MARSBUGS: The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter Volume 3, Number 2, 23rd April, 1996. Co-editors: David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83843, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu. Julian Hiscox, Microbiology Department, BBRB 17, Room 361, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-2170, USA, Julian_hiscox@micro.microbio.uab.edu. MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright exists with the co-editors, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Contributions are welcome, and should be submitted to either of the two editors. Contributions should include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along with the author(s)' correspondence address. Subscribers are advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, ordering goods etc. ---------------------------------------------------- INDEX 1). BUILDING COMMUNITIES: LET'S TALK MARS 2). RUSSIAN INSTRUMENT ON MARS LANDER WILL MONITOR ATMOSPHERIC DUST 3). NASA SCIENCE INSTITUTES PLAN RELEASED 4). NASA RELEASES PLAN FOR EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE 5). AND A NEW PLANET BEYOND 6). UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY DEVELOPS SPACE CROP 7). COMING NEXT ISSUE ---------------------------------------------------- 1). BUILDING COMMUNITIES: LET'S TALK MARS (Communicated by Ken Edgett, Arizona State University). NASA's K-12 Internet Project is developing a one-on-one mentor and teacher partnership that will pair mentor scientists, engineers and researchers interested in all aspects of Mars with teachers who desire to learn more about the Red Planet and who will pass that knowledge on to their students and fellow teachers. A scientist-engineer-researcher mentor will connect with a single K- 12 teacher. Details of the connection are up to those involved, but could include email, Web chat, or CUSeeMe. Mentors will be expected to respond regularly to their teacher, between 1-2 hours a week, but this is completely negotiable. Responsibilities will include: 1) maintaining an ongoing relationship with teacher through the end of '96. 2) being available for interacting with teacher on a "regular" basis Teachers will be responsible for sharing the information learned from the Mars mentors with their students and their peers by using the Internet to collaborate on science projects and taking their newly gained knowledge to teach real world science. Want to Participate? If you are interested in sharing your expertise about Mars with a K- 12 teacher and their students, please send a message to Sandy Dueck at: sandy_dueck@nsigate.arc.nasa.gov By volunteering your time you will be making a direct contribution to educating kids! Building Communities is organised by the NASA K-12 Internet Initiative. It is made possible by funding from NASA's Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA) program, part of the High Performance Computing and Communications program ---------------------------------------------------- 2). RUSSIAN INSTRUMENT ON MARS LANDER WILL MONITOR ATMOSPHERIC DUST A small, lightweight Russian laser-ranging device designed to measure dust and haze in the Martian atmosphere has been selected by NASA officials to fly aboard a U.S. Mars lander spacecraft due for launch in January 1999. Known as the 1998 Mars Surveyor Lander, the mission will be the first ever sent to the polar regions of Mars, where it should encounter layers of icy terrain that represent a preserved record of the planet's climate history. The laser-ranging device, or lidar, will be provided to NASA by Dr. Vyacheslav Linkin of the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Science, under the sponsorship of the Russian Space Agency (RSA). "Measurements from this device should help us better understand the relationship between the amount of dust and aerosols in the lower-most part of the Martian atmosphere and the planet's regional weather conditions," said Wesley T. Huntress Jr., NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. "In addition to this important science goal, the lidar will be the first Russian instrument to fly aboard a U.S. planetary spacecraft, so it represents a new degree of international co-operation in the exploration of our solar system." Mounted on top of the lander for a clear view of the Martian sky, the 2.2 lb. (approximately 1 kilogram) instrument will send short pulses of focused light into the atmosphere and then measure the amount of light scattered back. This effect is similar to the way that automobile headlights reflect fog -- the thicker the fog, the more light that is scattered back to the car's driver. The Mars-bound lidar device also can operate in a passive mode, where it uses the Sun as a light source and measures the brightness of the sky. The 1998 Mars Surveyor Lander also will carry a lightweight camera to take images of the surrounding terrain during the spacecraft's final descent, and an integrated surface science payload that includes a mast-mounted imager, a meteorological station, a soil composition analyser and a robotic arm to dig trenches in the icy soil of the south pole. A companion spacecraft to the Lander, called the 1998 Mars Surveyor Orbiter, will be launched in December 1998. Russia's IKI is providing optical hardware for one of the Orbiter's instruments, the Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer. Both of these spacecraft are part of NASA's Mars Surveyor Program, a decade-long series of cost-capped missions to Mars featuring two launches every 26 months. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, is building both the 1998 Orbiter and Lander for NASA under a $94 million contract. The Mars Surveyor Program kicks off November 1996 with the launch of the Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter. The Mars Pathfinder Lander, developed under NASA's Discovery Program, will be launched in December 1996. Don Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC March 1, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1547) NOTE TO EDITORS: N96-14 ---------------------------------------------------- 3). NASA SCIENCE INSTITUTES PLAN RELEASED NASA has released its NASA Science Institutes Plan report, following a six-month period of study by the NASA Science Institutes Team and modifications based on public comments. The NASA Science Institutes concept began May 19, 1995, when NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin released results of an internal review conducted by the Agency's "Zero Base Review" (ZBR) Team. The ZBR science recommendations included a proposal that science "institutes" be formed at many of NASA's Centres, with goals to strengthen the quality of NASA science, to bind NASA scientists more effectively to the external community and to increase the effectiveness