Pathfinder showed that it could be done that way, and that was what's important."Some have wondered why Pathfinder is not looking for signs of past or present life, as Viking did; after all, interest in Mars exploded last August when Nasa announced its belief that the Martian meteorite ALH 84001 contained structures indicative of fossil bacteria.But, Mr Taylor points out, "Pathfinder was not designed to look for life, or evidence of past life. Over the next decade, a whole fleet of small, cut-price probes to Mars are planned, one to be launched every 26 months. Another lander will set off from Earth next year, and is intended to touch down on the ice-cap of the Martian south pole, where it will drill through the layers of frozen water and carbon dioxide, looking for evidence of climatic change. The hope is that the robot missions will culminate in one in 2001 that will retrieve rock samples and return them to Earth.Richard Taylor, of the British Interplanetary Society, has been following the Pathfinder mission from the start and has worked on the analysis of the data beamed back to Earth. This craft will revolutionise our knowledge of Mars, and provide scientists with better maps of our nearest planetary neighbour than existed of Earth itself until recently. Although his early life was one of extreme hardship, it was also full of adventure. On the evening of 28 April the enemy had gained a solid foothold in the town of Kalamata, and the main road through the town was blocked by the Germans.

The 1976 Viking Mars mission, which featured a pair of lander probes, cost more than $1bn. Pathfinder's success has shown that you don't need to spend a fortune to explore the solar system. Some will land, and bigger, better rovers are planned that will roam the surface for kilometres, not metres (as the Sojourner rover does), collecting rock samples and even sending them home to Earth as the search for extraterrestrial life intensifies. The US space agency, Nasa, is confident that Pathfinder has been such a hit with Vice-President Al Gore (who is responsible for overseeing the space programme) that the agency will receive funding for all its planned missions and will eventually get approval for a much more expensive, crewed trip to Mars, in the second decade of the next century.Like its sister Pathfinder mission, which cost just $178m (pounds 103m), the Global Surveyor is a triumphant example of Nasa's new, "smaller, faster, cheaper" philosophy. These pictures will be sharp enough to help scientists conduct detailed geological studies without needing to set foot on the planet.After Global Surveyor has done its work, a whole series of probes will be fired at Mars. It will not land, but instead will perform the most comprehensive photographic survey of another planet ever undertaken. First, the spacecraft, which is about the size of a large garden shed and weighs about one tonne, will dive into the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere to lose speed and height - a risky procedure known as aerobraking. Then it will position itself in a low orbit, taking high-resolution photographs which will show objects as small as 1.5 metres (5ft) across.

Launched 10 months ago, the Mars Global Surveyor is now on the final stages of its journey, and is due to arrive in orbit around Mars on 11 September. The Mars Pathfinder may be slowly grinding to a halt, with the announcement made last week that its batteries were finally running out of power after a month of constant work in freezing temperatures. But hard on its heels is another probe, the second wave in a decade-long invasion of the Red Planet. He contributed numerous articles on a variety of subjects from rediscovered manuscripts to historical evidence gained from paintings.