MARSBUGS: The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter Volume 3, Number 16, 20 December, 1996. Editors: David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, 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 of this compilation exists with the 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. Back issues may be obtained via anonymous FTP at: ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events. Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may come out of the most unexpected places. Subjects may include, but are not limited to: exobiology proper (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis/ terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. ----------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX 1) ASTEROID HIT AT DEADLY OBLIQUE ANGLE 65 MILLION YEARS AGO The Brown University News Bureau 2) UPDATE ON RUSSIAN SPACE PROBE USSPACECOM release 41-96 3) MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS JPL release 4) MARS METEORITES SOLD AT AUCTION by Ron Baalke 5) BOOK REVIEW: THE CASE FOR MARS by Julian Hiscox 6) CONTACT XIV CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT 7) RECENT PUBLICATIONS by Julian Hiscox ----------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID HIT AT DEADLY OBLIQUE ANGLE 65 MILLION YEARS AGO The Brown University News Bureau All asteroid-based extinctions great and small are not alike. A new study says the asteroid that struck Earth 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs was particularly deadly to North America because it hit the Yucatan peninsula from the southeast at a 20- to 30-degree angle, spreading the devastating impact of its energy northwest. The oblique angle of the asteroid's contact with Earth coupled its impact energy with that of the atmosphere and planetary surface to send waves of ground-hugging, vaporous fireballs onward, the study says. This resulted in an extinction intensity most severe downrange of the impact in North America. The study suggests one rationale for the dire consequences of such an impact: The severity of extinctions that result from an object's impact on Earth may reflect the incoming object's angle. "This finding may help us determine what other impacts did to Earth in the past and what they may do in the future," said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University. Schultz and Steven D'Hondt, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, are co-authors of the study in the November issue of the journal Geology. The researchers suggest that the relatively low angle of the Yucatan impact propelled a ballistic fireball downrange into North America. The fireball carried a two-mile-deep layer of vaporized rock and other material sheared off the Yucatan. The killing zone of matter cascaded through the atmosphere at near orbital speed, across North America and eventually around the globe. "It was like a nuclear explosion taken north on a jet-powered sleigh ride," Schultz said. "This was indeed the day the Earth shook." As evidence, the researchers show that the horseshoe-shaped Yucatan crater matches the structure of craters on the moon and Venus that were created when objects struck those heavenly bodies at oblique angles. Venus's thick atmosphere holds in place gases emitted from a crater after an impact. The researchers studied images of these corked-in Venusian vapors, which show that gaseous material is propelled in waves downrange after an object strikes a planetary surface at an oblique angle. Schultz used a high-powered gun to recreate the dynamics of an object striking Earth's surface at a 20- to 30-degree angle. The experiment produced horseshoe-shaped craters, while high-speed film captured gas and materials jettisoned downrange. The researchers said that biological evidence appears to support their oblique-impact hypothesis. North America, the first region to experience the fireball, had the most severe extinctions of plants. After the devastation, ferns dominated the flora of central North America. Ferns accounted for 70 to 100 percent of the spore- or pollen-producing plants in the region after the impact, compared with only 10 to 40 percent before it. At the base of the food chain, plants are considered sensitive indicators of environmental devastation. Because ferns reproduce through the use of hardy spores, the plants are regarded as key flora in colonizing the site of a natural disaster. Plants in parts of the world not downrange from the impact took a lesser hit from the corridor of incineration. For example, several ancient evergreen trees found in North America before the impact, but not after, still grow in parts of Australia and South America. Modern relatives of these trees, often called "primitive conifers," include the Norfolk Island pine, Chilean monkey puzzle and Wollemi pine. "The basic point of the study is that we can determine the impact angle of this object and that the angle matters," D'Hondt said. Most scientists study the aftermath of collisions that caused Earth's craters as if objects struck the planet at 90-degree angles, or from directly overhead. But such vertical impacts are very rare. An oblique angle of impact may have more deadly global consequences than a vertical impact, because an oblique impact should release a greater fraction of impact energy to the atmosphere and surface target, said Schultz and D'Hondt. "The study also underscores the point that regional repercussions can be expected from an Earth-object impact, something scientists have rarely considered in previous studies of this 65-million- year-old event," D'Hondt said. A link is provided for downloading the color transparencies in this release. The URL is: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/1996-97/96- 041g.