If you can't find the meaning of life, go and explore Mars.

Foreword: I thought in Eternal Tossing that human life is limited, and the most effective way to live is to exert one's greatest value. With this in mind, I have been concentrating on thinking and consulting a lot of contents and books recently, even audio-visual materials that prolong the value of life. Recently, I saw a story about "15 years of robot exploration of Mars". I am moved by the spirit and characters of this story, and I hereby share it. This paper consists of sorting out network data.

The origin of the story, the American exploration of Mars.

In the decades after World War II, the United States has been exploring outer space. I haven't read the history of space deeply, so I can't feel its greatness. Until these years, China's scientific and technological strength has caught up. I look back at the history of outer space in the United States and find that the American spirit of exploration is actually worth learning.

From 196 1 to 1972, the United States landed on the moon six times through the Apollo program, which is also called an epoch-making project in the world space history. For all mankind, the success of landing on the moon has also made us a brand-new "trans-planet" species.

Soon, after successfully landing on the moon, the United States began to set its goal on Mars. However, Mars exploration is obviously a more difficult task than lunar exploration. This can be understood from the record of the Soviet Union against the United States at that time.

According to the human mission to mars list compiled by NASA, the United States and the Soviet Union explored Mars the most, and the United States was the most successful, but it also failed many times.

The United States successfully launched the "Mars Odyssey" probe on 200 1, and found the existence of water ice under the surface of Mars for the first time, which indicates the possibility of life on Mars.

The Mars Odyssey is still conducting scientific exploration and providing communication relay for landing in mission to mars. It is the longest "service period" of the current Mars probe.

In 2003, the second generation of American dual rovers "Courage" and "Opportunity" were successfully launched.

Compared with the first generation rover, the performance of the second generation rover has been greatly enhanced, and a large-scale mobile survey of Mars has been realized.

"Courage" and "Opportunity" discovered the evidence that water once existed on Mars, and also gave scientists detailed information about the hydrological activities in the history of Mars.

It was this exploration story that attracted me, and I especially learned the ins and outs of this trip to Mars to find water.

Act I: The task is arduous, and it is ordered at a critical moment.

Mars is the most suitable planet for development in the whole solar system except the earth. Humans began to explore as early as the 1960s, but the failure rate of early exploration was high, and the Soviet Union did not achieve real success even until its disintegration. After the madness of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, human exploration of Mars came to an abrupt end, and it didn't start again until the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Mars Observer launched by the United States (1992) failed, and so did the Mars 96 launched by Russia (1996).

It was not until 1996 that the American global explorer succeeded. Together with the Pathfinder lander/Stranger rover, Little Stranger became the first rover to land successfully. Compared with landers that can only land at fixed points, rovers have a huge advantage: they can move, which is enough to illustrate their value. However, it is too small, only 10 kg. The instruments it carries naturally cannot have complex functions, and the task is over after only a few days of work. Humans urgently need a comprehensive, complex and multifunctional rover to land on Mars.

Under this demand, NASA's Mars exploration program formally established the Mars exploration rover (MER) project, which includes two rovers, MER-A and MER-B, weighing 185 kg, which are identical and backup to each other. Unexpectedly, in 1999, the mission to mars in the United States was once again faced with extinction: the orbiter Atmospheric Explorer burned directly in the Martian atmosphere, and the polar lander crashed only 40 meters from the surface. In this case, the pressure of the two rovers to complete the task can be imagined, and the cost of failure has caused human Mars exploration to fall into a trough again.

Act II: Take courage and seize the opportunity.

Fortunately, the Mars Odyssey orbiter launched at 200 1 was a great success. It can provide signal relay for the rover with low ground power, which means that the two rover missions can successfully embark on the journey in 2003.

Therefore, the twin brothers of the two rovers were finally named as Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B). In fact, they still have two "cousins" left on the earth for testing, one of which is almost the same as their scientific instruments in structure and weight, and is used to test the working conditions of various instruments; The other is lighter and has almost no instruments. It is only used to simulate the influence of weight on the body structure under the gravity of Mars.

The two probes were successfully launched on June 10 and July 7, 2003, respectively. It took them more than 200 days to transfer orbit to Mars, and they arrived in June 1 the following year.

Act III: Seven minutes of death and balloon bounce

Landing on Mars is never an easy task. The gravity of Mars is lower than that of the Earth, and it has a thin atmosphere. However, it can use air resistance friction to further slow down the parachute, just like landing on the Earth. Because of the high speed, the huge heat generated by friction energy will accumulate on the surface of the detector, reaching an amazing 2 100 degrees Celsius (the landing process of Curiosity Rover). However, the atmosphere of Mars is too thin, which is less than 1% of that of the earth, and the deceleration effect is limited, so it is impossible to complete the final deceleration with a parachute like the earth.

