Recently, a Boeing Delta 2 launched a NASA probe, Spirit, headed for the Red Planet. Less than an hour after the liftoff, mission controllers received the first signal from the spacecraft as it sped to Mars.

"It's like a birthing process ... hearing the baby's first cry,'' mission science manager John Callas told the Associated Press.

The NASA team admitted though, the mission is far from over- only 12 of humanity's 30 attempts to unlock Mars' secrets using robot probes have succeeded