Media Reel: Mariner 4 Anniversary - 60 years at Mars

B-roll for media and public use. NASA in 2025 is marking the 60th anniversary of the agency’s first successful flyby of Mars. Mariner 4 flew by the Red Planet on July 14, 1965, and took 21 complete black-and-white photos. These were the first close-up images ever captured of a planet beyond Earth. Mariner 4 opened the age of Mars exploration, laying a path for orbiters, landers, and rovers that continues to this day. This reel includes mission animations, launch footage, images from Mariner 4 and a 2025 interview with Humphrey "Hoppy" Price, chief engineer of NASA’s robotic Mars Exploration Program. For more information on the mission, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mariner-4/ Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What is said in the film

November 28th, 9:22 a. m. 25 seconds and counting on internal power. ready switch on Spacecraft to internal power. Five Clear to launch Engine start Ignition.

Lift off Roger. Plus three seconds. We’re on our way. Plus 10 seconds Looks steady. The trajectory looks nominal today.

Roger. Science system engineer. All green, no deviations. Mechanical system engineer. All green For eight hours and 35 minutes.

The figures cascade to the Earth from the spacecraft. 240,000 bits of binary code, representing the shading of 40,000 dots that will finally make up the first picture. A complex system of computers is required to convert these numbers into pictures. But some workers decide to hand make their own picture of Mars by shading the numbers. A fanciful exercise, but one that gives Robert Leighton a chance to commune with numbers from Mars, whose picture equivalent, He can hardly imagine.

Very low numbers. Oh 837 38 15 20 21 and 15 you know, I was just waiting with bated breath to see the first pictures come back. And I was expecting to see canals and ancient cities. And I was a little disappointed to see craters in this moon like landscape. But it was it was still very inspirational to me.

If you read The Martian Chronicles and, you saw the, the images, the, the drawings of Mars that Percival Lowell made, you know, you had the idea that there may have been a civilization on Mars, but Mars was a dying planet, and maybe the cities were all dead and there were no more Martians there, which is kind of the theme of The Martian Chronicles, you know, that the Martians had. we're all dying out, but, but Mariner four kind of put the nail in the coffin. You know, there's, there were no cities on Mars. Mariner four, I just took a small set of snapshots across the planet of Mars. And it was a very narrow view of Mars.

So we didn't see Mariner Valley. We didn't see the volcanoes, but, but we did learn something about the geology of Mars from that and it kind of what our appetite for the missions that followed. The images, came back as just, ones and zeros and, and numbers for what the pixels were like. And so, some people at JPL printed it out, you know, on a printer and had this big, long printout, and they had colored pencils and they were just coloring in, you know what the number said to come up with, the first images. We've had many missions to Mars and right now in the Mars program, we have three orbiters and two rovers at Mars and they're all creating, you know, producing incredible science.

And all of this is a very helpful looking forward to, paving the way for humans to go to Mars. You know, because there's a lot we need to know about, potential landing sites where water is on Mars. You know, we now know that, there are areas of Mars that have huge subsurface glaciers with, lots and lots of fresh water I’m really excited about humans exploring Mars, because I think they will be able to do a better job of searching for signs of past and perhaps even present life on Mars. And when we're talking about microbial life on Mars. Humans have incredible capability like as a geologist on Mars to look for signs of life.

But as far as a lot of the incidental things like setting up infrastructure and maintaining things, making a lot of the science observations, I think that that, the robotic systems will be more effective so it'll be humans and robots working together. And for the coming in with such short notice. Oh no problem, preciate it. No problem. Okay.

Easiest question. Let's start with your name and your title, please. Okay I'm happy price and I am chief engineer for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at JPL. Great. Okay, so, you know, we're here to talk about Mariner four.

Yes. Can you summarize and I'm looking for, like, really some vital billion versions here. The significance of the Mariner four mission. So Mariner four is a great inspiration to me because as a young kid, I was interested in spaceflight and astronomy. And so I had read the works of Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell and seen their maps of Mars with canals.

And our school library had The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. So I read those. And so I was very excited. In the summer after fifth grade, when Mariner four was going to go by Mars and get the first Close-Up pictures. And, you know, I was just waiting with bated breath to see the first pictures come back.

And I was expecting to see canals and ancient cities. And I was a little disappointed to see craters in this moon like landscape. But it was it was still very inspirational to me. And so then, after that, I always followed all the Mariner missions, the following missions to Mars and, the Mariner to Venus. Yeah.

