While the world is still in the grip of fear because of the Wuhan coronavirus, many countries are setting their sight on Mars. The UAE has become the first country in the Arab world to make a move, launching a rocket carrying the Mars orbiter al-Amal (Arab for “hope”) from Kagoshima, Japan. That was followed by China’s “Tianwen-1”, which was launched in Wenchang, Hainan. Then, America’s Perseverance set off its journey to Mars from Florida. Two years later, Rosalind Franklin, a joint mission of Europe and Russia, will join the Mars exploration party. All this enthusiasm has to do with the fact that this year Earth is exceptionally close to Mars, separated by a distance of about 62 million kilometers, while the longest distance between the two planets can be more than 400 million kilometers. Currently it takes approximately seven months to fly to Mars.

The Mars carnival is on, but Russia’s pace is rather slow. We still remember the Soviet Union was the first country to start exploring space. In 1957, it launched the world’s first artificial satellite and sent the world’s first astronauts to space. In terms of exploring Mars, it was also a leader. In October 1960, it made the pioneering move to explore Mars by launching a rocket, except that the rocket failed to take off. Afterwards, it made four other attempts but to no avail. Relatively speaking, the U.S. was a latecomer. In 1964, its Mariner-4 entered the orbit of Mars with success and the spacecraft later sent images of Mars back to Earth. That marked the beginning of man’s exploration of Mars.

Despite being later than the Soviet Union, the U.S. was the first to touch down Mars. Yet the Soviet Union did not give up. In 1971, it launched the Mars-2 mission. The spacecraft entered the orbit of Mars and landed on the extraterrestrial body successfully. That was a striking moment. Unfortunately, it crashed a little more than 10 seconds after the landing due to a technical glitch with some chips and programs. By the time it collapsed in 1991, the Soviet Union still had not made any breakthrough.

In 1976, the America lander Viking 1 landed on Mars. That year marked the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. Viking 1 was scheduled to land on Mars on July 4, the American National Day. Nevertheless, things did not go to plan. Due to weather conditions, the lander did not reach Mars until July 20. But its performance had been excellent in the years to come. For more than six years, it stayed in contact with Earth and continued to send home images of Mars. In 1997, America developed the world’s first lander that could move around on Mars independently. Until Tianwen-1 is to land on Mars next year, the U.S. is the only country that has a lander moving around on the extraterrestrial body.

The past six decades of Mars exploration involved a series of steps: launching a satellite, placing it near Mars and carrying out observation from a short distance; bringing the satellite into the orbit of Mars and observing the planet over a prolonged period of time so as to accumulate data; sending spacecraft like Viking 1 to Mars, exploring and examining the local soil and climate; and sending a lander to conduct long-term research. In the future, America’s Perseverance will be able to carry out on-site exploration, and an unmanned helicopter will be sent to Mars to observe the planet. What is more, soil sample of Mars will be sent back to Earth for research purpose. All this will be an incredible feat.

China’s original plan was to follow the above steps to explore Mars. In 2011, its orbiter Yinghuo-1 was meant to fly around Mars without landing on the planet. Unfortunately, the Russian Fobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was launched together with Yinghuo-1, crashed into the Pacific Ocean without ever leaving the obit of Earth. No similar attempt was made again in the nine years that followed. The new orbiter Tianwen-1 was launched by China’s self-developed Long March 5 rocket. The plan is for Tianwen-1 to land on Mars and move around the planet like the American lander. Landing on Mars in one step - that is a big leap forward indeed. We shall see in April next year whether China can make it.

The enthusiasm surrounding the exploration of Mars calls to mind the race to develop a Wuhan virus vaccine. Once again, Russia has come out as the pioneer, having invented a vaccine called “Sputnik V”. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughter was reportedly the first Russian to be administered a dose. Russia also promised to donate many doses of the vaccine to Vietnam. Meanwhile, it is said that China has also developed a vaccine with success, although no state leader or their family members have taken the lead to give the product a try. As for the U.S., Dr Anthony Fauci, who is charged with combating the pandemic, said the new vaccine development is now in the third stage where there will be large-scale testing. One can be cautiously optimistic about the result although the vaccine will not hit the market until next year.

The crisis is acute but the solution is slow to come. With no effective medicine against the Wuhan virus, the only thing scientists can do is to develop a vaccine that stimulates the human immune system to fight the virus. Just like exploring Mars, developing such a vaccine is a gradual process for the sake of effectiveness and safety. It takes a lot of time to understand the genetic structure of the virus; identify the right dose needed to stimulate the human inhuman system; develop the vaccine; test whether it may lead to unexpected complications; test it on a small number of people; observe the results; and conduct large-scale testing after ensuring the vaccine will do no harm. After all that, mass production can begin.

Is there no shortcut at all? In a way, there is. Vaccines must be contained in bottles that meet specific hygiene standards. The UK has already produced billions of such bottles even though it has yet to develop a vaccine. Vaccines must also be refrigerated. That requires qualified refrigeration facilities, vehicles for transportation and distribution centers. All these need to be approved by regulatory bodies, and there are established procedures to follow. Can Russia, which claims to have enough vaccines for its people, achieve all that? As with the way it explored Mars, Russia may be a pioneer in terms of coming up with a vaccine, a process that saw it circumvent all the red tape and procedures. But how reliable is the product? Perhaps not much. If you could choose, would you go for the vaccine of Russia (or mainland China), or patiently wait for the arrival of the vaccines developed by the UK and the U.S.?

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