Twenty years in the past, NASA’s Alternative rover landed on Mars. Its twin, Spirit, had reached the floor three weeks earlier. The 2 robotic area geologists would usher in a brand new period of Mars exploration and ensure liquid water as soon as flowed on the planet’s floor.
At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a world group of excessive schoolers watched Alternative’s dramatic descent alongside scientists and engineers engaged on the mission. The scholars had been a part of The Planetary Society’s Crimson Rover Goes to Mars program, a partnership with LEGO to interact and educate the general public, and provides college students alternatives to take part in Mars missions.
Among the many “scholar astronauts,” as they had been referred to as, was Abigail Freeman. After the celebration of a profitable touchdown and a raucous press convention, she and different contributors watched with the science workforce because the rover’s first photographs arrived, exhibiting it had come to a relaxation inside a shallow crater.
“These photographs simply hooked me utterly, as a result of they confirmed an image of Mars that was in contrast to another image of Mars we might ever seen,” mentioned Freeman lately. “It actually confirmed me that Mars is a spot we are able to discover, and there is a lot we have not seen.”
The expertise satisfied Freeman to pursue a profession in house. Within the time it took her to earn a Ph.D. in planetary science, Alternative was nonetheless exploring Mars on what turned a 14-year mission, though the rover was solely speculated to final 90 days. In a full-circle second, Freeman turned the deputy challenge scientist for the Alternative mission. Now, she is the deputy challenge scientist for the Curiosity mission.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that this program actually modified my life,” she mentioned of Crimson Rover Goes to Mars.
Quotes on this article had been drawn from an interview on Planetary Radio and have been edited for readability and brevity.