So can you also touch on I mean, this was the first time that we've had a spacecraft to take pictures of another planet. Is that is that right? Yes. That's right. Can you can you talk about that?

That is a huge first for us to get these images to, to get this close and be able to do this thing, like maybe talk about that part of its significance as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was, very impressive. And I was reading about JPL and about the spacecraft, and, I was just amazed that we are.

And we never had the capability to fly to Mars and take images of it and learn more about it. And then the the images that came back from the next flybys of Mars. I think this Mariner six and seven, they, showed more interesting features like volcanoes and things that look like riverbed kind of thing. So, you know, it became a little bit more interesting and more lifelike. For the later images.

And then when Mariner nine went to Mars, it mapped the whole planet and we could see Mariner Valley and all of that stuff. And, I was still in school and fascinated by all that. And, I really wanted to work at JPL and design spacecraft like that when I grew up. You know, that was my dream. Yeah.

So I guess maybe we can talk about that a little bit. But maybe can you describe, like, specifically how the Mariner for mission was inspirational for you? Yeah, yeah. It was inspirational in just seeing the first image close up images of Mars and learning more about what my eyes look like. And it kind of shattered the dream of the canals and cities on Mars, but just learning more about, Mars and what it was like on the surface, what the atmosphere was like.

I thought it was a very interesting. Yeah. On that note, can you talk a little bit about about what the mission taught us about Mars? You just mentioned the atmosphere and the surface. I mean, those are the biggest takeaways, right?

So Mariner four had the first clues about Mars and what it was like, but there wasn't that much information about it. So the follow on missions, especially Mariner nine, you know, we learned a lot more about the geology and, and potentially what the history of Mars was. And then, we had Mars, the other Mars orbiters, like Viking, provided much more data. And then the Viking landers, you know, really provided the surface truth of that. So although Mariner four didn't provide that much data, it was still revolutionary, just in seeing what the surface of Mars looked like and that it was cratered, that the atmosphere was a very thin, you know, there was no sign of, of life on Mars.

And before Mariner four, people didn't really know, you know, they didn't know if there were canals on Mars or not. Yeah, there's even poster work of this mission. And it's like, you see the spacecraft and you see Mars, and it looks like there are like, you know, some type of civilization built around the surface. So it really did dispel this idea. Yes.

Yeah. And, you know, if you read The Martian Chronicles and, you saw the, the images, the, the drawings of Mars that Percival Lowell made, you know, you had the idea that there may have been a civilization on Mars, but Mars was a dying planet, and maybe the cities were all dead and there were no more Martians there, which is kind of the theme of The Martian Chronicles, you know, that the Martians had. We're all dying out, but, but Mariner four kind of put the nail in the coffin. You know, there's, there were no cities on Mars. Yeah.

But we. So maybe we didn't find cities. We find tiny green men. But, I mean, this really excited people in a lot of ways. Can you can you talk about, what the mission did?

Exactly? I understand that it flew by Mars and it took 21 pictures. Right. Can you just talk about that? That part of the mission itself?

Yeah. It, Mariner four, I just took a small set of snapshots across the planet of Mars. And it was a very narrow view of Mars. So we didn't see Mariner Valley. We didn't see the volcanoes, but, but we did learn something about the geology of Mars from that.

And it kind of what our appetite for the missions that followed. Yeah. So for you, you know, the as those first images were coming in, I. What like what what was it like for you to see this sort of, like, grainy black and white photo of another planet? I mean, it was.

I was amazed by that. I was very impressed because the telescopic images of Mars, you know, it didn't show anything like that. And we just had no idea what the surface of Mars looked like. And so although it's a little disappointing to see that it looked more like the moon than the than the Earth, it was still very fascinating for me, the team bacteria, JPL, it was so eager to see the first image of Mars, so they couldn't wait for all the data to to come through. My understanding is that they were hey, can you talk about this sort of, like, color by number?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the images, came back as just, ones and zeros and, and numbers for what the pixels were like. And so, some people at JPL printed it out, you know, on a printer and had this big, long printout, and they had colored pencils and they were just coloring in, you know what the number said to come up with, the first images. What I think is funny about that story, too, is I understand that, you know, GPS was trying to keep the media away from seeing this.

