Is there life on Mars?(8)
2023-05-30 来源:百合文库
The life-seeking instruments on Perseverance are more advanced than anything that has come before them, but this was not the original plan for the next phase, after Curiosity, of NASA’s attempt to find life on Mars. In February 2012, while Curiosity was still making its way there, Barack Obama’s administration slashed NASA’s planet-exploration budget by a fifth. At the time, American scientists had been developing a programme called ExoMars, in collaboration with ESA. This was to involve an orbiter and several rovers being launched from 2016 onwards, with a combination of tools intended to look for signs of life.
Mr Obama’s cuts killed American involvement in ExoMars and, by the time Curiosity reached Mars in August 2012, NASA had no plans to send any future rovers. The overwhelmingly positive public reaction to Curiosity’s nail-biting landing, however, helped persuade the agency’s chiefs to reconsider their priorities and put together a scaled-back version of previous plans that required no increase in the budget. The result, the mission now known as Perseverance, was announced a few months later.
Mr Obama’s cuts killed American involvement in ExoMars and, by the time Curiosity reached Mars in August 2012, NASA had no plans to send any future rovers. The overwhelmingly positive public reaction to Curiosity’s nail-biting landing, however, helped persuade the agency’s chiefs to reconsider their priorities and put together a scaled-back version of previous plans that required no increase in the budget. The result, the mission now known as Perseverance, was announced a few months later.
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