Perfect opportunity

On 25 January 2004, Sir David Frost interviewed Dr Dan McCleese, NASA Mars mission Chief Scientist.

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Dr Dan McCleese, NASA Mars mission Chief Scientist

DAVID FROST: Well let's just hear a bit more about that Mars landing that we were hearing about there and go straight to Mars chief scientist, Dr Dan McCleese in Pasadena, at the Nasa control centre there.

Dan good morning.

DAN McCLEESE: Good morning David.

DAVID FROST: Obviously the sense, the mood there at the moment is one of euphoria, everything seems to have gone according to plan in the landing.

DAN McCLEESE: We've had a wonderful success this evening. It surprised all of us how perfectly it went.

DAVID FROST: And now you'll start getting information from Opportunity when?

DAN McCLEESE: Well the rover is currently stood up, its camera is taking some images around the lander and we would expect within the next 30 minutes in fact to have our first images from the surface of Mars.

DAVID FROST: Well that's going really according to schedule. And what are we really searching for, most of all, out of Opportunity and Spirit, if it comes back on course. What do you want to learn and what have we learned so far?

DAN McCLEESE: Well our objective at landing in these two sites is to search for ancient habitats, places where the water might have been present for a long enough period of time for life to have originated.

We've landed with Spirit at a place where we think we might have had an ancient lake and with Opportunity, tonight, we've landed at a site where we believe water may have flowed over the surface for a long period of time. If we're right, these two sites might have been those habitats where life might have started on Mars, very long ago.

DAVID FROST: And what, in terms of finding this out, the water is absolutely key to establishing whether there could ever have been life on Mars - or do we think there might even be life on Mars still?

DAN McCLEESE: Well Mars today is a terribly arid planet, it has a very thin atmosphere and it's extremely cold, so we do not believe that we're going to find life on the surface. In fact in 1976 the two Nasa Viking landers looked for evidence of extant, present life, and we didn't see anything. In fact the surface of Mars seems to be quite sterile.

But our objective is to look way back in the past, possibly three or three and a half billion years back into the history of Mars, when we believe that the climate might have been suitable for life to have begun.

DAVID FROST: And in terms as you look at the situation and so on, and savour this great success, how viable is the idea in fact, as the President has mentioned, of a mission to Mars? I mean when could that happen - it would take a bit of preparation.

DAN McCLEESE: Yes indeed, the preparation is needed because there are so many problems that we are still not able to say we've solved. First of all, the trip will take more than six months from the Earth to Mars.

We've got the problem of weightlessness during that trip and the difficulty of bounding up off the couch and running around outside getting camp set up. The other problems, of course, are the radiations that one experiences during the trip and while on the surface.

Mars does have the protection that Earth does from cosmic rays, so there's a surface problem with humans on the surface of Mars just doing their business - we might even have to put them in protective enclosures.

And then finally, of course, there's the technological problems - the need for a very, very large launch vehicle, a sustainable and self-repairing spacecraft that will take us there and back again.

DAVID FROST: And so, the date for that mission would be how far away?

DAN McCLEESE: Well the President mentioned 2030 as perhaps one of the dates that he's chosen to look forward to for the first landing of humans on the planet - but I would add that this isn't a landing, plant the flag and return mission. It's quite likely that the first humans will live on the surface of Mars for up to two Earth years before returning.

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