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE ON RUSSIAN SPACE PROBE USSPACECOM release 41-96 November 29, 1996 Peterson AFB, COLO.-- U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) has developed new information indicating that the Russian Mars '96 spacecraft likely came down on Nov. 16 instead of Nov. 17 as earlier reported. Any debris surviving the heat of this re-entry would have fallen over a 200-mile long portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. We now believe that the object that re-entered on Nov. 17, which we first thought to be the Mars '96 probe, was in fact the fourth stage of the booster rocket. Confusion has surrounded key events and times in this mission, including the last stages of the rocket burn, the separation of the Mars '96 probe from the rocket, and the final re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere of the booster and the probe. USSPACECOM has now completed an extensive post-event analysis that has led to this new conclusion which supports Russian statements about when their Mars '96 probe re-entered the atmosphere. The area where any debris surviving this re-entry could have fallen is located along an approximately 50-mile wide and 200-mile long path, oriented southwest to northeast. This path is centered approximately 20 miles east of the Chilean city of Iquique and includes Chilean territory, the border area of Bolivia and the Pacific Ocean. The following is a chronological version of this space mission as observed by USSPACECOM: The Russians launched a SL-12 (Proton) four-stage rocket booster from the Tyuratam space launch facility at 3:49 p.m. EST on Nov. 16. Aboard the booster was a spacecraft known as the Mars '96 probe destined for the planet Mars. The USSPACECOM Space Surveillance Network (SSN) tracked the rocket and boosters throughout the first three stages of launch, and observed, recorded, and reported an object re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at 7:49 p.m. EST, Nov. 16. Absent an indication at the time of any problems with the Mars '96 probe, U.S. space observers ascribed the Nov. 16th event as the booster stage re-entry--which would be normal for a multistage rocket of this type. The planned separation of the fourth stage booster from the Mars '96 probe was not observed because it occurred out of view of U.S. space sensors. The USSPACECOM Space Surveillance Network did track a single object associated with this launch after monitoring the first three stages, which at the time was believed to be the booster's fourth stage still attached to the Mars probe. On Nov. 17 it became apparent that the Mars '96 mission had not achieved its intended trajectory to Mars. USSPACECOM continued to track in near-Earth orbit a single object thought then to be the probe attached to the fourth-stage booster. On that morning, the Russians requested, through NASA, USSPACECOM assistance in locating the Mars '96 probe. USSPACECOM impact predictions were forwarded to the Russians and Australians since initial predictions indicated that the re-entry would take place over Australia. Updated analysis of tracking data and orbital parameters placed the final impact of any surviving debris in the Pacific Ocean 150-200 miles off the coast of Chile at approximately 8:30 p.m. EST. On Monday, Nov. 18, the Russians announced that a failure on board their spacecraft prevented the probe from achieving its intended trajectory. The Russians also said their probe had likely re-entered the atmosphere on Nov. 16 between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. EST. Based on this information, USSPACECOM analysts began a detailed review of all available data which ultimately led to our refined conclusions. USSPACECOM is not able to estimate what portion, if any, of the Mars '96 spacecraft might have survived re-entry. The United States' interest in providing this information is to clarify earlier preliminary U.S. reports that portions of the spacecraft re-entered over the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles off the Chilean coast. We are now convinced that any impact of the probe that might have occurred on Nov. 16 would be within the area described which includes portions of Chilean and Bolivian territory. The Russians are in the best position to address the materials on board their spacecraft and