Why do I care so much about the Mars rovers?
A lot of people have asked me that, after seeing printouts of Spirit and
Opportunity photos in my folder at work, and hearing me jabber on at them about how beautiful or spectacular the latest
panorama is. Well, let me try and explain. Here's my latest colourised version
of black and white "raw" images taken by the rover Opportunity.
Didn't take me long, about half an hour to "make". But why
bother? Well, try looking at that picture, and what it represents. There are
many, many people doing what I do, i.e. making our own images out of NASA raw
images. People who don't do it for a living, but do it for love and personal
satisfaction; people who don't have to do it to get paid, but have to do it
because they want to see an image of Mars showing what they would see it if
they were stood there. That picture wasn't put together in a shiny JPL lab, or
room, with state of the art pcs and software and a pay cheque at the end, it
was made without pay, in a corner of my kitchen, on a normal PC with
freely-available software and equipment, with all the distractions and
commitments of everyday life going on in the background. It makes my head spin
sometimes that we can do that, and that thousands of people across the world
are doing it, it really does. (hence my poem "Quilts")
Why do I feel so strongly about this? Why am I moved to make images, and write
poetry, about the Mars rover mission? Well, I have a confession to make. After several
decades of optimism I have just about given up on looking forward to seeing
people on Mars in my lifetime. Best guesstimate for a manned expedition is
what, 2030? I'll be... fingers time... 65. Not a ridiculous target, I know, but
factor in the inevitable engineering and political delays with getting NASA's proposed moon missions going and Ares and
Orion flying, the growing problems of climate change that will need tackling
with BIG $$$$$$$ and the growing danger of a terrorist attack of such devastating
savagery, nuclear or chemical, that will stop everything else in its tracks for
who knows how long, and, well, I just don't feel that confident I'll see
astronauts bunny hopping across Mars' surface on my widescreen HD TV before I
pop my clogs, I really don't.
And that's pretty heartbreaking, because three things, three Events,
drive me onwards as far as space is concerned: One, the detection of a SETI
signal, two, the first image of an Earth-like world around another star, and three, a
manned landing on Mars. Now, I'm pretty confident I'll see one and two before I go,
I really am. But that third one, hmmm, that's going to be awkward. I've stood
in front of countless thousands of people these past two decades, giving talks,
telling them all how "we'll see people on Mars in our lifetime"...
but the last time I did it I said it and didn't believe it myself. Which was
awful. And very sad.
Of course, when we discover bacterial life on Mars all bets are off, that might
speed things up. But I just have this nagging, sick-in-the-bottom-of-my-stomach
feeling that it's slipping away from me, you know?
Which is why these little rovers mean so much to me. They're MY eyes on
Mars, my representatives there. I talked in that last poem about Spirit about
"walking alongside" the rover, and that's really how I feel. Like
many "Mars enthusiasts", I check rover-related websites (Exploratorium,
UMSF etc) several times a day, looking for new pics, following the latest leg
of the journey. Every time the rovers move and bring a new horizon into view I
feel a genuine thrill of discovery, of exploration. That run-up to the edge of
VC was UNBEARABLE! Every day so close, so close... then we were there, "Oppy" and
I, on the edge, looking into and across it... well, Steve Squyres' long, tight-throated
pause in his interview with Doug Ellison on the Unmanned Spaceflight forum
(Google it, you won't regret it) described my own feelings superbly. It was
like the very first time I saw Yosemite Valley, after emerging from that long tunnel into the sunlight to see The View, where
giant hands had reached down from the heavens and wrenched the Earth apart. Look. At. That.
So, that's why I love these rovers. They're as close as I'm ever going to get,
I fear, to either being on Mars myself or following a manned mission to Mars.
And that's why I sit here, writing poetry about plucky little rovers stuck in martian
dust dunes looking up forlornly at Earth, and why I spend many painfully-long
hours on dialup downloading black and white pictures and making them into
something else. They show me - yes me, that shy, would be astronaut geeky kid
from school, who sat in the library pouring over the space books there instead
of kicking a ball about outside - what I always dreamed of seeing with my own
eyes but never will.
That's why I love the Mars rovers.
Because they're me.
Stuart Atkinson,
Eddington Astronomical Society, Kendal, Cumbria. Atkinson is an amateur astronomer and children's
science author from the UK. A self-confessed "Mars nut" he writes frequently about
the Red Planet for newspapers, magazines and websites.
NOTE: The views of this article are the author's and do not reflect the policies of the National Space Society.
Visit SPACE.com/Ad Astra Online for more news, views and scientific inquiry from the National Space Society.
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