This article was taken from the March 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
The 60s space race to the Moon was a mere sprint compared to the decathlon to Mars. Using Nasa's archived data of both US and international missions, Paul Butt's graphic illustrates the history of Mars exploration by robotic probes, and the many successes and failures along the way. "For each launch, I read through the mission planning and execution to interpret what the mission hoped to achieve, and what it actually did," explains Ipswich-based Butt.
The result is a story of how these mission objectives grew more ambitious: ranging from the US Mariner 4's first successful fly-by in 1964, which took 21 pictures, to landing rovers on the planet -- something the Americans, again, recently achieved with Curiosity.
Although the Americans dominate the successes, the graphic also shows the determination of the Soviets in the face of repetitive failure. In December 1971, two years after the US conquered the Moon, the Russian Mars 3 was the first to manage a landing; sadly, it malfunctioned after 20 seconds. "[The Russians] were remarkably ambitious," Butt says. "They were trying to drive rovers across the Moon's surface in the 70s -- it took the Americans another 20 years to be able to do that on Mars."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