whether any portion of the spacecraft might have survived the heat of re-entry. On Nov. 27, U.S. officials shared this information with the Russians and provided information to the governments of Chile and Bolivia concerning the Nov. 16 Mars '96 re-entry over portions of their territories. DIRECTORATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Headquarters, U.S. Space Command, 250 S. Peterson Blvd., Ste. 116, Peterson Air Force Base, CO 80914-3190 Phone: (719) 554-6889 FAX: (719) 554-3165 DSN: 692-6889 E-Mail: noussppa@spacecom.af.mil ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS JPL release December 10, 1996 The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft continues to perform nearly flawlessly on its 203 million kilometer (126 million mile) flight path to Mars. Currently the spacecraft is 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of 3.2 kilometers per second (7,155 miles per hour). Temperatures and power utilization of the lander and cruise stage remain at predicted levels for this early phase of the mission. The spacecraft's sun sensors are the only issue being watched closely on an otherwise beautifully performing spacecraft, the flight team reported. There are five sun sensor heads on board the spacecraft, two pointed along the craft's spin axis and three that are equally spaced around the circular cruise stage that look out at about 105 degrees from the spin axis. Of the five sensor heads, unit #4 on the spin axis is obscured or contaminated to the point of not being useful. Sensor #5, which is also on the spin axis, is providing good sun orientation data, but at a lower voltage than was expected. The other three sensor heads are working fine. The flight team at JPL uploaded a software modification to the spacecraft on Saturday, December 7, which allowed the on-board attitude control system to use the sun sensor data from sensor #5 in its normal calculations of the spacecraft's orientation. The software patch was successful and the team was exuberant to see the spacecraft's attitude control estimators operating properly. The team then began to prepare for turning the spacecraft more toward Earth to improve the telecommunications link. At the time, Pathfinder was about 58 degrees from the Earth, which is near the edge of the antenna's performance. Since this was to be the first time flight controllers used the propulsion module, they planned a small turn of two degrees to verify that everything was working properly. Thirty minutes later, they planned to turn the spacecraft an additional 20 degrees. "The turn maneuvers were conducted successfully on Monday morning [December 12]," said Brian Muirhead, Pathfinder flight system manager. "The propulsion and attitude control systems worked properly and the spacecraft's spin axis is currently pointed about 44 degrees from the Sun and 37 degrees from Earth. The downlink performance improved as expected and we continue to communicate with Pathfinder at 1,185 bits per second." The flight team is planning its next maneuver to spin the spacecraft down from 12.3 rpm to 2 rpm. The maneuver will be performed in the next few days, Muirhead said. Pathfinder's first trajectory correction maneuver remains on schedule, to take place on January 4, 1997. ----------------------------------------------------------------- LIGHTNING RESEARCH IS CHARGED WITH FINDING A RAIN GAUGE IN SPACE University of Washington release If you are deep in the Amazon jungle, far north in the Arctic wastes or afloat in the mid Pacific Ocean, how can you know what the weather might be? Will it rain, will it snow, or will it be dry? In the absence of weather stations in remote areas of the globe, monitoring rainfall would seem to be impossible. But the solution may be lighting up the sky. Lightning research was once the stepchild of atmospheric science because of the belief that it had no connection with climate study. Now, thanks to new research at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to recent data from NASA's space-based lightning detector, scientists believe that lightning frequency might be a reliable surrogate for tracking precipitation in those regions where direct, ground measurements are not possible. "Lightning research could become very important in climate studies," says Marcia Baker, professor of geophysics at the UW. The key to understanding lightning's connection with weather monitoring seems to be, curiously enough, ice. A great puzzle in cloud studies was once: where does the electric charge that creates lightning come from? Today it is widely believed that the charging occurs when fast-moving ice particles collide in clouds. Small ice particles, produced in the updraft of moisture from the ground, crash into soft hail as it falls downward, and in the process transfer a negative charge of electricity. It is, says Baker's fellow researcher, UW physics professor emeritus Gregory Dash, like "traveling at 25 miles an hour into a thick cloud of sleet and hail." The trillions upon trillions of ice-on-ice collisions, he says, rapidly