In addition, the closest distance between Mars and the Earth is also at the level of 50 million kilometers, which already means the round-trip communication delay of nearly 6 minutes. Actually, the occlusion caused by the rotation of both sides should be considered, and the actual time is much longer than this. The whole landing process cannot be completed by manual control and monitoring on the earth. It only takes about 7 minutes from the beginning of the probe entering the edge of the Martian atmosphere to the final landing on Mars, and it must be completed by itself. Although the landing time is short, thousands of operations have to be carried out independently in the whole process, and problems in any link will lead to failure. For example, at 20 16, 10, 19, the lander of ESA Schiappa Raleigh broke down at the last moment of the mission and directly crashed into the surface of Mars. Otherwise, its landing point is also the meridian plateau where the opportunity rover is located. If successful, they will become partners fighting side by side. Only the result is extremely regrettable!

After the atmosphere slows down and the parachute slows down, the landing device of the detector must use a reverse rocket to work. However, the self-propelled rocket will cause the bottom of the detector to be occupied by huge fuel tanks, engines, sensors and so on. Once it lands, it will become self-weight, which is very unsuitable for the rover that should be free to move.

Finally, the choice of spirit and opportunity is airbag bounce: after the parachute is detached, the rocket reverse thrust scheme is still used to slow down and hover to determine the landing position. However, at this time, the lander is divided into two parts. One part carries recoil rockets and fuel tanks, and the other part folds the rover and is firmly wrapped in a huge airbag. After the lander determines the landing area, it will pop up the airbag and hang it firmly with a rope. The rope will break after giving the command of steady descent. The airbag was released several meters away from the surface of Mars, and then stabilized after bouncing on the ground several times. There is often a balance device inside the huge airbag, which can ensure that the folded rover keeps the correct posture with the ground after the airbag stops, and then the airbag opens and the rover slowly unfolds and drives out. This technology has been successfully verified in the Pathfinder mission.

Act IV: The Mars "car" travels at turtle speed.

If Spirit and Opportunity want to become mobile vehicles, they must be equipped with additional power, imaging and navigation systems, which basically do not exist in fixed-point landing missions. Both detectors are powered by two solar panels behind them. They used the most advanced multi-junction solar photovoltaic cells on the earth at that time, which could absorb and utilize the energy in multiple solar spectra. However, because the solar energy on the surface of Mars is far less abundant than that on the earth, and the atmosphere is full of dust, in the best state, solar energy can only provide 900 watt-hours of energy every day, less than one kWh, and the average working efficiency is generally at the level of half kWh.

When a global sandstorm breaks out on Mars, the yellow sand in the sky will sharply weaken the sunlight and attach to the surface of solar panels, so that the daily production capacity is only 100 watt-hour, and the rover must enter a dormant state. Even in the best weather and 900 watts at the peak, this energy can only make the ordinary water heater on the earth work for half an hour, and only make a 40-watt old light bulb light up for one day. In order to make full use of energy, especially to avoid no energy at night, the Mars rover also carries two 7 kg lithium batteries to store energy.

Considering that these two rovers are behemoths with six wheels, with a height of 1.5m, a width of 2.3m and a length of 1.6m, they have to complete complicated functions such as communication, navigation, scientific research and data analysis and processing, and their power is very limited. This is completely different from the scene that everyone imagined that the rover was galloping on the surface of Mars. In fact, the speed of two rovers is calculated in centimeters per second. The limit speed of their "race" is only 5 cm per second, while the average speed is only 1 cm per second.

According to its self-protection system, it will stop for 20 seconds every 10 second to check the terrain and avoid risks. So in fact, the effect of the rover's driving is that it took 10 seconds to climb forward about the length of a person's palm, then stopped to breathe for 20 seconds, and then continued to climb forward.

Act V: The priceless "super car"

The rover must also carry a large number of image camera systems to assist navigation and self-trajectory judgment. After all, there is no one on Mars to guide them, and they must be self-sufficient. So they all carry panoramic cameras, and the navigation camera is installed on the head, with a height of 1.5 meters. They also need to carry four cameras to avoid danger before and after shooting, which is the standard "cowardice". There is no way. After all, this is an extremely sophisticated car that costs as much as 400 million dollars. Roughly calculated, the average value per gram is close to 15000 RMB, which is much more expensive than a car made of pure gold (the price of gold is about 300 RMB per gram).

