Throughout the course of history, man has dreamed of stepping foot on another planet. The advances in technology in the 20th century have allowed man to do what at one time was considered unthinkable for millenniums before. With the advent of the modern space program in the early 1950's, NASA has performed many inconceivable feats. They have sent and returned men to space. They've set up space stations orbiting the earth. They have allowed men to land on the moon, collect samples, and then return to the earth. They have sent spacecraft to explore comets and other planets. They have even sent space probes outside the known walls of this solar system. Recently, NASA has been spending billions of dollars in researching our second nearest planet, Mars. In understanding the scientific importance that such research can mean, the United States is justified in spending this money on NASA space missions to Mars.

President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that he believed that the United States could put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Unfortunately, he never lived to see th

While it is true that these missions were great failures, we should still consider the great successes that have also come recently. For instance, the Mars Pathfinder landed on the planet in 1997 and took breathtaking photographs of the surface. A high-tech remote control car was sent with that mission called the Mars Rover. It took samples of rock and soil while be controlled by scientists millions of miles away on Earth. We also currently have a satellite orbiting the planet called the Mars Global Surveyor. This orbitor is photographing the entire planet and conducting experiments throughout its 3-year mission above the planet. The purpose of the Global Surveyor is to create maps of the planet, and to search for evidence of water, the most necessary element needed for the sustaining and creation of life. Water on the planet could also lead to the creation of fuel for a trip home, if man ever decides to make a personal visit to the planet. The Global Surveyor mission was greatly successful, because two years ago, it photographed ice over the north and south poles of this planet, meaning that water is probably present. In the 1970's, we must remember that NASA sent two Viking Landers that also took soil samples and photographs of the surface. All of these missions were greatly successful, and resulted in much increased knowledge of the planet.

Many critics have pointed to recent failures from NASA space missions to the planet Mars as reasons to abandon attempts to further send space probes. These missions cost millions of dollars, and they resulted in disaster. For instance, one spacecraft was sent to land on Mars, and, as it approached the planet after its six-month trip through space, was suddenly unreachable. After a commission was formed to study what went wrong, they discovered that some engineers forgot to convert some measurements from English standard to metric rule. This little error was overlooked by hundreds of engineers and physicists. This resulted in a very costly mistake, probably resulting in the craft crashing at full speed into the planet. It was also a source of great embarrassment to NASA, who supposedly higher only the best and brightest of engineers. Another craft recently landed on Mars and for an unknown reason, stopped broadcasting signals back to Earth. The resulting investigation speculated that engineers

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