The Mars InSight Roadshow was a public outreach and educational initiative organized by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to promote the InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission. The campaign was designed to engage the public and provide information regarding the mission's scientific objective: studying the deep interior of Mars to understand the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets.
The roadshow primarily took place in 2018, coinciding with the launch of the InSight spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Because InSight was the first interplanetary mission to launch from the United States' West Coast, the roadshow focused heavily on locations throughout California, visiting science centers, museums, and universities in cities such as Redding, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
Activities associated with the Mars InSight Roadshow typically included:
- Exhibits: Displaying full-scale or partial models of the InSight lander and its scientific instruments, such as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3).
- Expert Presentations: Lectures and Q&A sessions led by NASA scientists and engineers involved in the mission.
- Interactive Stations: Demonstrations explaining how the mission would use seismology to measure "marsquakes" and how the lander would probe the planet's internal temperature.
- Visual Content: Use of virtual reality or cinema-style presentations to illustrate the journey from Earth to the Martian surface.
The program served as a specialized component of NASA's broader efforts to maintain public interest in planetary science and to explain the logistical and scientific complexities of robotic exploration.