CHAPTER 1 REACHING THE RED PLANET Mars is the fourth planet from the sun In the night sky it looks like a reddish star Known as the Red Planet it has fascinated astronomers for ages People often wondered if there was life on Mars But even the largest telescopes showed only fuzzy views of the planet's surface To learn more about Mars people would need to send a spacecraft But Mars is millions of miles from Earth Sending a rocket there would be difficult Mars is more than 140 million miles 225 million km from the sun
The first attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars took place in 1960 The Soviet Union tried to launch a probe But the spacecraft's rockets failed to produce enough power so the probe fell back to Earth In 1962 the Soviet Union tried again but still faced problems Two spacecraft fell apart before leaving Earth's orbit A third spacecraft successfully headed toward Mars but scientists lost contact with it before it reached the planet The United States soon followed with its own Mars missions The country's space agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA launched Mariner 3 in 1964 But the spacecraft's protective shell would not open Without this shield Mariner 3 could not make the journey to Mars NASA tried again with Mariner 4 This spacecraft traveled through space for eight months It flew past Mars in July 1965 Mariner 4
This model shows what Mariner 4 looked like made scientific measurements and took 21 pictures The fuzzy pictures showed an ancient surface with many craters In 1969 NASA sent two more probes to Mars Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 flew by the planet and took hundreds of pictures
