Lewis News - Mars Pathfinder Twenty years ago, the Viking landers failed to find evidence of life on Mars. NASA researchers hope that Mars Pathfinder will be able to find fossil remains preserved in surface rocks. Independence Day American flags flutter in the warm summer breeze. The smell of cookouts and detonated firecrackers fills the air. Forty million miles from Earth, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft travels through the cold void towards its destination.
Fireworks explode overhead in a cacophony of booms.
Children ooh and aah as the choreographed bursts of color etch the night sky. The Mars Pathfinder deploys its parachute and descends through the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet. At a precise moment, air bags inflate around the spacecraft to protect it from damage. The parachute is discarded and the spacecraft plummets toward the surface at 60 miles per hour. At impact, the package bounces 200 feet in the air before coming to rest on the rugged terrain.