build up a charge until the electric field gets high enough and the air breaks down into lightning. Much of that soft hail carrying the negative charge ultimately reaches the ground as precipitation. Thus, says Baker, "if we could relate lightning frequency to charging frequency, and then calculate how long it's going to take those ice particles to fall to the ground, we would have some sort of predictor of rainfall." In other words, the more lightning there is, the more ice particles there are that will ultimately reach the ground as rain, sleet or snow. The association between lightning and rainfall has already received some confirmation from the Optical Transient Detector, a sensor that was launched aboard a National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite in April last year to detect and locate lightning flashes. Early results from the sensor suggest a strong correlation between lightning flashes and heavy rainfall. To make use of the lighting flash data, though, will require a greater understanding of the physical mechanism of lightning charges. Why, asks Baker, do the ice particles produce the electric charge in the first place? "You can take two rocks or two pieces of glass or anything else and collide them and charging won't happen on a reproducible basis," she says. It is known, says Dash, that the charge transfer between two ice particles mainly occurs at temperatures between minus 5 C and minus 20 C (23 F and minus 4 F) and at an altitude of about six kilometers (3.72 miles) in temperate regions of the globe. As the ice breaks apart after the collision, the small particles tend to carry a positive charge, and the hail a negative charge. What isn't known is why. Baker and Dash theorize that in the collision, a thin layer of liquid carrying the electric charge is transferred from the small ice particle to the hail. To test the charge transfer theory, Dash's doctoral student Brian Mason has for the past 3 1/2 years been creating artificial ice collisions in the laboratory. Inside a copper cylinder, cooled to minus 20 C, Mason has created the kinds of conditions believed to occur in clouds, including temperature, pressure and humidity. He doesn't have hailstones. Instead, he has an assembly consisting of a quartz crystal (the same as in a watch) and gold electrodes, or terminals. This is placed inside the cylinder, and an identical assembly is placed upside down facing it, so that the gold terminals are a hundredth of an inch apart. Ice is grown on both sets of terminals, and then a brief sound wave from a tiny loudspeaker causes one terminal to shudder and briefly tap the terminal on the assembly above it. Mason is then able to measure both the mass transfer--of ice or liquid--and the charge transfer between the two electrodes. He expects to have significant results in the next six months. Says Mason: "I am detecting charging. And I am finding appreciable amounts of liquid or ice moving from one terminal to the other." He is, says Baker, the first researcher to look at single ice collisions in such carefully controlled surroundings. And from this may come one answer to the many puzzles about ice. "Look," says Baker, "it's 1996 and we still don't fully understand everything that happens when water freezes in your freezer ice cube tray." For additional information, contact: Marcia Baker at (206)-685-3799 or at marcia@geophys.washington.edu Gregory Dash at (206)-543-2785 or at dash@phys.washington.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FLIGHT STATUS REPORT JPL release Friday, 13 December 1996 This week, the Surveyor flight team conducted tests to collect diagnostic data toward solving the spacecraft's solar array position discrepancy. Both of Surveyor's solar arrays are deployed and generating full power, but the solar panel on the spacecraft's -Y side is out of position by 20.5 degrees. The flight team performed one test per day on the mornings of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. During each diagnostic test, the gimbal joint holding the -Y panel to the spacecraft was commanded to "wiggle" the panel back and forth several times over a time period of between 20 to 60 seconds. The flight team examined telemetry transmitted back to Earth to study the nature of the vibrations in the spacecraft that resulted from the "wiggling." This data will provide valuable insight into determining the best method to clear the obstruction that is currently keeping the -Y solar panel 20.5 degrees out of position. Two more tests are scheduled for next week. One test will occur on Monday, December 16th and the other will occur on Tuesday, December 17th. Both of these upcoming tests will involve a stronger "wiggle" than in the three tests that have already occurred. After seven weeks of flight, Surveyor is 9.41 million kilometers from the Earth and is moving in an orbit around the Sun with a velocity of 32.74 kilometers per second. This orbit will intercept Mars on September 12th, 1997. All systems on the spacecraft continue to be in excellent condition. ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS METEORITES SOLD AT AUCTION by Ron Baalke Four Mars meteorites were up for auction at the Phillips auction house in New York on December 14. Three of the four meteorites were sold. A bid of $11,000 was made on a 7.6 gram piece of Zagami, but it did not meet a predetermined minimum price, and so there was no sale on this particular meteorite. No bids over the minimum suggested price were made for the larger Mars meteorites. Suggested Actual Bid Meteorite Weight Price Price Zagami 7.6 g $14,000-$18,000 $11,000 (no sale) Zagami 0.1 g $275-$350 $550 Zagami 1.3 g $2,500-$3,500 $2000 Nakhla 2.57 g $4,000-$5,000 $4000 It is interesting to note that the suggested price for Zagami and Nakhla were both at around $2000/gram, which is quite remarkable because Nakhla is clearly the rarer of the two meteorites. The 0.1 gram Zagami was the only one to sell above the minimum suggested price, but it only consisted of meteorite crumbs in a vial. The 1.3 gram Zagami was sold at $1538/gram. The 7.6 gram Zagami's bid was at $1447/gram though as noted before, there was no sale. The Nakhla meteorite sold at the minimum suggested price, which translated to $1556/gram, and this was a steal compared with the Zagami prices. ----------------------------------------------------------------- BOOK REVIEW: THE CASE FOR MARS by Julian Hiscox Title: The Case for Mars. Subtitle: The plan to settle the red planet and why we must. Author: Robert Zubrin (with Richard Wagner). Pages: 328. Publisher: The Free Press (A division of Simon & Schuster Inc.). ISBN: 0-684-82757-3 Price: $25.00 (US). Hard Bound. The planet Mars has always held a special place in the imagination of mankind throughout recorded history. The ancient Greeks associated the planet Mars with their god Ares and the Iliad refers to Ares as a chieftain of valour. The Roman people believed that the father of their empire was Mars, the god of war. After the onset of Christianity the belief in multiple Gods went underground (at least in Europe) and the Dark Ages began. Mars resurfaced when in 1609 Johannes Kepler arrived at his first two laws of planetary motion by observing the motion of Mars. With the advent of optical astronomy in 1695 the Dutch Astronomer, Christiaan Huygens, observed dark markings on Mars (called Syrtis Major) and by tracking the reappearance of this feature he calculated the Martian day was close to 24 hours (the exact time is 24 hours 37 minutes and 22 seconds). Modern mythology of Mars began just before the turn of the century in 1892 when Camille Flammarion published a review of all observations of Mars entitled Le Planete Mars. The American philanthropist Percival Lowell, based upon his observations and misunderstandings of the writings of the Italian astronomer Giovannie Schiaparelli, offered visions of a dying, cold, dehydrated planet, populated by intelligent Martians who lived in cities at the equator and transported water from the polar caps to these cities via a network of canals on a global scale. Intelligent life on Mars remained a popular motion even though the co-founder of the theory of natural selection, Alfred Wallace, showed that at the distance of Mars from the Sun climatic conditions would be far too cold to support the type of life Lowell proposed. Many of these ideas were shattered in the 1960s and 1970s when the United States sent the Mariner and Viking space probes to Mars. The results of these studies showed that present day Mars is completely inhospitable to terrestrial life. The surface of Mars is thought to be composed of oxidants and is bathed in lethal levels of ultraviolet radiation. The primary atmospheric constituent is carbon dioxide with a pressure that is approximately one hundredth that of the Earth's. However, geological features indicated that several billion years ago, Mars was more similar to Earth, in that large bodies of liquid water might have been stable over long periods of time. This led many planetary scientists to speculate that if ancient Mars and Earth were similar, life might also have arisen on Mars. Recently tantalizing, but circumstantial data has been presented that would appear to support this hypothesis (in the very least that the ancient climate of Mars contained liquid water). Not only might ancient (and perhaps present day Mars) have harboured life, the Viking missions also indicated that sufficient resources may be available on Mars to support perhaps a burgeoning Martian civilisation. Why therefore haven't we gone to Mars? Well the answer appears to be the cost involved and a narrow thinking on mission architecture. Previous proposals to send humans to Mars, and in the words of President John F. Kennedy "to return them safely home" have concentrated on gargantuan space craft, assembled in Earth orbit and composed mostly of propellant. The latest proposal conceived for President Bush's ill fated space exploration initiative put a price tag around $540 billion and 30 years. How can we get there under the bold new NASA philosophy, quicker, cheaper, faster. The