NASA Preps for ‘7 Minutes of Terror’ on Mars
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Besided the NBA Playoffs, this weekend should be an exciting one – especially for NASA. Planetary scientists and engineers who make up the Mars Phoenix Lander team will be biting their nails Sunday evening as they gather in mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the lander arrives at the Red Planet. Historically, more than half of the missions to Mars have ended in failure.
“I do not feel confident. But in my heart I’m an optimist, and I think this is going to be a very successful mission,” said principal investigator Peter Smith, an optical scientist with the University of Arizona. “The thrill of victory is so much more exciting than the agony of defeat.”
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