Us humans are surprisingly familiar with Mars' surface, yet we haven't studied its higher altitudes -- an odd discrepancy when the sky plays as much of a role as the soil in determining the planet's climate. We'll get a better balance in our research now that NASA and Lockheed Martin have finished constructing the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe, or MAVEN. The robot craft will learn how quickly the Martian atmosphere is escaping into space and give us a better idea of how the planet's a
