The date was July 4, 1997. The time was shortly before ten in the morning (central time). The place was Mars, Earth's neighbor in the solar system. On that date, at that time, in that place, one of the most noteworthy scientific breakthroughs of the last two years occurred: the day that the spaceship Pathfinder landed successfully on the red planet, marking the first landing on the planet in 21 years.

The ship, which launched December 4, 1996, traveled 309-million miles before landing relatively safely on the planet despite "bouncing" sixteen times (approximately 25-50 feet each time). "We're there and we couldn't be happier," exclaimed Rob Manning, chief flight engineer. A few hours after the historic landing, the spacecraft began transmitting photographs of the rocky planet back to earth. Mission control, back on earth, cheered and hooted to the music of the Beatles' "Twist and Shout" as the long-awaited images poured in.

Pathfinder was not specifically sent to Mars to detect life forms, but rather to search for water, which is essential to life, and to conduct studies of the climate and geology of the planet. This vital information could prove to be extremely helpful to scientists if one day, Earth is no longer capable of sustaining life (possibly due to the ozone layer) and the population is in need of another place to live, either temporarily or permanently.

In the first measurement of the atmosphere, the astronaut observed, to their surprise, that the velocity on Mars was about 20 miles per hour more than what they had expected; therefore indicating that Mars' atmosphere is even thinner than we had previously believed it to be. "We don't understand Mars' atmospheric density as well as we thought," said Manning.

The main part of the spaceship, for exploring purposes, was the rugged remote-controlled Sojourner. It was designed to spend a minimum of a week traveling throughout the planet, taking pictures of and analyzing soil and minerals. Sojourner, after thirty days on its mission, had taken 9,669 pictures and returned 1.2 gigabits (1.2 billion bits) of data to Earth. "The data returned by...Sojourner has been nothing short of spectacular, and it will help to provide a scientific basis for future Mars missions, including a sample return, for years to come," said Dr. Wesley Huntress, NASA associate administrator for space science.

Some of this spectacular information included a color panorama of Mars that revealed evidence that the surface of Mars had been altered by flowing water and gushing winds. Also, the high silica content on a particular rock suggests that there may be more heating or recycling of materials than scientists first thought.

According to Brian Muirhead, the manager of the expedition, "We've validated NASA's commitment to low-cost planetary exploration, shown the usefulness of sending microrovers to explore Mars, and obtained significant science data to help understand the structure and meteorology of the Martian atmosphere, and to understand the composition of the Martian rocks and soil."

NASA has already planned a series of trips to Mars in the next eight years as a result of the immense success that the Pathfinder and Sojourner enjoyed on the planet. The agency plans to launch two additional spaceships every 26 months until the year 2005. The Pathfinder simply "set the stage" for future expeditions, while also acquiring billions of "bits" of new information for Earth. This historic event may result in the salvation of millions of Americans if one day, Earth is no longer suitable to preserve human life.