answers can be found in Robert Zubrin's new book The Case for Mars. Pitched at the educated layman this book provides an excellent account of how Martian resources could be exploited for both the exploration and colonisation of Mars. Zubrin is well qualified to write such a book. He was formerly a senior engineer at Lockheed Martin, and is the founder of Pioneer Astronautics, a space-exploration research and development firm. He is also chairman of the executive committee of the National Space Society, a grass roots space organisation. Robert Zubrin has authored more than one hundred articles on space propulsion and exploration and is widely regarded as one of the US's leading theorists of Mars travel. Zubrin's co-author is Richard Wagner the former editor of Ad Astra, the journal of the National Space Society. The Case for Mars is named after a series of conferences held at the University of Colorado every three years since 1980. These conferences have demonstrated that the goal of Martian exploration is practical and Zubrin's book is a flag-ship for these proposals. If we gaze back over the past five hundred years of exploration, then the lesson that history teaches us, and one that Zubrin drums in, is that the best way to go and stay somewhere is to utilise the resources that might be found along the way, rather than taking everything along. In terms of space travel this is especially true as the cost to low Earth orbit (LEO) using current technology is prohibitive. It would be far simpler therefore to send the minimum payload into LEO, thus ending reliance upon Earth based launch systems and infra-structure. Zubrin discusses space transportation systems that have been optimised for use in conjunction with in situ produced propellants, using materials available on Mars. He shows that by using such systems right from the start of the Mars programme, flight system development costs can be reduced by about an order of magnitude compared with those required for creating a transportation system that only utilises terrestrial propellants. In addition, the use of in situ produced propellants can cut ongoing operations costs by a factor of two to three, and makes possible simpler and safer mission modes. Zubrin describes two mission plans, Mars Direct and Semi-Direct, which he formulated in collaboration with David Baker (formally of Lockheed Martin) and David Weaver (of Johnson Space Centre) respectively. These missions are accomplished with tandem launches of payloads to Mars using the upper stages of a heavy lift booster used to lift payloads into orbit. No in-orbit assembly of large interplanetary spacecraft are required. In situ-propellant production of methane/oxygen and water on the Martian surface is used to reduce return propellant and surface consumable requirements and thus total mission mass and cost. Zubrin has demonstrated the feasibility and reliability of this propellant production system in his laboratory. Chemical combustion powered ground vehicles are employed to afford a high degree of mobility required for an effective surface exploration programme. Zubrin explains what trajectories are optimal for piloted missions and presents his analysis on what technologies are optimal for each of the missions primary manoeuvres. The crew size and composition for initial piloted Mars missions is presented, along with a proposed surface systems payload manifest. Such payloads include long range pressurised rovers powered by in situ produced propellants. Zubrin suggests that the optimum crew size for the initial Mars missions is four, composed of two engineers and two scientists, or as he suggests, two Spocks and two Scotties. During the Apollo programme and previous manned Mars missions the abort philosophy has always been to return to the Earth. Zubrin argues that for a Mars mission this would be impractical and dangerous for the crew. Zubrin suggests that the default abort should be to the Martian surface and this illustrates the robustness of Zubrin's thinking and proposal. Abort to the Martian surface can be accomplished because an unoccupied habitat would be landed on Mars prior to the manned mission launching from Earth. Zubrin concludes, and the reader would be inclined to agree, that both the Mars Direct and Semi-Direct plans offer viable options for robust piloted Mars missions employing near- term technology. Zubrin demonstrates that using this mission scenario a modular central Mars base can be gradually built up, consisting of linked habitats, ensuring multiple redundancy. From this central base much of Mars can be explored in the detail that would be required for a full survey of Mars. This is especially true when searching for elusive signs of life, either preserved deep down in polar deposits, or several kilometres underground. Zubrin then describes how many of the day to day materials that we use such as plastics and steel can be manufactured from Martian resources. Thus larger habitats can be constructed and hence pave the way for a burgeoning civilisation. Zubrin details his work with