Celebrate Curiosity on Mars and on Earth

Even many who thought they couldn’t care less about people they didn’t know playing sports they have no interest in or understanding of are discovering the simple joy of witnessing human beings strive to be the best.

One of the world’s most anticipated moments, however, took place some hundreds of millions of kilometres away from London. At about 1:30pm Taipei time on August 6, many around the world watched the live broadcast of the landing of Nasa’s latest Mars rover – the aptly named Curiosity – on the red planet after an eight-month, 567-million-kilometre journey. That’s some marathon. (Actually it is not entirely correct to describe the broadcast as “live”. Even travelling at the speed of light, signals sent from the rover take 14 minutes to reach Earth.)

Curiosity is the first full-fledged mobile science laboratory sent to Mars. It is equipped with gadgets that allow the rover to take pictures, smell, taste and drill into the planet’s surface. Powered by a nuclear generator instead of the solar panels used by its predecessors, Curiosity has the ability to operate for years (although the mission is only scheduled to last for 23 months). With such an array of technology, the rover marks an important milestone in Nasa’s search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

But before any of the research on Mars could begin, the rover and its operating team had to pull off the most difficult space-landing aerobatics ever attempted. Within the seven minutes before touch down (dubbed by Nasa as the “seven minutes of terror”), Curiosity had to slow down drastically from its entry velocity of 17 times the speed of sound. It had also to survive the intense heat brought by its entry into the planet’s atmosphere. Its parachute only opened about 11 kilometres before impact after the speed is reduced, through a series of “s-curves” manoeuvres, to a relatively slow 1,448 kilometres per hour.

When Curiosity slowed down to 450 kilometres it lost its heat shield. It turned on its camera and started recording the final stretch of the landing. It lost the parachute when it was 1.6 kilometres above ground. The attached jet-powered “sky crane” further slowed down the rover before disconnecting with it and letting Curiosity begin its mission on Mars.

Life will be much less hectic after those seven minutes, as the rover “explained” via one of its official tweets: “Top speed = 1.5 inches/second on flat, hard ground. I’m not out to set Mars land speed records. I brake for science.”

The Curiosity landing, the Olympics and the discovery of Higgs boson-like particles last month are welcome reminders – in this summer of continuing euro crises – that Homo sapiens is still a curious species striving to reach goals offering more than obvious practical applications. Billions of dollars were spent on the three projects, all of which can be argued as relatively impractical in the short term.

After all, what good does knowing the fastest man on Earth can run 100 metres in 9.58 seconds do? How much of the euro-zone debt can the discovery of the God particle help to clear? What is the economic justification for spending billions in US taxpayers’ money on sending what is essentially a very slow-moving smartphone with wheels, sensors and a drill to Mars?

All of these three costly projects have huge long-term benefits. The Olympics inspires us to engage in healthy competition, to exercise and simply to appreciate the beauty of human endeavour and perseverance, which will lead to more healthy populations both physically and mentally. Particle physics allows us to understand the fundamental inner workings of the universe and might one day lead to key technologies such as perpetual energy sources. The Curiosity programme allows to us better understand Mars, especially if it has the capability to support life. Such information might come in handy one day. It could take decades for the Mars landing to have a “practical” impact on the world, but when it does, the impact will be huge.

Curiosity has taken mankind on adventures toward the previously unknown and unattainable. It is our fundamental drive to know more, see more, do better, move faster and endure longer that makes us the race we are.

So let us celebrate our curiosity as we watch the Mars rover that bears its name. If we can always keep that curiosity even through tough times, we will not only see a historical event but also a glimpse of the future.