Postcards from the Red Planet

火星探査機からの写真

In the 1960s, we flew by it a few times. In the '70s we dropped in, literally, on several occasions, our mechanical emissaries decked out like eager tourists with cameras and other gadgets. In 1997, we repeated the visit and took more photos. Now, here we are again, with bigger cameras and better gadgets, intent on checking out a much wider swath of bleak Martian real estate.

Mars, it seems, never grows boring. But perhaps you're thinking, Wait a minute! What is this talk of Earthlings? "We" didn't succeed in getting all the way to Mars. The Americans did — for the fourth time Jan. 3, if you don't count flybys. The Russians have put spacecraft into orbit around the planet, and so have the Europeans. Japan came agonizingly close with its Nozomi probe, which was redirected away from a Mars orbit last month after attempts to fix damaged electrical circuits failed.

But only the United States has achieved the much more delicate and difficult feat of a Mars landing, which is why the flawless touchdown of the U.S. rover Spirit on Jan. 3 generated such excitement. It has happened before, but it is a minor scientific miracle every time. NASA deserves its moment of glory, and can certainly be forgiven for putting out a few flags.

Still, there is something about the event that is bigger than nationalism. Space exploration on this level should inspire pride in every one of us. As the ungainly Spirit plummeted down through Mars' atmosphere and then bounced about on the planet's rocky, rust-red surface, emitting happy beeps of success, it was hard to think of it as an American venture. The lander was the representative of all humanity, not just Washington. So far from home, so small and fragile, did it matter who sent it?

What we were impatient to see were those fabulous pictures, especially the color ones — and once they started coming, nobody much cared about the national origin of the camera or of the software that operated it. There could be no doubt of it: The eye that looked out so calmly and curiously on Gusev Crater was not an American's but an Earthling's. Spirit's postcards from the Red Planet were addressed to all of us.

It is odd how compelling those photographs are. What they show, after all, is an arid landscape, the kind of place that, on Earth, nobody but geologists would want to set foot in. But when the patch of land in question is on another planet, somehow it doesn't matter what it looks like, or whether the viewfinder shows us rocks or roses.

The scene is fascinating simply because it is an intimate glimpse of another world. And because, having watched these increasingly sophisticated landings over the years, we know for a certainty that one day it will not be a mechanical rover setting off to explore that new world, but a human being. Whether that person is American or Asian, Russian or European, man or woman, could hardly be of less consequence.

The NASA scientists naturally do not talk in such fanciful, far-gazing terms. Their perspective was more micro than macro, focusing on whatever was right in front of Spirit's nose: stones, rocks and a tantalizing hollow a short distance from the landing site. Speculation about manned flights to Mars or humanity's extraterrestrial future is simply not part of their job.

"We're dying to get a close-up look," said the lead scientific investigator. Or, as one of his colleagues said of the photographs streaming in from Spirit, "It's spectacular, but to really do it justice, you have to zoom in and explore all the incredible detail."

That is the right and proper approach for a scientist, but laypersons are not so constrained. We can look at those photos and speculate, rhapsodize and dream all we like. As Spirit tootles about on Mars, dutifully snapping the pictures that will tell scientists whether the planet hosted life in the past, the rest of us are busy imagining the life it might host in the future.

May it remain as free of flags and fences as it is today, no longer a symbol of war, but of peace.

The Japan Times Weekly
Jan. 17, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

      1960年代には火星に探査機が接近、70年代には数機の探査機が着陸、写真を撮影した。97年に新たな探査機の着陸で調査を再開、さらに今年1月3日、高性能カメラなどを備えた新型探査機が着陸、より広い空間を調査している。

      しかし、人類が火星探査機着陸に成功したという表現は正確ではないと、 あなたは思うかもしれない。確かに、米国の探査機が4度目の着陸に成功したのだ。ロシア、欧州諸国も探査機を火星の周回軌道に乗せたし、日本も探査機「のぞみ」を周回軌道に乗せるはずだったが、先月、電気系統のトラブルで断念した。

      探査機「スピリット」による今回の完璧な着陸はNASA（米航空宇宙局）の手柄であるが、米国の国威の発揚としてよりも、人類全体の偉業として捉えるべきである。

      探査機から受信した写真を見るためのカメラ、使用ソフトなどの生産国にあまり関心は集まっていない。「スピリット」が着陸したグセフ・クレータを捉えたのは、米国人の目ではなく、地球人の目であった。「スピリット」から送信された火星の地表写真 − 絵葉書 − は人類すべてに宛てられたものである。

      写真に写っているのは、不毛の地形である。それが興味を引くのは、未知の世界だからである。

      次の目標は当然、人類の着陸になる。その飛行士の国籍、性別などは重要ではない。

      探査機着陸計画を担当したNASAジェット推進研究所では、将来の探査計画よりも撮影された岩石、着陸地点近くの奇妙なくぼみに関心を持っており、拡大画像の撮影を進めている。

      一般人は火星の写真を見て楽しみ、将来、生命体が宿る可能性について、いくらでも夢想することができる。火星が今後、国家間の競争の対象にならず、平和の象徴になるよう望みたい。