Mars Videos - The Documentary Network

Mars One Way – Permanent human settlement on Mars

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 14:48:30 +0000

There were 200,000 people who applied to participate in a project called Mars One. It's a private enterprise to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars and film a reality show along the way. The idea is to go in crews of four starting in 2024. The thing is, right now the technology can only get them there. "Mars One Way" documents the thoughts and theories of Five hopeful Mars One astronauts as they contemplate the reality of leaving planet Earth forever, for a new home on Mars. Cast in order of appearance: Cody Reeder, Casey Hunter, Will Robbins, Katelyn "Kitty" Kane, Ken Sullivan, Becky Sullivan, Calvin Juárez Directed by: Skylar Nielsen Interview: Doug Fabrizio Produced: Elaine Clark, Doug Fabrizio, Skylar Nielsen Director of Photography: Ian Rigby Cinematography: Josh Fletcher Editing: Catura Jenson Sound: Marcus MacDonald A Vita Brevis Films Production in association with Video West.

Mars: World That Never Was

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:04:47 +0000

Did Mars long ago develop far enough for life to arise? If so, does anything still live within Mars' dusty plains, beneath its ice caps, or somewhere underground? In 1964 the Mariner Four spacecraft flew by Mars and got a good look. What it saw looked more like the Moon than the Earth. Then, in the mid-1970's, two lander-orbiter robot teams, named Viking, went in for an even closer look. The landers tested the soil for the chemical residues of life. All the evidence from Viking told us: Mars is dead. And extremely harsh. The mission recorded Martian surface temperatures from -17 degrees Celsius down to -107. We now know it can get even colder than that at the poles. The atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide, with only traces of oxygen. And it's extremely thin, with less than one percent the surface pressure of Earth's atmosphere. And it's bone dry. In fact, the Sahara Desert is a rainforest compared to Mars, where water vapor is a trace gas in the atmosphere. On Earth, impact craters erode over time from wind and water... and even volcanic activity. On Mars, they can linger for billions of years. Earth's surface is shaped and reshaped by the horizontal movement of plates that make up its crust driven by heat welling up from the planet's hot interior. At half the width and only 11% the mass of Earth, Mars doesn't generate enough heat to support wide-scale plate tectonics. Nor does it have the gravity to hold a thick atmosphere needed to store enough heat at the surface to allow liquid water to flow. Nonetheless, some areas that looked to Viking-era scientists like craters and volcanic areas, were later shown to be riverbeds, lake bottoms, and ocean shorelines. If water once flowed on Mars' surface, where did it all go? This was the scene at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in 2004. The twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity had just bounced down on the Red Planet. When the excitement died down, the rovers were set off on one of the most remarkable journeys in the history of planetary exploration. Missions like this could one day pave the way for a day when we'll view images from a real astronaut's camera. Opportunity had come to rest in a small crater near the equator, at a spot called Meridiani Planum. Here, in plain view, on a nearby crater wall, its camera revealed exposed bedrock, the first ever seen on Mars. Not far away, the rover found layered rocks on the face of a cliff. On Earth, they typically form as sedimentary layers at the bottom of oceans. And at every turn, Opportunity rolled across tiny, smooth, round pellets. They became known as "blueberries" because they appeared purplish-brown against Mars' rust-colored surface. Initially thought to be volcanic in origin, they turned out to be iron-rich spherules of the type that form within cavities in the mud at the bottom of an ocean. Drilling into rocks, the rover inserted a spectrometer to read the mineral content. The readings showed significant amounts of sulfate salt, a tracer for standing water. That wasn't all. Spirit's broken wheel, dragging behind it, exposed soils saturated in salt. Clearly there once was water on Mars' surface, but how long ago? And, if there is anything left, where would you find it? One possible answer: the North Pole. From orbit, this region seemed to be covered in frozen CO2 - what we call dry ice. But was there water ice below the surface? Enter Phoenix, a lander that touched down near the North Pole in early 2008. Radar readings from orbit, taken by the Mars Express mission, hinted at the presence of ice just below the surface. The Phoenix lander's descent thrusters blew away the top layer of soil, allowing its camera to snap pictures of what looked like ice. Scientists instructed the robot to conduct a simple experiment: reach out and dig a trench, then watch what happens. As expected, clumps of white stuff appeared. A couple of days later, it was gone. Vaporized. That means it can't be salt or frozen CO2, which is stable in the cold dry temperatures of the Martian pole. So it had to be water, the first ever directly seen on Mars. There are indications that the North Pole was actually warm enough in the recent past for water ice to become liquid. The Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, or MRO, used radar pulses to peer beneath the surface of the ice cap. These data reveal that the ice, just over a mile thick, formed in a succession of layers as the climate alternated between warm and cold. Our planet avoids mood swings like this in part because its spin is stabilized by a massive moon. Mars' spin is not, so it can really wobble, with the pole tilting toward the sun for long periods. New observations by the MRO spacecraft show that these wobbles can lead to dramatic releases of CO2, and warming periods due to an increase in the greenhouse effect.

NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity’s First Major Discovery

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 07:23:25 +0000

Here are the details of Curiosity's discovery of ancient conditions in Yellowknife Bay in Mars' Gale Crater, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. That's what the Mars Curiosity turned up in its first major discovery. Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- some of the key chemical ingredients for life -- in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month. The data indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover is exploring was the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lake bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favorable conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine-grained mudstone containing clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals. This ancient wet environment, unlike some others on Mars, was not harshly oxidizing, acidic or extremely salty. The patch of bedrock where Curiosity drilled for its first sample lies in an ancient network of stream channels descending from the rim of Gale Crater. The bedrock also is fine-grained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of wet conditions, including nodules and veins. Curiosity's drill collected the sample at a site just a few hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an ancient streambed in September 2012. The clay minerals it found are a product of the reaction of relatively fresh water with igneous minerals, such as olivine, also present in the sediment. The reaction could have taken place within the sedimentary deposit, during transport of the sediment, or in the source region of the sediment. The presence of calcium sulfate along with the clay suggests the soil is neutral or mildly alkaline. Scientists were surprised to find a mixture of oxidized, less-oxidized, and even non-oxidized chemicals, providing an energy gradient of the sort many microbes on Earth exploit to live. This partial oxidation was first hinted at when the drill cuttings were revealed to be gray rather than red.

Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror (Plus first Mars Pics)

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:12:46 +0000

Just some minutes after the successful landing on the surface of Mars, NASA's $2.6 billion rover 'Curiosity' sends back the first images from the red planet. In this film, team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory share the challenges of the Curiosity Mars rover's final minutes to landing on the surface of Mars. http://www.youtube.com/embed/P4boyXQuUIw

Beer Brewing, Food Preservation, Antibiotics, Cholera – The interesting World of Microbes

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 07:16:00 +0000

From black death to cholera, microbes have been resonsible for some of the worlds most devastating diseases. But at the same time this tiny single cell organisms have aided our survival on earth helping us produce some of our favourite foods. A film about Microbes and why some are good, some are bad and what they have done for mankind. Seven Parts: A look at...

the origins of beer and brewing in Ancient Egypt, and the role microbes play in the process.

microbial origins of the Black Death.

How do microbes destroy the food that we eat and how has humankind sought out different ways of preserving foodstuffs?

how critical microbes are to life on Earth with their role in nitrogen fixation -- providing the essential elements that we need to survive.

experts reveal how the natural processes of microbes are used to fight disease.

the ways in which humans are learning to exploit microbes to produce medicines, fuel and food.

how the discovery and examination of microbes in meteorites suggests that the planet Mars could have supported life in the same way as Earth.

Welcome to Mars

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:30:25 +0000

Take an astounding look at the red planet in this interplanetary adventure realized with animations, interviews, archive footage and more.