Not only that, its tiny energy also needs to support communication with the earth, but obviously this energy is too weak to send back signals directly to the earth. So their choice is to rely on other "predecessors" to help forward and transmit signals: American Odyssey, Global Explorer, MAVEN, reconnaissance orbiter and so on. Have provided them with data transmission services.

After solving the core problems such as power, navigation and communication, we finally come to the most important aspect: scientific research! Although the energy is limited, the two rovers still carry very advanced and highly integrated scientific instruments, which are basically installed on the mechanical "arms" protruding from the front of the rovers. This is also a helpless move, because the whole back is almost full of solar panels, and the bottom is full of power systems and structural systems.

There are not only Mossbauer spectrometer, α-particle X-ray spectrometer and magnet instrument on the arm, which can interpret the chemical composition of rocks and soil in detail, but also thermal radiation spectrometer (installed on the head) and micro imager, which can observe the image of soil structure from a distance and a microscopic distance. Of course, in order to help these instruments obtain samples for study, a grinding tool is needed to crush rocks. When using the instrument, the rover needs to stop and concentrate most of its energy on the mechanical arm. The mechanical arm slowly lifts the front end with the instrument to the place to be studied, and then the instrument can start working.

Act VI: Mars exploration, the mission must be completed.

According to the plan, Spirit landed in gusev Crater, a super crater with a width of170km, which may hide the deep secrets of Martian soil. Opportunity landed on the meridian plain, where a large amount of crystalline hematite was discovered, which means that it is very likely to be the location of the huge ocean/lake of ancient Mars.

When these two little guys arrived at Mars, they really lived up to expectations and brought us a huge amount of scientific research results, which greatly supplemented the research results of Viking I/II and Pathfinder/Stranger missions. They further analyzed the composition of Martian soil. Compared with the earth's soil, which is basically 50% water and air, 5% organic matter and 45% minerals and metals, the soil of Mars is only 2% water and air, and the remaining 98% are minerals and metals. In addition, nickel and zinc were found in Martian soil for the first time, which should come from the deep core of Mars. This discovery means that the soil on the surface of Mars may have originated from volcanic eruption and was the product of violent geological activities on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago.

Spirit once made an in-depth study of a Martian rock. It drilled a hole with a diameter of 4.5 cm and a depth of 0.5 cm, almost as big as a baby's palm. It seems easy for humans to do it, but it is not easy for the spirit: this is the result of drilling for two hours without moving. After analyzing the basic structure of this stone, scientists found that these microscopic textures and holes can only be formed with the participation of water.

Its "Brother" Opportunity has made a detailed study of a large number of earth-like basalts, whose surfaces are covered with many different substances. It also went to a hill rich in clay and an ancient lake bottom, where water-bearing minerals including hematite (a kind of rust) were found. It even observed traces of water flowing at the bottom of the crater, which means that there may still be liquid water under Mars today. Opportunity was also lucky to meet a gift from space: it found a meteorite made of iron and nickel, which is the first time that humans have found a meteorite on another planet.

All these prove that Mars had a warm and humid environment in ancient times. However, after studying the chemical composition, they came to the conclusion that the oceans and lakes on Mars are not as mild as the water bodies on earth, but most of the water bodies are strongly acidic and not suitable for the survival of most life on earth. Their research is far more than that, but due to the limitation of space, it is impossible to carry out all of them.

Act VII: We conquered space, not because it was simple, but because it was difficult.

Before Spirit and Opportunity set off for Mars, on September 1 2006, the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in history, and two landmark World Trade Centers in new york collapsed. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people, a considerable number of whom were firefighters involved in the rescue, causing huge losses to the United States. Afterwards, the whole world fell into an atmosphere of mourning, and these two detectors were no exception. But just like their names, they represent people who are more frustrated and more brave. In the process of cleaning up the wreckage afterwards, scientists made a special cable protective sleeve with the found metal material to protect the rock crushing tools.

In addition, their landing site has become a monument. Among them, the landing site of Spirit is called "Columbia Monument" to commemorate the disintegration disaster that occurred when the space shuttle Columbia returned on February 1 2003; Accordingly, the landing site of Opportunity is called "Challenger Monument" to commemorate the disaster of the disintegration of the space shuttle Challenger on October 28th. In the two recorded space disasters in human history, seven astronauts were killed each, the highest in history.

As President Kennedy famously said, "We chose to go to the moon not because it is simple, but because it is difficult". Two rovers also shoulder the great mission of mankind.

Act VIII: Veterans never die, creating miracles.

