Mission to Mars to Collect a Storehouse of Scientific Data

Just after Election Day, the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (Figure 1) will embark on a journey to Mars to examine the surface and the seasonal variations of the atmosphere over an entire Mars year. Mars is an extremely rich mission target because the scientific questions it poses touch on geology, geophysics, geochemistry, atmospheric physics, climatology, biology, and—most of all—comparative planetology.