The headline article in "The Saturday Star" for July 5, 1997 is about the latest milestone made in space when NASA’s Pathfinder successfully came to rest on the planet Mars Friday. Pathfinder established many firsts among which it was the first spacecraft to land on a planet without orbiting it; it was the first to deploy a parachute at a supersonic speed of 1,600 kilometres per hour; and it was the first to use airbags – similar to, but larger than, those in automobiles – to cushion the impact of a landing. Among one of the scientific gadgets found in this spacecraft is a robot buggy named "Sojourner" which upon launch will be controlled remotely by operators on Earth nearly 500 million kilometres away. Shortly after landing, Pathfinder transmitted the first photographs from the Red Planet’s surface in two decades. Among the photographs of the red planet were crisp views of hulking boulders - unlike the grainy shots that scientists had warned reporters to expect. The article reports that a woman named Linda Martz
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