared. Percival Lowell assumed that the lines wereartificially constructed canals, built to save a dying civilization fromdraught.A thousand tales followed, including H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,”which described Martians desperately reaching out for a more habitable planet. Even after the 200-inch Palomar telescope showed no canals, thespeculation did not stop. Science fiction writers got around this discrepancy by using underground Martian cities as settings for adventures.Asaph Hall’s discovery of the two moons of Mars added to the fervidspeculation. To the imagination, this meant that Mars was even moreEarthlike than was thought before. Since Earth had a moon, it was onlyright that Mars should have two moons. But, Phobos and Deimos (Fear andPanic), named after the horses that pulled Mars’ chariot, proved to be far lesssubstantial in size than our Moon. They were more like asteroids caught inMars’ gravitational field with their small, irregular shapes, than full-fledgedmoons.
Mars in Reality
By 1926, astronomers had determined that Mars was too cold for water toexist on its surface in any form but ice. Instrument readings also showedthat Mars had a very thin atmosphere—perhaps as little as 10 % of Earth’s.
 
Then in 1947, dreams of Martians took another beating when astronomersdiscovered that the atmosphere of the planet was made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide. Little water vapor and no oxygen—so essential for life— were found.Writers were disenchanted, but scientists held out hope for the existence of  primitive life forms embedded in the soil. During the InternationalGeophysical Year in 1957, such life forms were found in Antarctica. Theyseemed to have survived severe Martian-type weather.Scientists knew that the only way to find out more about life on Mars was togo and see for themselves. Wernher von Braun, one of the leading rocketscientists from Germany, speculated on how this might be done. Noscientist in the late 1940s could have envisioned the ability of unmannedspace probes to gather huge amounts of information on planets. So, vonBraun planned a manned mission to accomplish this.In 1948, von Braun published his description of an elaborate plan to visitMars in “The Mars Project.” A crew of 70 would be transported by 104,000-ton ships to Mars. 46 shuttles would haul parts up into orbit 950 timeswhere the ships would be assembled. Von Braun made the mistake of notincluding a space station in his plans. After the ships achieved Mars orbit,50 astronauts would descend to the surface in three large landing boats.Von Braun had more confidence by 1956 in the ability of engineers to designdurable spacecraft, so he scaled down the redundancies in his huge proposal.In his new plans, each ship would weigh 1,870 tons and would require only400 shuttle trips to be assembled in orbit. But, again, he neglected to add aspace station to his plans, which would have drastically reduced the need for so many shuttles. Needless to say, the American space program did not follow von Braun’srecommendations. As sensitive instruments were designed for and used inEarth-orbiting satellites, space scientists realized that these could be adaptedfor unmanned missions to the planets.On November 28, 1964, NASA launched Mariner 4. It passed Mars in July,1965 and took 20 pictures. These pictures revealed a crater-pocked, moon-like planet. The atmosphere was not 10 % of Earth’s as was originally
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