of the links between the external community and NASA's immense engineering and technical resources. The report is available to media representatives by calling the NASA Headquarters Newsroom at 202/358-1600. The general public may obtain a copy by calling 202/358-2877. In addition to the report, a question and answer fact sheet, a Benchmarks Report, and a NASA Science Institutes Report Forward are available. These documents are available on the internet via anonymous file transfer at: ftp.hq.nasa.gov in the directory pub/oss/inst/, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oss/ . ---------------------------------------------------- 4). NASA RELEASES PLAN FOR EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE Michael Braukus, Headquarters, Washington, DC. March 29, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1979) INTERNET ADVISORY: I96-2 NASA's Office of Space Flight and the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, Washington, DC, together have led the development of a strategic plan that lays the foundation for the exploration and development of space. The plan defines the objectives and strategic thrusts of the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Enterprise which is one of five strategic enterprises reflecting NASA's primary missions. The HEDS mission is to open the space frontier by exploring, using and enabling the development of space and to expand the human experience into the far reaches of space. This plan is available on the Internet on: http://www.osf.hq.nasa.gov/heds/ ---------------------------------------------------- 5). AND A NEW PLANET BEYOND (Part of "SpaceNews Digest). And while you're marvelling at the sights of the solar system in the western sky, you may want to glance slightly eastward along the ecliptic to the constellation Cancer, where another planet outside our solar system has been discovered. The team of California astronomers who reported finding a couple of planets in Virgo and Ursa Major (and confirmed the existence of the one in Pegasus), have bagged another one. As part of an ongoing survey of 120 Sun-like stars, Geoffrey Marcy and Paul Butler examined 55 Cancri(also called designated rho-1 Cancri or HR 3522). Their spectroscopic observations of the 5.3-magnitude G8 star's radial velocity revealed that it is circled by a mass of no more than 80 percent that of Jupiter, every 14-3/4 days. The new planet orbits at a distance of 16.5 million kilometres, less than a third of the average distance between the Sun and Mercury. At that distance, Marcy notes that the surface temperature of the planet would be about 500 degrees Celsius. 55 Cancri is located at Right Ascension 8 hours 52.6 minutes, Declination +28.3 degrees, about 15 degrees to the upper left of the star Pollux. ---------------------------------------------------- 6). UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY DEVELOPS SPACE CROP (Michael Braukus, Headquarters, Washington, DC., April 15, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1979) (Kurt Gufkarcht, Utah State University (Phone: 801/797-2206) RELEASE: 96-75 The first crop developed specifically for growth in space has been developed at Utah State University, Logan, Utah. A space-age wheat variety, USU-Apogee, produces the equivalent of almost 600 bushels of grain per acre -- three times the top yields from most fields. It took more than a decade to develop a wheat suitable for space farms, where the artificial sun always shines, carbon dioxide levels are high and space is at a premium. Apogee thrives under those conditions. Its heads emerge 23 days after germination, about a week sooner than some varieties grown in controlled environments. So far, Apogee's baking characteristics pass muster, at least on Earth. Making bread in space is still uncharted territory. The wheat variety's development was funded by NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications and the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. On long-duration space missions, it will be more economical to provide life support supplies by producing food, such as Apogee, potable water and breathable air by recycling metabolic and other wastes. It's not known whether the new variety will make it to the moon or Mars, but it's likely to be grown on the International Space Station scheduled for completion in 2002. "We're tickled to death with Apogee," said space scientist Doug Ming, of NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston. "We're seeing much higher yields than the other varieties we've tried. It's also much shorter." Bruce Bugbee, the USU crop physiologist who developed the variety, has worked with NASA for almost 15 years. He heads a NASA-supported university research facility to develop food crops for space in a complex consisting of 30 computer-controlled growth chambers of various sizes, in addition to several greenhouses. Previously, the only wheat to be grown in space was Superdwarf, a short (about 10 inches tall) line that Bugbee originally found in Mexico. Superdwarf's short height is an attribute, but it grew poorly and produced low yields in the prototype space farms, known as regenerative life support systems. Apogee, which is the term for the point in orbit farthest from Earth, is a dwarf hard red spring wheat, developed from thousands of segregating lines. It produces few tillers, or branches, which tend to sap energy that a plant devotes to grain production. It fits the bill for space farming-- short (about 18 inches tall when mature), producing an unusually large number of seeds, and luxuriant greenleaves. Other wheat grown in controlled environments tended to develop yellow leaf tips characteristic of calcium deficiency, often killing 30 percent of the leaf. "Superdwarf required perfect conditions for growth. Apogee doesn't," Ming said. To boost growth and yields, plants destined for space are always bathed in light, at a constant temperature and in air enriched with carbon dioxide, Bugbee said. Their roots never touch soil. All are grown hydroponically or in a crumbly substrate. Apogee isn't likely to be as popular on Earth as other crop varieties. Its yields are comparable to taller field varieties, but its shortness hampers harvest and limits its ability to compete with weeds. Bugbee provides free samples of Apogee to research laboratories around the world -- and to schools. To receive seed of Apogee, contact Bugbee at the USU Crop Physiology Laboratory, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-4820, (801) 797-2765, or e-mail (bugbee@cc.usu.edu). ---------------------------------------------------- 7). COMING NEXT ISSUE -The feasibility of interstellar propulsion. -Space and exobiology related magazines and societies. -Publication and book watch. ---------------------------------------------------- END.