Christopher McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames, on how the climate of Mars can be made more habitable for terrestrial life (see "Planetary Engineering," Science Spectra, Issue 6, 1996). Zubrin ends his book by explaining why the Martian "frontier" is essential for the continuation of human progress, the price tag for the first mission? Five to twenty billion dollars depending on the mission scenario. Zubrin points out this price is in the same range as the money given by the United States government to Mexico one afternoon in the summer of 1995, or the same price as a single major military procurement for a new weapons system. The international space station will cost approximately twelve billion dollars, plus two billion dollars a year for its operation. The vision and practicalities that Zubrin meticulously presents in The Case for Mars for utilising Martian resources is absolutely essential for the exploration of Mars. Without such technology, built and manufactured using Martian resources, the exploration, colonisation and terraforming of Mars which is of profound importance to the continuation of human and terrestrial life, will forever remain a thought experiment. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to move one step closer to this reality. ----------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT XIV CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT Learn What to Say to an alien. Attend the CONTACT XIV Conference With increasing signs of life on Mars flooding the media, the prospect of contact with extraterrestrial beings is more likely now than it ever has been in human history. Will you be ready? Join some of the world's foremost social and space scientists, science fiction writers and artists at CONTACT: Cultures of the Imagination from March 7-9, 1997 at the Sunnyvale Hilton in Sunnyvale, CA, U.S.A. CONTACT is a unique interdisciplinary conference held each year to promote the integration of human factors into space age research and policy, emphasize the interaction of the Arts and Sciences and their technologies, and explore the connections between anthropologists who study alien cultures and science fiction writers who create them. Conference activities include the exchange of new ideas and perspectives; serious, creative speculation about humanity's future, on-world and off-world; as well as the development of ethical approaches in cross-cultural contact, whenever and wherever it occurs. We welcome those of similar mind to participate in CONTACT. We believe that our conference is enriched by new colleagues and new ideas. Conference participants will have the opportunity to engage in several projects including the Bateson Project, a special yearly project in the memory of anthropologist Gregory Bateson; Cultures of the Imagination (COTI), an experiment in creation; The Solar System Simulation (SolSys) intercollegiate curriculum where student teams represent colonies in a simulated future human community in space, communicating by computer in virtual reality; and hear about The CONTACT Consortium, an organization which integrates science and technology to build communities in virtual space. Research which has resulted from past CONTACT conferences has been presented at several scientific meetings, published in professional journals, featured in the national media and nonfiction books, and documented in a PBS video. Our educational curricula have been funded by NASA and Smithsonian and received national recognition. Over the years, CONTACT has evolved into an international and professional organization and nonprofit scientific and educational corporation. We are proud of the distinguished professionals in the sciences and arts who have devoted their time and energy to CONTACT over the past decade. CONTACT participants have included writers Poul Anderson, Peter Beagle, Greg Bear, Michael Bishop, David Brin, C. J. Cherryh, Alan Dean Foster, James Hogan, Larry Niven, G. David Nordley, Jerry Pournelle, Rudy Rucker and William Tenn. Everyone's a participant! CONTACT welcomes professionals, students and enthusiasts in the sciences, science fiction, and the arts. Come and be part of our 14th annual gathering in an informal and synergistic atmosphere with plenty of opportunities for interaction. Join us for three days of hard work and hard play. The pre-registration cost is $60 for individuals ($90 at the door) and $40 for students and seniors ($60 at the door). Payment should be made via check or credit card. Mail a check or credit card information to CONTACT XIV, AWIT, 1012 Morse Avenue, #15, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. For more information, please call Lynn Macias at (415) 952-8436 (evenings). ----------------------------------------------------------------- RECENT PUBLICATIONS by Julian Hiscox Aburto, 1996. SETI detection ranges. SETIQuest v2, n4, 4-5. Beckwith and Sargent, 1996. Circumstellar disks and the search for neighbouring planetary systems. Nature v383, 139-144. Canfield and Teske, 1996. Late proterozoic rise in atmospheric oxygen concentration inferred from phylogenetic and sulphur- isotope studies. Nature v382, 127-132. Ekland and Bartel, 1986. RNA-catalysed RNA polymerisation using nucleoside triphosphates. Nature v382, 373-376. Ferris et al. 1996. Synthesis of long prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature. v381, 59-61. Finn et al. 1996. Utilisation of Martian atmosphere constituents by temperature-swing adsorption. