{"id":141082,"date":"2022-06-25T03:02:47","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T08:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/jpl-the-space-age-the-pathfinders"},"modified":"2022-06-25T03:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T08:02:47","slug":"jpl-the-space-age-the-pathfinders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/jpl-the-space-age-the-pathfinders","title":{"rendered":"JPL &amp; the Space Age: The Pathfinders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1rVH0YlcKyY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It started with JPL agreeing to land something on Mars \u2013 cheaply \u2013 and do it in a radically different way. This is how the era NASA called \u201cFaster, Better, Cheaper\u201d began. The documentary film \u201cThe Pathfinders\u201d tells the story of a small group of engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who did not heed warnings that the audacious challenge of landing on Mars with airbags would likely not be a career-enhancing move.<\/p>\n<p>From relying on a parachute that could not be tested in a way to match the Martian atmosphere to receiving the late addition of an unwanted rover that wouldn\u2019t have looked out of place in a toy store, the Mars Pathfinder mission was a doubter\u2019s dream, taken on by a mostly young group of engineers and scientists guided by a grizzled manager known for his maverick ways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Pathfinders\u201d retraces the journey of this daring mission to Mars that captured the imagination of people around the world with its dramatic landing and its tiny rover \u2013 the first wheels ever to roll on Mars.<\/p>\n<p>Documentary length: 60 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It started with JPL agreeing to land something on Mars \u2013 cheaply \u2013 and do it in a radically different way. This is how the era NASA called \u201cFaster, Better, Cheaper\u201d began. The documentary film \u201cThe Pathfinders\u201d tells the story of a small group of engineers at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who did not heed [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}