All right? It's like, you know, arts and crafts project. Yeah. They wanted to show the actual image, but in reality, everybody was so excited that this, this, drawing, so to speak, actually became the first TV image of Mars. Yes.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so as a kid, I didn't see that. The first images I saw were the official public released images that, that, that were in the newspaper and in the magazines.

Very cool. Yeah. All right. See me. Okay, so we've been on Mars now for 60 years.

Maybe it's worth just talking about the significance of that milestone. 60 years at Mars. Yeah. So we've had many missions to Mars. And right now in the Mars program, we have three orbiters and two rovers at Mars.

And they're all curiosity, you know, producing incredible science. We we continue to learn more about Mars, you know, in its past and, how Mars got the way it is, you know, the atmosphere on Mars. And all of this is a very helpful looking forward to, paving the way for humans to go to Mars. You know, because there's a lot we need to know about, potential landing sites where water is on Mars. You know, we now know that, there are areas of Mars that have huge subsurface glaciers with, lots and lots of fresh water and some of these areas, like in the Arcadia region of Mars, which is like around 40 degrees north latitude, just has a very, shallow covering of soil over it.

So, you know, it's not that hard to get down to the water. And to me, I'm really excited about humans exploring Mars, because I think they will be able to do a better job of searching for signs of past and perhaps even present life on Mars. And when we're talking about microbial life on Mars. Yeah, that was going to be my next question. Is what you hope for future exploration of Mars?

So what would be, you know, as we're making these discoveries now, what is your message to this next generation of explorers? What would you say to to the young version of Happy? Well, I would say that, you know, there's a great future in space exploration, both for robotic exploration and human exploration. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin clearly have a vision of humanity expanding out into space. And and robotic exploration will certainly be important for that, because I think a lot of the tasks that are done to support human exploration will actually be done by robotic probes, you know, to find landing sites and just to support the human missions, because, you know, humans have incredible capability, like as a geologist on Mars to look for signs of life.

But as far as a lot of the incidental things like setting up infrastructure and maintaining things, making a lot of the science observations, I think that that, the robotic systems will be more effective. So it'll be humans and robots working together, just like Star Wars. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

The droids were there, you know, they couldn't they couldn't do what they were doing without all the droids. Right now, I think this is. But, these are just a few questions that I had. Was there anything that you would want to add about this mission or your experience, you know, watching it or how it inspired you? Yeah, I think Mariner four had a tremendous benefit for for the United States and for the world.

And developing new technology is really inspiring a new generation. I mean, it was largely Mariner four that started off the spark and my mind of studying space science and astronomy and and wanting to work in this field. And so I think, looking forward, it's important for the space program to continue, to develop new technology, which I think, really helps out the economy in the long run. You know, you need to look ahead to the future. And clearly, the space program has had a big payoff, and I think it will continue to do that.

And also just inspiring people. Absolutely. And learning more about, our solar system, the cosmos, and really, our place in the universe. And, you know, we have now discovered lots of exoplanets. There are people searching for radio signals from aliens.

And, you know, eventually, someday, maybe, we'll learn if there are other civilizations out there. It's obviously one of the biggest questions we have. Right? Are we alone? Yeah.

Exactly. What? What is your biggest question about Mars? Biggest question about Mars? I think it's, whether there was past and present life on Mars, microbial life.

Because when you go back, to like 3. 5 billion years ago, the conditions on Mars and Earth were very similar. And, life arose very quickly on the Earth, microscopic life, as soon as the conditions were right, you know, life arose here. And so it begs the question, did life similarly arise on Mars to, you know, this microbial life? And there's some tantalizing things we've seen, like, like, perseverance rover has taken a core sample of this rock called Shyama Falls, which is this cool rock that has these little leopard spots on them.

And when we see those kind of rocks on Earth, the first thing we think of is, oh, yeah, this was modified by microorganisms, you know, billions of years ago. And so it doesn't mean that you have a false rock on Mars, was modified by microorganisms. But, you know, there's a tantalizing idea that it may have been. And so we have a great core sample of that rock. We have an image of the end of the core, and you can see a leopard spot right there.

So I think it's really important to bring that sample back as soon as possible and learn whether there is potential evidence that there were microbes on Mars 3. 5 billion years ago. Awesome, I agree, let's get that back. Yeah, yeah. Bring back those samples.

All right. Let me check with these guys and see if they have any questions I know. Okay. Is there anything you guys would ask that maybe missed eating okay okay. All right.

I think we're good. Okay. Excellent. Great. Thank you so much.

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