Kaidan Alenko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
not_a_whiner) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2013-11-22 02:45 pm
not_a_whiner) wrote in fandomhigh2013-11-22 02:45 pm
Entry tags:
Space, Friday
"Today, we're going to dive into history and talk about humanity's first baby steps into space exploration," Kaidan said.
He paused. "Well... sort of. We're going to be talking about Mars. Now, in my time, it's been home to a large science compound for a long time. We found information there... archives, buried by a civilization that died long before we got there. But it took us a long time to find it."
"The first people who tried to land on Mars were the Russians. This was in the days of the Space Race, two giant Earth nations battling it out over who could get the furthest in space." He smiled briefly. "They sent a bunch of probes towards Mars in the 60s. None of them made it there. Some burned up in orbit, some they lost contact with halfway in. The Americans soon joined them in trying, but it was the Russians who successfully landed the Mars 2 probe on the planet. Well... crash landed. But the first soft landing wasn't far behind - Mars 3 touched rock a couple of days later, and managed to transmit data for all of fourteen seconds."
He whistled. "Kind of impressive," he said, "At the time."
He sort of even meant that. "It was the American Mariner 4 that managed to grab the first images of Mars in 1965. It was the first time anyone on Earth had seen the surface of another planet. Later photographs showed that there might've been water on Mars at least once in the past. They kept working at it, and in 1975 it was the American Viking landers that touched ground and managed to stay functioning. We got even more evidence that there used to be water on Mars. But there was only so much they could do. It wouldn't be until 1997 that we actually put something up there that could move around - the Sojourner rover."
He displayed a picture on the holographic screen.
"We kept looking. We kept gathering data. And last year - local time - NASA put another rover on that planet. This time, its mission was to check and make sure Mars had really been habitable at some point." Beat. "Just to save you the excitement - yeah, it was."
He called up holographic screens above everyone's desks. "I could tell you about that," he said, "But I'm not sure how much my future checks out for all of you. Besides... this might be an interesting moment to learn something about the history of space exploration. There's a sim that lets you drive the Curiosity rover. I want you to go through it today."
He paused. "Well... sort of. We're going to be talking about Mars. Now, in my time, it's been home to a large science compound for a long time. We found information there... archives, buried by a civilization that died long before we got there. But it took us a long time to find it."
"The first people who tried to land on Mars were the Russians. This was in the days of the Space Race, two giant Earth nations battling it out over who could get the furthest in space." He smiled briefly. "They sent a bunch of probes towards Mars in the 60s. None of them made it there. Some burned up in orbit, some they lost contact with halfway in. The Americans soon joined them in trying, but it was the Russians who successfully landed the Mars 2 probe on the planet. Well... crash landed. But the first soft landing wasn't far behind - Mars 3 touched rock a couple of days later, and managed to transmit data for all of fourteen seconds."
He whistled. "Kind of impressive," he said, "At the time."
He sort of even meant that. "It was the American Mariner 4 that managed to grab the first images of Mars in 1965. It was the first time anyone on Earth had seen the surface of another planet. Later photographs showed that there might've been water on Mars at least once in the past. They kept working at it, and in 1975 it was the American Viking landers that touched ground and managed to stay functioning. We got even more evidence that there used to be water on Mars. But there was only so much they could do. It wouldn't be until 1997 that we actually put something up there that could move around - the Sojourner rover."
He displayed a picture on the holographic screen.
"We kept looking. We kept gathering data. And last year - local time - NASA put another rover on that planet. This time, its mission was to check and make sure Mars had really been habitable at some point." Beat. "Just to save you the excitement - yeah, it was."
He called up holographic screens above everyone's desks. "I could tell you about that," he said, "But I'm not sure how much my future checks out for all of you. Besides... this might be an interesting moment to learn something about the history of space exploration. There's a sim that lets you drive the Curiosity rover. I want you to go through it today."