Back To Mars

"Nasa has launched a spacecraft on a nine-month journey to Mars, where it will dig below the surface for clues to the existence of past or present life.

The Phoenix probe lifted off at 0526 EDT (1026 BST) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop a Delta II rocket.

If everything goes to plan, Phoenix should arrive at Mars in late May 2008.

The mission will aim to shed light not only on the history of this water ice but also on whether the region could support microbial life.

Crucial to this question will be tests for complex, carbon-based chemicals (organics) in the soil and signs the ice periodically melts.

Phoenix blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

"The real question we're trying to answer is: 'has that ice melted', because liquid water in contact with soil may provide us with a habitable environment," said Peter Smith, the mission's principal investigator and a professor at the University of Arizona.

He added: "For microbes, the word 'habitable' means you have liquid water, complex organic molecules of the type our bodies are made of - proteins, amino acids and so on - and it also means you have energy sources."

Mission scientist William Boynton, also from the University of Arizona, said: "One of the interesting questions is why organic molecules weren't found on the surface of Mars by Viking [Nasa Mars mission from the 1970s].

"The answer is we think there is a mechanism which can destroy organic molecules on Mars. This mechanism might not be operating in the polar regions because water and ice can decompose the oxidants that destroy the organics."

It makes my savage breast swell with pride to look to the heavens and know that America has landed spacecraft on Mars. Admittedly, there is a certain degree of childish beat-ya-to-it directed towards the floundering technologies available elsewhere around the world, but if anything says that we've done it, and done it right, it is our visitations to outer space.

Days like this make me even more proud to be an American.

As to the raw data that will be gleaned, guaranteed that it'll be "inconclusive" because its going to take boots on the ground to at long last sort out the mysteries of Mars. And every baby step we take brings us closer to the day when an American will unfurl the flag on Sol 4, and I only hope that it comes within my lifetime.