What About our 'Perseverance'... to Pay Attention?

I feel like NASA’s Perseverance Rover was in all of the national headlines - for about three days - but then, people moved on...

Everyone… listen:

There is a little car driving itself around on another planet looking for life, right now. It has a freakin' pet helicopter following it around…

This is just not all that interesting, I guess??

I think it’s not that, but instead that the media maybe prefers to cover more controversial topics, perhaps for the ratings? This is often true for any and all outlets, or political leanings...?

That leaves us, the curious general population, starved of science knowledge and bipartisan progress... and even worse, starved of inspiration.??

This craft is accomplishing (and has already done) so many amazing things...

Allow me go through just a few of those, as so many of us were “cut-off” - just after it’s landing:

The Landing (Video):

First, we will indeed start where so many left off, with the landing. More specifically though, the landing video:

The landing itself… incredible. It involved a slow deceleration of the spacecraft by a (secretly encoded ) parachute as it entered the atmosphere at high speeds, then a near-perfect sustained hover using rockets aimed downward from only meters above the surface. This hover was required for the planned, careful lowering of the rover itself by “crane” from the craft and gently to the surface. This was followed by a controlled disconnect, jettison, and a safe, distant crash landing of the spacecraft itself. Leaving the rover comfortably behind.

It’s not just the fantastic feat of engineering that was the landing itself that we should pay attention to, however...

It’s that we now have a network of satellites and craft in the regions of Mars and orbiting the earth which made it possible for us to record, and broadcast live, multiple feeds of high quality images - and we've now used it. It took decades to get this system in place, and the landing itself (almost) entirely overshadowed this incredible effort.

I wonder if the rovers get together for a 'Netflix and chill' every once in a while - utilizing their new telecom systems…

As NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said during a press conference, the landing video should become "mandatory viewing"?for young people, and I agree....

?So, here it is:

Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown on Mars (Official NASA Video)

Solving The O2 Problem of Space Exploration:

Next on out list, Perseverance is solving the oxygen problem of space exploration and colonization…

Obviously, it's hard to be a human on Mars. Oxygen becomes a major issue, quickly. Specifically, 'How do we get so much oxygen to them way out there, and keep it coming?".

Well... they had an idea; "Let's 'make' it!" - Meet 'Moxie':

Simply, the mission has successfully tested a mechanism (named Moxie) to covert the Marian atmosphere to breathable oxygen. And... they did this at a rate which seems scalable, and potentially effective enough to work in a full living environment. See more here:

'Moxie' Oxygen Converter

Recording Sessions on Mars:

Third, for the first time ever, we have actual sounds from another planet.

Perseverance has two microphones, one of which attempted to record the sounds of the rover plummeting through the Martian atmosphere. However, NASA says it did not collect any usable data during descent… but, it did record some ambient sounds after landing on 20 February, and recorded even more later.

In the first audio clip from Mars (below:), you'll hear the whirring, 'humming' sound of the rover's systems themselves, followed by the low whoosh of a gentle Martian breeze. In the second (also below:), the engineers removed the sound of the rover itself, the best they could:

Full Version:

With Rover Sounds Removed:

More Fun (Mars Microphone) Facts: Many have advocated for?microphones on Mars ?since 1996, when Carl Sagan urged NASA to include them on a future mission. In 1999 we?flew a crowdfunded microphone to Mars ?aboard NASA's Mars Polar Lander, which sadly crashed on the surface. Other missions featuring microphones were canceled.?

Perseverance has recorded more of the sounds Mars since, as well as the winds, including the sound of its wheels travelling across the Martians rocks, and more.

Check that one out here: (And note; The wheels are metal, not rubber as many assume. This is what the gong-like sounds are... the Martian rocks and the wheels making contact. The (pretty annoying) screeching sounds are the movement of the rover's parts while traveling/turning, made worse by all the dust.)

Modern (360 degree/3D) Imaging:

Next, the cameras - These things are by far the best quality image devices in space (maybe other than the telescopes …think Hubble).

Recently, we saw the first 360-degree panorama taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z, a zoomable pair (pair = 3D) of cameras aboard Perseverance. The panorama was stitched together on Earth from 142 individual images taken on Sol 3, or the third Martian day of the mission (Feb. 21, 2021).?

Check out the first images and process, here:

Powered, Controlled Flight on Another World:

Here’s one we don’t talk about enough; on April 19, 2021, we witnessed the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. The helicopter-like device, “Ingenuity”, used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight.

The thing was dropped from where it had been stored for landing, in the belly of the rover, by literal controlled EXPLOSIONS which blew off the bolts that had held it on.

How cool do they have to be about all this?

Here (right:) we see the legs 'half-released' after the first of these controlled bolt-explosions which released the left legs. The right legs' bolts were blown off seconds later.

During flights, the rover retreated back (and up) to a “vantage point” to film the first flights, and the helicopter simultaneously filmed the rover below. Incredible.?

This is a big one. So, I’ll leave it to the experts to explain… NASA press release on Ingenuity's first flight, here:

(Note: This presser^ was from after the first flight took place. There have been and will be more.)

The Search for Life:

And now, for the main event - The search for ancient microbial life. No, they haven’t found it yet. But, they do already have more firsts here as well.

The scientific systems onboard Perseverance are incredible. First, is the on board sample collection. The thing can drill out solid and rock samples, analyze them, and store them inside itself. Here's a pic of that 'On-Board Sample Cache System':

Why store them inside a rover on Mars, you may ask? Well, because the plan is to GO PICK EM’ UP... ...and bring em' back!

Yes. Really. A second mission in several years plans to stop by, grab these samples, and return them to earth for even more study. That’s a certain first, and a big deal.?

The rover will focus its search for life on what many believe may be the bottom of an ancient riverbed, lake bed, and delta carved from once-flowing water and ice. The area is known as the 'Jezero Delta" (as it's near/includes the 'Jezero Crater', our landing spot), and appears to have formed due to water flow from the Neretva Vallis, the possible ancient riverbed.

Note how much these features truly do look to be a river opening up into a delta and lake (Perseverance's possible beginning routes shown in blue and purple, with the certain, eventual route in yellow):

See more about this part of the mission to find evidence of life, here:

There are more...:

Many more. My advice is that we all make an effort to do our own work that will enable us to be witness to these incredible milestones. What we must NOT do, is trust our “distracted” media systems to do this for us…

I haven't mentioned TONS of other amazing 'firsts' and likely future accomplishments of this mission. I mean... the darn thing has radar imaging for mapping... and x-ray sensors on it for Lithochemistry... as just two examples.

Another example; Did you know that NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign invited people around the world to submit their names to hitch a ride on the rover to the Red Planet?

Some 10,932,295 people did just that.?Now those are on three fingernail-sized chips, attached to Perseverance's body - and now on Mars.

Note: The names were literally 'written', not 'saved' as data, using micro-laser etching. Notice the three small squares at the top left of the plate (below:)? There are 10M+ names written on that... 10 Million. Talk about inspiring.

Now, it's on you to keep following along with Perseverance's (and all of mankind's scientific) progress...

To make it easier, here's a list of Perseverance's main 7 science instruments, which I encourage everyone to look into more deeply (in no particular order, other than alphabetical):

1. Mastcam-Z
2. MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer)
3. MOXIE (Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment)
4. PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry)
5. RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment)
6. SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals)
7. SuperCam

As another great start, here's NASA's Perseverance Homepage, chalk-full of great info.

Keep your eyes on the skies, everyone...

-Patrick James Kernan 7.20.2021