Spirit and Opportunity Sanghee Song 2011 Spirit and Opportunity, NASA's twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers, launched toward Mars on June 10 and July 7, 2003, in search of answers about the history of water on Mars. They landed on Mars January 4 and January 25, 2004. Spirit rover (MER-­‐A) The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and Opportunity mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-­‐term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. Primary among the mission's scientific goals is to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. After Spirit and Opportunity settled onto the surface of Mars, and opened, the rovers rolled out to take panoramic images. These images give scientists the information they need to select promising geological targets that tell part of the story of water in Mars' past. Then moving from place to place, driving to those locations to the rovers perform on-­‐site geological investigations. Each rover is sort of the mechanical equivalent of a geologist walking the surface of Mars. The mast-­‐mounted cameras are mounted 1.5 meters high and provide 360-­‐degree, stereoscopic, humanlike views of the terrain. The rovers offer unique contributions in pursuit of the overall Mars science strategy to "Follow the Water.” Technology development makes missions possible. “We had a tremendous amount of hope,” said John Callas, the Rover project manager. The surface of Mars taken by Spirit rover Go to http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html, the website of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, and one can see photographic and video images taken by Spirit and Opportunity and transmitted in real time. Spirit and Opportunity carry with them the mission to “follow the water”, and they explore, in the dark solitude of Mars, the unknown future of humanity. The real-­‐time images the two rovers send from Mars fascinate Nasa scientiests and us endlessly. 1/5
As scientists at NASA observe Mars through the eyes of Spirit and Opportunity, they gradually identify themselves with the robot rovers. They mistake the eyes of Spirit and Opportunity as their eyes, and this mistake gives the illusion that they are exploring Mars, not the rovers. One can compare this illusion to a desire, a voyeuristic desire, to secretly look hard at an unknown virgin from a far. A video update on the NASA homepage (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/index.html)) is taken by Opportunity and is called I'm Dreaming of a Blue Sunset (on Mars). It captures the scene of a sunset from Mars, featuring a white Sun setting over a black horizon with a bluish sky as a backdrop. The video, whose image is exotic and fantastic, has a sound track, a Christmas carol rearranged in a Jazz style. As I was watching this video I was reminded of the scenes from the film 1492: The Conquest of Paradise, which is famous for its dramatic original soundtrack by Vangelis. The image of Chriostopher Columbus looking out at the dark expanse of water in the film overlapped strangely with scientists at NASA observing Mars intimately through the eyes of Opportunity. (It is interesting that NASA named the landing site of the Spirit rover “Columbia Memorial Station.”) The NASA project is being carried out under the banner of a vision for the future, exploration, and discovery, the very same banner under which Christopher Columbus set sails. There is at leat a formal similarity between the European “The Age of discoverty” of the 15th-­‐17th centuries -­‐-­‐ when the great Powers of the time explored the sea routes to Asia and expanded maritime tradings in search of gold, silver, and spices – and the projects at NASA to explore the uncharted world of Mars in search of water and soil through Spirit and Opportunity. Somewhere in the East, there is probably a fabulous paradise. Over there, in a far-­‐away place, there is probably a land of gold. There is probably a field that is full of spring green, a dream-­‐like paradise ever redolent with sweet smell of flowers. If only one could go there and get hold of pepper The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was a period in history starting in the 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania and mapping the planet with long-­‐distance maritime travels in search of alternative trade routes to "the Indies", moved by the trade of gold, silver and spices. European overseas expansion led to the rise of colonial empires, with the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the “Columbian Exchange”, involving the transfer of plants, animals, foods, human populations, slaves, communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. The new trans-­‐oceanic links and their domination by the European powers led to the Age of Imperialism, where European colonial powers came to control most of the world. 2/5
