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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Michael Meyer

Aired January 04, 2004 - 09:30   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.


ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Success for "Spirit." The Mars rover "Spirit" made its long anticipated landing on Mars. And just hours later started sending back these pictures from the planet's surface. "Spirit" is the first successful Mars mission since 1997's Pathfinder mission. But after two failures since Pathfinder, NASA scientists, to say the least, were understandably on edge for the six minutes it took "Spirit" to finally break through the atmosphere and land on Mars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD WEILER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: It was six minutes from hell. But in this case we said the right prayers and we got up to heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed a lot longer than six minutes.

WEILER: That's called relativity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: So now the scientists have recovered from the landing, the exploration can begin. For more on the "Spirit's" mission we turn to Michael Meyer, one of NASA's chief scientists.

Well, I bet the champagne was flowing last night. Congratulations.

MICHAEL MEYER, NASA SCIENTIST: It's a fantastic day. And certainly last night was wonderful seeing a successful landing. This is something we have really been hoping for, and now we can look forward to 90-plus days of exploration of Mars.

KOPPEL: I know the next rover is supposed to land, "Opportunity," in three weeks from now. What can we expect from "Spirit" and "Opportunity" in the 90 days that they're going to be working?

MEYER: Essentially they are equipped to be the robotic equivalent of a geologist wandering the surface of the planet. The goal is to look at the soil and rocks and determine how long water might have been on -- whether water is there, and how long it's been on the surface. That's critical for understanding the whole evolution of Mars.

KOPPEL: And if we do find out that there was water on Mars, where do we go from there? MEYER: Well, we have a strong suspicion that water has been on the surface of Mars. The real question is how long it's been there. Whether or not it's been stable and whether or not it's been there long enough to actually make a place habitable for life. That's sort of one of the major goals of the Mars exploration program.

KOPPEL: And if you do find out, again, that life was sustained, could be sustained on Mars, does that teach us anything about the planet Earth or is it pretty much contained to that planet?

MEYER: Well, one of the real questions would be is, if Mars had the capability of supporting life at one point in time or maybe even today, and then the related question is, OK, is life -- did it form? Is it there? Was it there? And either answer to the question of yes or no helps inform us about how lucky Earth is to have life on it, or whether or not life in our solar system is in two places and may be common in the universe.

KOPPEL: Now, one of the wonderful things, many wonderful things, about having a rover do all this work is that you don't have human beings that are on the ground. But of course you are back here in the States monitoring it 24 hours a day. What are some experiments you will be doing?

MEYER: Certainly, the rover is equipped with a couple -- five different instruments. Part of it is using cameras to just look and see what rocks are there, what the formations are, there's an infrared camera that can identify minerals and maybe point out rocks of particular interest, then the rover can go up to particular rocks and do some measurements, such as understanding what the elemental composition is, what sort of iron minerals might be contained in that rock, and also look at it with a microscope.

KOPPEL: I know that 2003 was a particularly rough year for NASA. This has to really be a well-deserved shot in the arm. What does this do for the space agency now and in coming years?

MEYER: Well, certainly it puts the Mars exploration program on the right track. It has actually been reasonably successful because we had an orbiter in 2001 that was in fact helping with this mission and sending back great images. So we have two orbiters, Mars "Global Surveyor" and "Odyssey," around Mars now. The Europeans have "Mars Express" going around Mars right now, and now we have a lander alive on the surface of Mars. And so what this does is we are really going to learn a lot about Mars, and whether or not it has been a place for life in the past, or maybe could be a place for life in the future, such as humans.

KOPPEL: You know, something that struck me, this is -- these rovers are traveling over 300 million miles away from the planet Earth, it takes them seven months to get there. How are you guys able to pinpoint so precisely when they will touch down on the surface of Mars?

MEYER: That borders on real art. Part of it is having great models and able to understand atmosphere of Mars, and dynamics of between the planets. We cheat a little bit, in that on the way to Mars we have what's called trajectory maneuvers, which you can adjust how the spacecraft is pointed. So that helps out narrowing down the errors of the landing.

KOPPEL: Just incredible. I know that "Opportunity," the next rover, is due to touch down on January the 24th. We'll all be eagerly awaiting that moment. Mike Meyer, congratulations to you and all of your colleagues at NASA.

MEYER: It's a big team and everybody is very happy about this. Thank you very much.