The two rovers originally planned to work for about 90 days. Scientists believe that after 90 days, the dust in the Martian air will cover the solar panels, resulting in too low energy to continue working. But what I didn't expect was that the severe sandstorm and windy weather on Mars helped a lot. The wind blew away the dust on the surface of the solar panel, exposing it to the sun again and getting a new life. Although in the huge sandstorm on Mars in 2007, 99% of the sunlight was covered with dust for several months, which caused the two brothers' mission to almost fail, they finally survived through hibernation in the harsh environment, which was 10 times faster than the wind speed of the earth, and won a new life.

In this case, Spirit worked until March 22nd, 20 1 1 year. Before that, it had experienced wheel trouble and fell into soft soil in 2009, but it still kept working in that pit for two years until it lost contact, and this became its last cemetery.

On the other hand, the situation of Opportunity is much better. It was once trapped in a gravel sand, but it took a month and a half to escape by relying on various simulations of two "cousins" on the earth. That small area was renamed "Hell Dune". Since then, I have been more cautious and have been working until 20 18 years.

However, the opportunities in the later period are slowly getting older. Every day, the on-board computer will be restarted continuously, and the data storage will be automatically emptied after working for a period of time. It is like an old man in his twilight years suffering from "dementia" and "amnesia", which makes people feel sorry and deeply helpless.

Although Spirit and Opportunity move very slowly, their long-term service makes them the best rovers. Spirit worked for 2,269 days and Opportunity worked for more than 5,000 days. Opportunity moved at an average speed of 65,438+0 cm/s, setting a record for the longest distance in space. It has traveled more than 45 kilometers on the surface of Mars, which has exceeded the record of 39 kilometers on the surface of the moon launched by the former Soviet Union in 65,438+0973. Opportunity is like a tortoise in the tortoise-rabbit race. Although slow, it persisted until the final victory.

Sadly, however, in 20 18, a huge sandstorm swept across the world appeared on Mars, and Opportunity fell into a deep sleep again due to energy problems. After the sandstorm subsided at the end of the year, NASA tried to wake it up more than 800 times and finally had to give up. At present, we have lost these two rovers forever.

Act IX: The magnificent last chapter is also the beginning.

Although the missions of Spirit and Opportunity have ended, their glorious last chapter has not yet ended. Their great success once again set off the climax of human exploration of Mars, and then a series of probes arrived on Mars and worked for a long time.

In June 2003, the European Mars Express orbiter and Beagle II lander arrived, and the orbiter was still working.

In March 2006, the American Mars reconnaissance orbiter arrived and is still working.

In May 2008, the American Phoenix lander arrived;

On August 20 12, the American rover Curiosity arrived and is still working.

2065438+In September 2004, the MAVEN atmospheric expert orbiter of the United States arrived and is still working.

2065438+In September 2004, the Indian Garian orbiter arrived and is still working.

20 16 10, the European ExoMars orbiter and schiaparelli lander arrived, and the orbiter is still working;

20 18, 1 1, the American lander Insight has arrived and is still working.

The "Nuclear Power" Curiosity rover is almost five times as big as Spirit/Opportunity, and its capabilities have been fully upgraded (source: NASA).

In 2020, China, USA, Russia/EU, etc. There will be a new round of Mars exploration mission, and Mars will usher in the busiest period. There is no doubt that their research results will greatly surpass Spirit and Opportunity.

With the follow-up of Mars exploration, human beings will completely conquer Mars in the future.

From June, 5438 to October, 2004 10, then US President Bush put forward a "new space plan": to return to the moon and establish a permanent base before 2020, and to send astronauts to Mars at the same time, but he did not announce the specific landing date.

In 20 17, Trump signed the "Space Policy Directive 1", announcing grand plans including returning to the moon, landing on Mars and exploring the solar system in depth. To this end, the United States re-established the National Space Commission, chaired by Vice President Burns. Trump also repeatedly said on Twitter that NASA should directly explore manned Mars and announce relevant plans in the next few months.

In the same year, at the 58th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation held in Hyderabad, southern India, Michael Griffin, former director of NASA, declared that he would send humans to Mars in 2037. However, at the hearing of NASA's budget request for fiscal year 2020, Jim Breeden Sting, the current director of NASA, confirmed that the United States plans to send astronauts to Mars in 2033 and live on Mars for two years.

NASA is not the only one who wants to win the first place in the exploration of Mars. Space Exploration Technologies, Boeing and other major aerospace companies are also competing privately. Dennis Mirenburg, the head of Boeing Company, made it clear in an interview: "The first person to set foot on Mars will fly there by Boeing plane."

