The Red Planet

9:15 P.M. The brilliant planet Mars rises in the east. Now so bright because it is so close, it will continue to draw even closer and get brighter until December. Mars has often been seen as an omen of death, war, destruction. But now it has become something else: a planet of hope. Here's how that transformation took place.

In the decade of the sixties, most of our eyes were fixed on the challenge set by President Kennedy: to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth. As we all know, we met that challenge.

But almost unnoticed at that time were a set of flights, beginning in 1964, circling and photographing Mars. In those photographs was something completely unexpected: signs of dried-up lakes and rivers, signs that water had once flowed on Mars.

And so we sent a robot-controlled lander to Mars in 1976. Because where once there was water, there may once have been life. This lander found no signs of life, but did analyze the soil, and that's how we know that some meteorites, stones that fell from space, came from Mars.

About ten of these meteorites were found in the Allen Hills ice field in Antarctica. And in one of these meteorites, scientists found...well, they're not sure what. Some say signs of ancient life. Others say simply naturally occurring formations in the rock.

Mars circles the Sun in two years, and every time Mars draws close to the Earth, we have been sending remote controlled spaceships to Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been in orbit around Mars since March, 2006, returning spectacular images to Earth.

Right now, the Phoenix Mars Lander is streaking towards an encounter - and a landing - in May, 2008.

And finally, within the next twenty years, the first manned expedition to Mars will depart. A new age will begin...and we are the forerunners of that age.

(11/31/07)