KOPPEL: Sure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 4, 2004 - 09:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Success for "Spirit." The Mars rover "Spirit" made its long anticipated landing on Mars. And just hours later started sending back these pictures from the planet's surface. "Spirit" is the first successful Mars mission since 1997's Pathfinder mission. But after two failures since Pathfinder, NASA scientists, to say the least, were understandably on edge for the six minutes it took "Spirit" to finally break through the atmosphere and land on Mars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD WEILER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: It was six minutes from hell. But in this case we said the right prayers and we got up to heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed a lot longer than six minutes.

WEILER: That's called relativity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: So now the scientists have recovered from the landing, the exploration can begin. For more on the "Spirit's" mission we turn to Michael Meyer, one of NASA's chief scientists.

Well, I bet the champagne was flowing last night. Congratulations.

MICHAEL MEYER, NASA SCIENTIST: It's a fantastic day. And certainly last night was wonderful seeing a successful landing. This is something we have really been hoping for, and now we can look forward to 90-plus days of exploration of Mars.

KOPPEL: I know the next rover is supposed to land, "Opportunity," in three weeks from now. What can we expect from "Spirit" and "Opportunity" in the 90 days that they're going to be working?

MEYER: Essentially they are equipped to be the robotic equivalent of a geologist wandering the surface of the planet. The goal is to look at the soil and rocks and determine how long water might have been on -- whether water is there, and how long it's been on the surface. That's critical for understanding the whole evolution of Mars.

KOPPEL: And if we do find out that there was water on Mars, where do we go from there? MEYER: Well, we have a strong suspicion that water has been on the surface of Mars. The real question is how long it's been there. Whether or not it's been stable and whether or not it's been there long enough to actually make a place habitable for life. That's sort of one of the major goals of the Mars exploration program.

KOPPEL: And if you do find out, again, that life was sustained, could be sustained on Mars, does that teach us anything about the planet Earth or is it pretty much contained to that planet?

MEYER: Well, one of the real questions would be is, if Mars had the capability of supporting life at one point in time or maybe even today, and then the related question is, OK, is life -- did it form? Is it there? Was it there? And either answer to the question of yes or no helps inform us about how lucky Earth is to have life on it, or whether or not life in our solar system is in two places and may be common in the universe.

KOPPEL: Now, one of the wonderful things, many wonderful things, about having a rover do all this work is that you don't have human beings that are on the ground. But of course you are back here in the States monitoring it 24 hours a day. What are some experiments you will be doing?

MEYER: Certainly, the rover is equipped with a couple -- five different instruments. Part of it is using cameras to just look and see what rocks are there, what the formations are, there's an infrared camera that can identify minerals and maybe point out rocks of particular interest, then the rover can go up to particular rocks and do some measurements, such as understanding what the elemental composition is, what sort of iron minerals might be contained in that rock, and also look at it with a microscope.

KOPPEL: I know that 2003 was a particularly rough year for NASA. This has to really be a well-deserved shot in the arm. What does this do for the space agency now and in coming years?

MEYER: Well, certainly it puts the Mars exploration program on the right track. It has actually been reasonably successful because we had an orbiter in 2001 that was in fact helping with this mission and sending back great images. So we have two orbiters, Mars "Global Surveyor" and "Odyssey," around Mars now. The Europeans have "Mars Express" going around Mars right now, and now we have a lander alive on the surface of Mars. And so what this does is we are really going to learn a lot about Mars, and whether or not it has been a place for life in the past, or maybe could be a place for life in the future, such as humans.

KOPPEL: You know, something that struck me, this is -- these rovers are traveling over 300 million miles away from the planet Earth, it takes them seven months to get there. How are you guys able to pinpoint so precisely when they will touch down on the surface of Mars?

MEYER: That borders on real art. Part of it is having great models and able to understand atmosphere of Mars, and dynamics of between the planets. We cheat a little bit, in that on the way to Mars we have what's called trajectory maneuvers, which you can adjust how the spacecraft is pointed. So that helps out narrowing down the errors of the landing.

KOPPEL: Just incredible. I know that "Opportunity," the next rover, is due to touch down on January the 24th. We'll all be eagerly awaiting that moment. Mike Meyer, congratulations to you and all of your colleagues at NASA.

MEYER: It's a big team and everybody is very happy about this. Thank you very much.

KOPPEL: Sure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com