The English East India Company and The Dutch East India Company (VOC), known to have been the largest trading groups of the world, began as profit-­‐seeking businesses; however, eventually their commericial might led them to wield as much political power as their respective imperial governments; they brought capitalism to the British Empire and to the Netherlands and played the role of an advance guard in colonizing India and Indonesia. The following is a table comparing some key facts about the Age of Discovery and the 21st-­‐century NASA mission involving Spirit and Opportunity. What period 15th – 17th Centuries 21st Century What is it The Age of Discovery Mars Exploration Program called ( or The Age of Exploration) Technology/ Amsterdam, a VOC ship (The Netherlands) Spirit and Opportunity, Trans-­‐ Galleon (Spain) robotic Mars rovers portation Caravel (Portugal) (NASA, the U.S.) Method Santa María (Spain) Victoria (England) Geography Asia, Africa, and Americas Mars covered Target objects gold, silver, and spices Rocks and soils (that hold clues to past water activity on Mars) Thematic Adventure, exploration, pioneer, conquest, colonization, voyeurism similarity Control Remote control method 3/5
Looking at this table, I question the theory of the linear progress of human history. Where do the past end and the present begin for us? The present is the accumulated sum total of the past, and it derives its present basic structure from the similarity or unity with the past. The present is but a phenomenon of the past presented in endlessly different forms. My project aims to examine the dialectical relationship between the past and present, and to read the distant future through the distant past. The past and present frequently permeate into each other, and as the images intersect and overlap with each other, they are newly defined under the relationship of a tight tension. This project utilizes the remnants of history -­‐-­‐ various images of historical conditions, times, and spaces. It then fragmentizes images of the past and present within the overall context and erases from them their original meanings. The images will then form new relationships, and they will then be read in new ways. The present can be validated by history, and the past is still the present. As we can see in the the Spice Wars of Europe from the 15th through the 17th centuries and the Mars exploration missions of the 21st century, the history of colonization and voyeurism repeats itself under the banner of Spirit and Opportunity, of dreams and exploration; the human history of expansion and conquest is in present tense. Installation plan Very theatrical situation / Total installation with objects, video and sound effect In the dark space, all different kinds of object, such as X block, the face lady justitia, solar cooker, drawings, uran glass, and also video works, records turntable are setting up the on grid lines of floor. There will be mural as well. In the middle of these installations, there is a tape recorder. From this tape recorder, you can hear a conversation between two persons. The conversation will go on and each part of the conversation is symbolized/corresponded with/ linked by an object or installation. Synchronized with this conversation, actions will happen like a spot light switching on the object, or video starting to play, or records turntable starting to turn. It will be like theatrical play on the stage. About the conversation from the tape recorder This conversation from the tape recorder will start with two persons, Galileo and Copernicus. Their conversation seems like serious secret. And suddenly Galileo/ Copernicus change to other persons, such as Columbus vs Guliver, Waldo (the character of Robert A. Heinlein’ book) vs Milstar (communications satellites 4/5
of United States Air Force), and Francisco Pizarro(Spanish conquistador) vs Atahualpa(the last king of Inca), Anton van Leeuwenhoek vs N. Hartsoecke, some
charaters of Micromégas (Voltaire, 1752) etc. This conversation will go on with multiple personality, continuously changing their identity (character), like symptom of schizophrenia or auditory hallucination. This conversation seems like a sort of One Thousand and One Nights, or never ending story. In the end, spirit and opportunity will join this conversation. References for project Life of Galileo: Bertolt Brecht, 1955. Cross-­‐Cultural Trade in World History, Philip De Armind Curtin, 1984. “Small pox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death” Guns, Germs, and Steel: Jared Diamond 1997. Albert Einstein : Uranus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus griffin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin One Thousand and One Nights Ali Baba We El Arbeen Haramy (Alibaba and the Forty Thieves) El Dorado : Edgar Allan Poe 1849 Gulliver's Travels : Jonathan Swift 1726 Candide : Voltaire 1759 Micromégas : Voltaire (1752) Waldo : Robert A. Heinlein 1942 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress : A. Heinlein 1966 The East India Company : Minoru Asada Nathaniel's Nutmeg How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History : Giles Milton 1999 Nasa, Sprit and oppertunity http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases Philip K. Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick Martian Time-­‐Slip: Philip K. Dick 1963 5/5