Mars orbiter faces NASA’s ‘Ghoulish’ past

Lessons of past failures applied to Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11718925/

By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst // Special to MSNBC

Updated: 1:26 p.m. ET March 8, 2006

HOUSTON - In the early years of interplanetary exploration, probes to Mars failed often, and sometimes for reasons that weren't clear. To combat disappointment with humor, space engineers developed a fantasy folklore of outer space in the "Here Be Dragons" motif of ocean voyagers from half a millennium earlier. The mythical sea serpent on the route to Mars was called "the Great Galactic Ghoul."

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, space teams strove to build probes that could survive or outwit the Ghoul's malevolent hunger. Of course, engineers knew that the creature was only a comical personification of the hazards Mars had in abundance. The simplest flight paths to the Red Planet required months of travel. Radio communication was weak, with signal gaps that lasted large fractions of an hour.