Return to Mars

Although the U.S. Skylab space station has overshadowed recent Russian manned space ventures, the Soviet Union is pressing ahead as strongly as ever in unmanned exploration of the cosmos. Last week the Russians took advantage of the current favorable position of the earth and Mars--an alignment that occurs only once every two years--to launch two more unmanned spacecraft toward the Red Planet. Dubbed Mars 4 and 5, the ships should reach the vicinity of the earth's nearest planetary neighbor, now some 42 million miles away, in about six months.

As usual, the Russians are tight-lipped about the project. But Western observers believe that the spacecraft might release a smaller lander. If so, that would mean a rerun of last year's Mars 3 mission, when a TV-equipped instrument package was dropped on the Martian surface. The unit ceased sending signals after 20 seconds--possibly because it was buffeted by the Red Planet's hurricane-force winds. By contrast, the U.S.'s Mariner 9 spacecraft, launched at approximately the same time, worked for almost a year while in orbit around Mars, taking more than 7,000 pictures of the surprisingly varied Martian terrain as well as the first closeups of the planet's two tiny moonlets, Phobos and Deimos.

NASA, which is strapped for funds, has decided not to take advantage of this year's launch window for Mars. But space-agency scientists are moving ahead with a variety of other explorations. Two Pioneer spacecraft are now speeding toward a rendezvous with Jupiter. Later this year NASA plans to launch a flyby of Venus and Mercury. In 1974 and 1976, with the help of European scientists, it will send Helios probes toward the sun. In 1977, as a substitute for its highly touted "grand tour" of the outer planets, it hopes to launch two flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. NASA's next probes of Mars will be in 1975, when two Viking softlanders will be launched--timed for a touchdown the following summer on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of American independence. Crammed with instruments--including color-TV cameras--the probes may finally answer one of the most tantalizing and enduring questions in astronomy: Is there life on Mars?

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