(12 Feb 2021) LEAD IN:
One young schoolboy may be watching NASA's Mars rover landing more closely than others.
14-year-old Alex Mather submitted the winning name, "Perseverance", as part of a naming contest for NASA's next Martian explorer.

STORY-LINE:
As part of the naming contest for U.S. schoolchildren, almost 4,700 volunteer judges narrowed down a pool of 28,000 contest entries to 155 semifinalists.
Once it was down to nine finalists, the public was invited to vote online.
14-year-old Mather, who lives in Virginia, says he came up with "Perseverance" after reading about the challenges of past Mars missions.
"I went through just a lot of stories from people who were working on the mission. One of the major things that I learned was that Mars missions are very hard, but they're also very rewarding, and it takes a lot of perseverance and effort from a lot of the people on the team to make these missions happen," he says.
"So, I realized that perseverance is not only just an important part of the mission, but an important part of humans. And I decided that that was the best name for the mission."
Perseverance is the latest in a long line of NASA Mars rovers to be named by schoolchildren - from Sojourner rover that landed in 1997, to Curiosity, which has been exploring the red planet since 2012.
"It is, in my opinion, a central quality of human beings as a species, from the beginnings of civilization in ancient Sumeria, to the great pyramids of Egypt, to walking on the moon in 1969, perseverance has been just such a central part of what it means to be human," says Mather.
Mather says he became enamored with space at age eleven, while attending Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.
He remembers the moment he first saw an authentic Saturn V rocket, the same used during NASA's Apollo program that helped deliver astronauts to the moon.
From that moment on, video games took a back seat.
Mather says he now wants to become an engineer and work for NASA. Perhaps even apply to become an astronaut.
"As you're driving down the road, you can slowly see the spire of the rocket rise above the building, and eleven-year-old me saw that and lost his mind," recalls Mathers.
"I immediately knew that space was something I was doing for the rest of my life."
As part of submitting the winning entry, Mather and his family won a trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch the Perseverance launch.
Perseverance is NASA's most ambitious Mars mission yet, totaling around $3 billion USD.
Besides seeking for signs of past microscopic Martian life, the rover will gather rocks and soil for eventual return to Earth.
"I want the rover to help do its job and answer the key questions that it was sent there to answer about the possibility of life on Mars," says Mather.
NASA says it is targeting a February 18 landing for its Perseverance Mars rover.

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