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For these reasons alone, Mars enthusiasts say, further exploration of the Red Planet, both unmanned and manned, is scientifically justified. "There is a growing sense of purpose being attached to a manned flight to Mars, both in the Soviet Union and the U.S.," says Vyacheslav Balebanov, a deputy director of the Space Research Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Like most of his counterparts in the U.S., he would prefer a measured, logical, step-by- step program to a more hazardous, hastily mounted manned mission. "We must start to explore Mars in detail before such a flight is possible," he says.
That is just what the Soviets plan to do. In 1992, when America's Mars Observer is scheduled to fly, they hope to send a third Phobos spacecraft into Mars orbit carrying advanced remote-sensing devices, including a radar mapper that will seek out the best landing sites for future missions. Two years later, the Soviets intend to launch a pair of highly sophisticated landers to Mars. Each will carry a small computer-controlled surface rover, a six-wheeled vehicle capable of traveling as far as 60 miles from the lander. It will be equipped with TV cameras, scoops and drills to sample materials and a minilab to analyze them. With information gained from this mission, the Soviets hope to launch as early as 1998 a larger Mars lander-rover that could return soil samples to earth.
While the U.S. lacks a strong commitment to sending humans to Mars, the Administration's space policy, announced by President Reagan in February, does envision eventual "human exploration of the solar system." Toward that end, NASA has launched Project Pathfinder, a program to develop 18 new space technologies. They include compact nuclear reactors for powering lunar or Martian bases, in-space construction and assembly of spacecraft, and orbiting fuel depots for moon and Mars ships. "You can talk about going to Mars," says Pathfinder Leader Robert Rosen, "but you can't do it without these technologies." Congress appropriated $40 million for the project's first year.
Pathfinder did not start from scratch. NASA and the aerospace industry have long planned a variety of Mars missions that could lead to a manned flight. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., scientists are designing an unmanned rover with six wheels, each more than 3 ft. in diameter, to accommodate the rocky Martian terrain. In a still unapproved mission, the rover, imbued with artificial intelligence and television eyes, would seek out appropriate rock samples and stow them in a craft designed to return them to earth for analysis. At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., experts are designing living quarters for the space station that the U.S. hopes to begin assembling in earth orbit in the mid-1990s. Plans call for private sleeping cubicles, each equipped with a TV, sound systems and a computer. Mars enthusiasts point out that approval of a manned Mars mission as a goal would finally provide a compelling rationale for the projected $30 billion space station that NASA has had trouble selling to a reluctant Congress. "The station would be needed to serve as an assembly point," says NASA's Brian Pritchard, who has studied the feasibility of such a plan. "We don't have the power to lift from 1 million to 3 million lbs. ((the weight of the Mars ship)) into orbit from the earth."