Fifty Years of Mars Exploration

2015 marks 50 years of successful NASA missions to Mars, beginning with Mariner 4 in 1965. Since then, a total of 15 robotic missions led by various NASA centers have laid the groundwork for future human missions to the Red Planet. The journey to Mars continues with additional robotic missions planned for 2016 and 2020, and human missions in the 2030s.

Transcript

00:00:00 (MUSIC) Hey. There we go. There she goes. That's data. Announcer: There's some sort of pattern to the data. We have now full confidence that this will correspond to a photograph of Mars. (Music) (Crowd noise) 'Upon preliminary analysis of this data, can you describe what you see on Mars?' 'Yes, it's there!' (Music) (Cheers)

00:00:56 (Music) (Cheers) (Music) The rover has landed base pedal down, which means right side up. (Cheers) (Music) 50 meters. 30 meters. 27 meters. 20 meters. 16 meters. Standing by for touchdown. (Cheers) (Music)

00:02:57 NASA Administrator Charles Bolden: Led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA and our Jet Propulsion Labor Eight now, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars. John Holdren: Well, today on Mars, history was made on Earth. The successful landing of Curiosity will stand as an American point of pride far into the future. President Barack Obama: I just wanted to call and say congratulations to the Mars Science Laboratory team and really all of JPL. You guys should be remarkably proud. (Music)