Mars: The Abode of Life?

On the drive up Interstate 15 from Los Angeles towards Las Vegas, as the land begins to ascend and give entry to the city of infinite dreams and dross, one can take a detour from the journey and turn at the small town of Baker (“Gateway to Death Valley”). The environment that continues north along the scenic California State Route 127 is almost indistinguishable from that of Mars, except for the few straggly plants that hug the road and other places with just a little moisture. Vast ranges of sanded plains greet jagged mountains and dry lake beds. The terrain is so Mars-like, that a mock-up of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity was tested there in 2012, a year after the actual rover was launched (Figure 3.1). Engineers moved the car-sized vehicle over the desert to see how its wheels would fare in the sandy soil of Mars. Spirit , one of JPL's earlier Mars Exploration Rovers, had gone to its final resting place in 2009 after one of its wheels got stuck in the martian sand after more than six years of studying the surface of Mars. The other Rover, Opportunity , is still going strong at the time of writing. The cautious and ingenious engineers at JPL weren't going to let a similar fate overtake Curiosity . Their mock-up, with a mass of only about 38% of the real thing to account for the lower gravity on Mars, was beset with challenging situations similar to those expected on Mars. It was driven up and over the sides of sand dunes, and into the deepest, softest sand imaginable. The wheels of Curiosity were engraved with giant treads with immense gripping power, and in a flight of flair and fancy, the prototype was engraved with the letters JPL. When NASA Headquarters saw that they banned it from the final model. Under the “one NASA” policy, the entire Agency had to share in the glory. But the clever engineers at JPL struck back: they embedded the Morse code symbols for JPL in the tire, so the true geeks’ code is engraved in endless trails all over the martian sands.