The road to Mars is busy these days

Three rockets are currently heading to Mars.

NASA has been landing probes on Mars for decades. But I was a little
underwhelmed by its probes since the Viking missions in the mid 70's.
The Viking missions were looking for signs of life, they weren't up to
the task, but they were trying. But since then, NASA was kind of always
looking to side issues. Looking for signs of water or what not. Those
missions were interesting, but to me, signs of past or present life is a
much more interesting topic.

This time NASA is finally looking for signs of life again. But this
time, they have competition. The Chinese Tianwen is also on its way to
Mars, and also with the objective of finding signs of life. So after
nearly 50 years of waiting for a mission to set out for what the Viking
missions were trying to do, I am now finally getting two competing
missions. Interesting times.


Alain Fournier