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CNN Live Saturday

What Does the Mars Odyssey Mission Hope to Find?

Aired April 07, 2001 -   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: After two disastrous failures, NASA successfully launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft earlier today. Spectacular pictures from the spacecraft showed a smooth ascent and clear views of planet Earth as it went up in the air. The main goal of the two-year orbiting mission around Mars is to search for signs of life. The Odyssey is set to reach Mars in late October.

NASA spent millions of extra dollars to avoid a another failure, and so far, so good. Joining us to assess the mission is David Paige. He's professor of planetary sciences at UCLA and an expert on missions to Mars.

Professor Paige, good to have you join us.

PROF. DAVID PAIGE, UCLA: It's nice to be here.

KELLEY: What are you looking for? What's the most important thing you hope to accomplish with the mission?

PAIGE: Well, the most important thing we hope to find on Mars is some water. There's a lot of signs that there's water on the surface, but there's a chance that there's water below the surface, and this will, of course, provide a clue to what the Mars climate is like and where water might have been in the past.

KELLEY: And is that also ice? Does ice matter? Would ice and water be kind of the same?

PAIGE: Yes, when we talk about water in field, we actually do mean ice because it's too cold on Mars right now for liquid water to be there.

KELLEY: And the big deal over water is if you find water, that means what to you?

PAIGE: Well, water is the key ingredient for life. We don't know whether or not there was is life or is life on Mars presently, but by following the water, which is the strategy of NASA's Mars program, we hope to be able to better zoom in on where to actually search for life eventually.

KELLEY: Well, what do you think? I mean, what's your educated guess? Do you think there's life or was life or is life on Mars? PAIGE: Well, I have an open mind, and I also know that as we learn more about Mars, we continue to be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually do find some evidence for maybe prebiotic activity, i.e., maybe the precursors to life and who knows? It could be there. We just need to go and find out.

KELLEY: We're running some pictures of Odyssey now, some animation, as we call it, from NASA. Now, this one is not going to land on Mars, is that right? It will just orbit?

PAIGE: Right, the plan is to orbit and map the planet, and, again, look for signs of water, and also, map the minerals on the surface of Mars and the elemental abundances as well.

KELLEY: You know, I was reading that they're going to scale back, that NASA's actually scaling back about sending humans, maybe not for the next 20 years. Why is that?

PAIGE: Well, money is a very important consideration. It's very expensive to do Mars exploration, and, of course, it's fraught with difficulties, as we've seen in the robotic program, and obviously, if you're going to send humans to Mars, you have to be extra careful that things go all right.

So, it's a combination of money, and also we'd like to learn more about Mars, and to make sure we're going to learn the right things when we send humans eventually.

KELLEY: And talking about humans and talking about a lot of money, there are those who will say, so, who cares? Why are we spending all this money, millions and millions of dollars? What's in it for earthlings?

PAIGE: Well, the quest for knowledge is a very important parameter of humans in general. We always want to learn more about what is out there and Mars is, of course, a very exciting place. It's accessible to us right now with our technology, and I think it would be a terrible shame if we didn't try to learn all we could. And of course, there's things we learn about the solar system and our place in it and the universe in general by learning about Mars.

KELLEY: Associate professor of planetary science and principal investigator of the Mars violatiles and climates surveyor at UCLA, Dr. David Paige, thank you. It's nice to chat with you.

PAIGE: Thank you.

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