JPL and the Space Age: The Breaking Point

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's success in landing the low-cost Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 was viewed as proof that spacecraft could be built more often and for far less money - a radical cultural change NASA termed "Faster, Better, Cheaper." This era also coincided with the discovery of a Mars rock that hinted at the possibility of microbial life elsewhere in the solar system. NASA's reaction was to envision a steady stream of missions to Mars - all done at cut-rate costs.

Courtesy of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on YouTube. Watch on YouTube ↗

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