Dennis muilenburg's statement was satirized by elon musk of rival space exploration technology company. He claimed that the comment that "Boeing will beat Space Exploration Technology Company in the Mars landing competition" sounded like Boeing was telling itself that it was deceiving itself.

Of course, for elon musk, his dream is not only to send humans to Mars, but also to transform the atmosphere of Mars into a planet suitable for human habitation.

Musk said for the first time in a TV program that he wanted to heat Mars with a nuclear bomb. Besides, he's not kidding. 20 19 announced the plan in detail on Twitter. Musk also threatened to build 1000 starships for Mars travel.

Although Musk is full of expectations and confidence in the Mars program, he has also admitted that due to the unsatisfactory development of technology, he may not be able to realize the Mars program himself. Musk has repeatedly called for accelerating technology research and development. He even claimed that if the technology is mature, he has a 70% chance to land on Mars himself. From the current point of view, if it is not lip service, Musk's dream is likely to come true.

What is certain is that when NASA aims at Mars, the major private space companies in the United States will not limit their targets to the moon, and the Mars competition has become inevitable.

As early as 2003, scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the French Space Agency conducted various experiments on "human adaptation to space" in Antarctica to prepare for manned flight to Mars. This is because it takes up to two years to go back and forth to Mars. Long-term isolation, loneliness and helplessness may break through the psychological defense of astronauts and lead to their insanity.

To this end, NASA has specially built the HI-SEAS Mars Simulation Base. Because experts believe that the only way to truly understand the psychological challenges that astronauts may encounter is to put them in an extreme environment similar to Mars. Those who have experienced the simulation test have deeply realized the loneliness and loneliness of astronauts.

In NASA's plan, it does not intend to fly directly from the earth to Mars, but uses the lunar base or space station as a relay station. Of course, both are still in preparation. Americans have not finished the goal of returning to the moon, so the moon base can only be a dream in the future. But the idea of using the lunar base as a relay station is very popular, because the water ice stored in the polar regions of the moon can completely make future rocket fuel.

In 20 17, NASA proposed to establish a permanent base in lunar orbit, that is, a deep space portal. It will be used as a training ground and technical experimental field for future space exploration, aiming at preparing for human landing on Mars or other planets. This base is like an airport, where spacecraft flying to the surface of the moon or Mars can refuel, replace parts or replenish materials.

Powerful launch vehicles are the basis for human beings to land on the moon and even Mars. The launch vehicle is the basis for human beings to get rid of the gravity of the earth and go to Mars. It is also the most important foundation for the entire human space flight. Its ability often determines the upper limit of space exploration ability of an aerospace enterprise and a country.

In 20 15, the space launch system SLS designed by NASA passed the expert review, which means that the largest and most powerful rocket in human history has finally taken a key step.

SLS system is a heavy-duty launch vehicle derived from American space shuttle. It is part of NASA's Deep Space Exploration Program and will carry out manned missions to Mars and the Moon in the future. SLS rocket is similar to Ares IV rocket, but its total thrust ratio will exceed Saturn V, the largest rocket before, and it will also become the most powerful launch vehicle in the United States.

In 20 17, NASA announced a new generation of rover "Mars 2020", which is now the perseverance rover. In the near future, this rover with 23 "eyes" will perform a panoramic observation mission on Mars. These 23 cameras, including 7 scientific cameras, 7 auxiliary cameras for landing and 9 engineering cameras, can help the rover avoid obstacles on Mars.

Strategically speaking, the United States wants to expand and firmly occupy the leading position in space exploration by exploring Mars. At present, the United States is not the only country in space exploration. Countries, including China, have risen to challenge the leadership of the United States.

If science and technology is the ability boundary of all mankind, then exploring space and understanding the universe is the ideological boundary of all mankind.

Recently, too many keywords have focused on the so-called meta-universe, but I was moved by a sentence by Yinye, a gene of Huada University. In the face of people's enthusiasm for the meta-universe, he only said one sentence, "I care more about the real universe."

Because the so-called metauniverse is created based on the real world, no matter how extravagant it is, whether you let Einstein talk to you in AI or copy yourself into eight incarnations, you need enough knowledge reserves and technology to realize it.

And these algorithms, science and technology, and mathematical knowledge are all learned in the real physical and biological world, and the boundary of the metauniverse is much smaller than that of the real universe. ...

The three origins of human beings will be the mysteries we will explore forever: the origin of the universe, the origin of life and the origin of consciousness.

Exploring the universe and knowing ourselves is actually an important direction for us to explore this great topic.