WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Thursday congratulated the NASA team responsible for the successful landing of a six-wheeled rover on Mars and for giving the country a “dose of confidence” at a time when the nation’s reputation as a scientific leader was crushed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden, speaking in a video conference with the management of the space agency’s jet propulsion laboratory team, expressed his fear of the February 18 Perseverance landing.
Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft in the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, traveling about 300 million miles in nearly seven months, as part of an ongoing search for to study whether life once existed on the planet.
“It’s much bigger than the Perseverance landing on Mars,” Biden told NASA team members. “It’s about the American spirit. And you brought her back. “
Biden watched as Perseverance reached Mars last month on television and called on NASA’s interim administrator, Steve Jurczyk, to convey his congratulations to the Perseverance team. But Biden said he wants to speak directly with the team, which he said deserves credit not only for its astronomical achievement, but also for raising the United States’ reputation at a time when it is extremely necessary.
He recalled that the leader of another nation recently told him that the US, once seen as competent, saw its position fall with the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
But Biden, who made stemming a pandemic that killed nearly 520,000 Americans his top priority, said landing on Mars gave the nation some inspiration at a time of great need.
“We can land a rover on Mars, we can beat a pandemic,” Biden said. “And with science, hope and vision, there is no such thing as a country that we cannot do.”
The Perseverance landing comes amid a recent crazy race to Mars among rival space programs.
The NASA team landing on February 18 marked the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China launched into orbit around Mars a few days earlier in February. All three missions were set up in July to take advantage of the close alignment between Earth and Mars.
NASA’s car, powered by plutonium, reached the Jezero crater, hitting NASA’s smallest and most difficult target so far: a 5-by-4-mile band on an old river delta full of potholes, rocks. and rocks. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water was still flowing on the planet.
Over the next two years, the rover, nicknamed Percy, will use its 2-meter arm to drill holes and collect rock samples that contain possible signs of past microscopic life.
Three to four dozen chalk-sized samples will be sealed in tubes and set aside to be eventually recovered by another rover and brought home by another rocket ship.