"Nova" Mars Dead or Alive (2004)

User Rating:

9.3/10   

Director:

Mark Davis

Writer:

Mark Davis (writer)

TV Series:

"Nova" (1974)

Original Air Date:

4 January 2004 (Season 31, Episode 9)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Volcano | Supernova | Space | Coral Reef | Underwater

Cast

Jim Colvin	...	Himself - Rover Engineer
Ho-Jin Huang	...	Himself - Test Engineer
Gentry Lee	...	Himself - Scientist, Mars Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dan McCleese	...	Himself - Scientist, Mars Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
James Newell	...	Himself - Test Engineer
Neil Ross	...	Narrator
Steve Silverman	...	Himself - Technical Director, Planetary Systems, Raytheon
Steve Squyres	...	Himself - Lead Science Investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers
Adam Steltzner	...	Himself - Landing Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Art Thompson	...	Himself - Rover Engineer

Reasonably interesting but not great

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This tells the story of the construction of the robots which are exploring the surface of Mars. It is interesting but there is too much made up tension and too much centering on the stress of the engineers who constructed the devices. I don't think that they have any reason to be unhappy. If they weren't building the Mars Rovers they would probably be working on weapons systems. The skills they have are not easily transfered.

One of the problems they deal with is the parachute which fails to open in a wind tunnel test. It is interesting to see how it is solved. I had no idea that the engineering of a parachute was so complex. However the design of a parachute would seem not to be be most interesting event in a trip to Mars.

All in all the production would have been much better it it had more about Mars and less about engineering.

Nova has gone down in the past few years.