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 423-430. Fogg, 1996. The utility of geothermal energy on Mars. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 403-422. Grotzinger and Rothman, 1996. An abiotic model for stromatolite morphogenesis. Nature v383, 423-425. Hart, (Ed.) 1996. Biotic recovery from mass extinction events. ISBN 1-897799-45-4. Hansson, 1996. Towards living spacecraft. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 387-390. Hayes, 1996. The earliest memories of life on Earth. Nature v384, 21-22. Hiscox, 1996. Planetary engineering: The science of genesis. Science Spectra n6, 70-74. Hiscox, 1996. Planetary engineering, habitable zones and the relevance for extraterrestrial civilisations. SETIQuest v2, n3, 13-18. Irvine et al. 1996. Spectroscopic evidence for interstellar ices in comet Hyakutake. Nature 383, 418-420. Jiang et al. 1996. Structural basis of RNA folding and recognition in an AMP-RNA aptamer complex. Nature v382 183-186. Kargel and Strom, 1996. Global climatic change on Mars. Scientific American v275, 80-88. Kerr, 1996. Martian rocks tell divergent stories (life on Mars). Science v274, 918. Kiedrowski, 1996. Primordial soup or crepes? Nature v381, 20-21. Kleinrock and Humphris, 1996. Structural control on sea-floor hydrothermal activity at the TAG active mound. Nature v382, 149- 153. Knoll, 1996. Breathing room for early animals. Nature v382, 111-112. Lawler, 1986. Building a bridge between the big bang and biology. Science, v274, 912. Lazcano and Miller, 1996. The origin and early evolution of life: Prebiotic chemistry, the pre-RNA world, and time. Nature v85, 793-798. LePage, 1996. Project BETA. SETIQuest v2, n3, 1-9. LePage, 1996. Extrasolar planet update. SETIQuest v2, n4, 6-11. LePage, 1996. The case for ancient life on Mars. SETIQuest v2, n4, 14-18. Marshall, 1996. Biological particles over Antarctica. Nature, v383, 680. Masood, 1986. British scientists seek recognition of role in "life on Mars" debate..as NASA's claims win few converts. Nature v384, 3-4. Matloff, 1996. The impact of nanotechnology upon interstellar solar sailing and SETI. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 307-312. Mautner. 1996. Space-based genetic cryoconservation of endangered species. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 319-320. McKay, 1996. To directly go: book review of "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. Nature, v383, 780. Mileikowsky, 1996. How and when could we be ready to send a 1000 KG research probe with a coasting speed of 0.3 C to a star. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 335-344. Mojzsis et al. 1996. Evidence for life on Earth before 3,800 million years ago. Nature v384, 55-59. Marino, 1996. Bioastronomy in Capri: Replacing the terms in the Drake equation with tangible data. SETIQuest v2, n4, 1-3. Noble, 1996. Radioisotopic electric propulsion for robotic science missions to near-interstellar space. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 322-328. Parsons, 1996. Dusting off panspermia. Nature v383, 221-222. Potter and Matloff, 1996. Light sail propulsion using thin-film photovoltaic technology. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 329-334. Rasio and Ford, 1996. Dynamical instabilities and the formation of extrasolar planetary systems. Science v274, 954-956. Russell, 1996. Black smokers and the origin of life. Science Spectra n4. Sarbu et al. 1996. A chemoautotrophically based cave ecosystem. Science v272, 1953-1955. Sridhar, 1996. Mars sample return mission with ISPP. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 435-440. Tarter, 1996. Alternative models for detecting very advanced extra-terrestrial civilisations. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 291-295. Vallee, 1996. The potential of SETI for existential models. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 283-290. Walter, 1996. Old fossils could be fractal frauds. Nature v383, 385-386. Williamson, 1996. Aptly named aptamers display their aptitude. Nature v382, 112-113. Yang and Scott, 1996. Possible contribution of a metal-rich magmatic fluid to a sea-floor hydrothermal system. Nature v383, 420-423. Zubrin, 1996. Detection of extraterrestrial civilisations via the spectral signature of advanced interstellar spacecraft. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 297-302. Zubrin, 1996. The significance of the Martian frontier. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 365-370. Zubrin, 1996. Athena: A possible first step in a programme of human Mars exploration. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society v49, 431-434.