Adrenaline flowed, and rightly so, as more than 500 science reporters, magazine writers, television anchor-types and camera-toters, sound-seekers, producers, and book authors struggled to cover the stunning Pathfinder mission to Mars.
For those among us who have been around long enough to remember back to the Viking missions—which plopped two landers onto Mars in 1976—the Pathfinder event was sort of a replay, a Woodstock revisited. At first, when the fresh new photos from Mars started rolling in to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Martian landscape seemed much the same, just a lot of reddish rocks sitting on the frozen soil.
But then the science began to unfold. It turned out that Pathfinder sat down in an area of incredible diversity, and the first rock examined chemically—with a device called the APXS spectrometer—seemed to be full of quartz. That hinted at a history for Mars that was much more Earth-like, its innards having been cooked for a far longer time than anticipated.
As usual, some of the reporters who cover space/geochemistry/etc., regularly were able to gulp down such data, and even ask intelligent questions. At the same time, from the same press audience, there came the usual questions about “How does it feel to be...?” from reporters who seemed clueless about things technical. It’s always been like that, however, because the mix in the press gang inevitably includes an unpredictable jumble of very informed reporters (specialists from industry or enthusiast magazines such as Aviation Week, Sky & Telescope, etc.,) a flock of neophytes direct from the police beat, those of us who’ve done some science reporting, and even a few people doing books.
The only real conflict that emerged came when a few broadcast people tried to do their shows in the middle of the daily press conferences—in the same room. One could see the irritation level rising as we were trying to hear—and understand—what the Pathfinder team was saying, while a local TV reporter stood in front of the Mars scene mockup bleating into a microphone.
Covering events at JPL is also not free and easy. JPL is, because of some Defense Department work, a secured facility, and reporters need special escorts to go some places. Security guards check badges, and you even need press credentials to park nearby.
Fortunately, members of the Mars Pathfinder team were usually willing to grant interviews, sometimes informally when you could corner them in the auditorium, or up the hill in their offices. And there was no limit to the digging you could do for new angles, different views, etc.
There was a time crunch, however, because Mars hours did not correspond to Earth hours, and the Pathfinder team was trying to get some sleep. One scientist, Matt Golombeck, often came to the morning meetings still gulping down the remnants of breakfast.
For most of the mission the adrenaline level remained high, often because events—such as Sojourner creeping down onto the Martian surface—occurred right at deadline time, or even later. Much adrenaline also came from the fact that the spacecraft was being sent headlong into the Martian atmosphere without first going into orbit around the red planet. Would it even work?
After Pathfinder hit Mars’ atmosphere at a speed of almost 17,000 mph, it was first slowed by a heat shield, then floated down on a huge parachute and at the last minute popped out a massive collection of airbags to cushion its fall. It seemed miraculous the spacecraft survived all that—and it even sat down on Mars surface right side up.
After untangling itself a bit from the deflated airbags, Pathfinder sent its small roving vehicle, Sojourner, down a flimsy ramp onto Mars; talcum-fine soil. With that success, the burst of enthusiasm that erupted from the scientists and engineers who’d worked on the project for five years was spectacular. Most of the team marched down from Mission Control into Von Karman auditorium, where a celebration akin to a revival meeting took hold. It was very late, close to midnight, but very worthwhile being there, even if there was no chance of getting into our next day’s paper, for us easterners, at least.
Although a few reporters joined in the applause and celebration, most of the ruckus came from JPL employees who were on hand at the time. This has also happened in the past: I remember the cheers erupting when the first Surveyor spacecraft touched down on the Moon, as well as the celebrations and yelling about the first photos coming down from Viking on Mars; ditto while Voyager zipped through Jupiter’s neighborhood.
What made Pathfinder’s entry and descent so iffy—and thus a good read—was the fact that a planetary encounter had never been done that way before, and in fact the shield-chute-airbag combination had not really even been tested as a complete system before being sent to Mars. Fortunately, all the parts functioned precisely as planned, and the little spacecraft bounced at least 15 times, and rolled a lot before coming to rest. Engineers said Pathfinder’s first bounce was more than 50 feet high, and the bouncing and rolling continued for more than two minutes.
Then word came in: “We’re there!” meaning the spacecraft had settled onto Mars’ surface and was transmitting data. Real, old-fashioned pandemonium broke out among the engineers and scientists in the mission-control room, and we reporters struggled to capture the enthusiasm.
Joe Palca, reporting for National Public Radio, was required to be enthusiastic at 4 a.m. for NPR’s Morning Edition. We newspaper types with East Coast deadlines were hard-pressed to send home anything coherent as the news briefings got later and later. By starting at 1 p.m. Pacific Time, it meant that we couldn’t really start on the day’s story until it was late afternoon in the east. You could feel the pressure building as it got closer and closer to eastern deadline time.
Most of the regulars who cover these events were there, with some notable exceptions. John Wilford represented the New York Times, Dave Perlman was there for the San Francisco Chronicle, Kathy Sawyer for the Washington Post, Mike Toner for the Atlanta Constitution, David Chandler for the Boston Globe, Fay Flam was there (briefly) for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sharon Begley (equally briefly) for Newsweek, Ron Cowen for Science News, Kelly Beatty for Sky & Telescope, K. C. Cole for the LA Times, Keay Davidson for the SF Examiner, plus wordsmiths Matt Crenson and Jane Allen double-teaming for Associated Press.
A surprise was who wasn’t there. I didn’t see anyone from San Jose. No one from Seattle (home of aeronautics-oriented Boeing), Portland, Oregon; San Diego, Denver, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and other major cities. With such gaps in coverage, one wonders about the health of American science journalism.
Besides being something of an ordeal, with numerous news briefings, interviews with team members, unscheduled discussion sessions, demanding editors, and news breaking as late as 11 p.m. EDT, it was often just plain fun. It’s fascinating to be right there when a whole new world is being explored. And it’s even better to be gobbling up the information as “instant science” is being practiced by excited researchers.
All of this—as well as a rather news-quiet Independence Day weekend—led to an unusually (and gratifyingly) heavy news play in Newsday, as in other major newspapers, on the tube and in the newsmagazines. Pathfinder dominated page one for almost a week.
So despite hot weather—90-plus some days—and LA’s persistent smog, it was a good time. The mission was exciting to cover, and cover and cover because it was a breaking story. Now we look ahead to the next adventure in the unmanned exploration of space, It is, indeed, a great way to make a living.