MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 6, Number 6, 13 March 1999. Editors: Dr. David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA. Marsbugs@aol.com or davidt@uidaho.edu. Dr. Julian Hiscox, Division of Molecular Biology, IAH Compton Laboratory, Berkshire, RG20 7NN, UK. Julian.Hiscox@bbsrc.ac.uk 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. While we cannot copyright our mailing list, our readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing list. The editors do not condone "spamming" of our subscribers. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editors. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Article 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 and Adobe Acrobat PDF files suitable for printing may be obtained via anonymous FTP at ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs or at the official Marsbugs web page at http://members.aol.com/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. 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. Astrobiology 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 and astrobiology (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis and terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. ------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS 1) SPACE RESEARCH MAY ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT OF FLU FIGHTING DRUG NASA release 99-39 2) NASA SELECTS NEW BIOTECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENTS FOR DEVELOPMENT By Dave Dooling 3) NEW MARTIAN METEORITE FOUND By David Whitehouse 4) BRINGING MARS INTO THE IRON AGE By Dave Dooling 5) MUSH! SLED DOGS CARRY ASTROBIOLOGY TO DIZZYING HEIGHTS By Tony Phillips 6) MARS '98 MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 7) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 8) STARDUST MISSION STATUS JPL release 9) JOURNEY TO COLLECT "STARDUST" BEGINS Lockheed Martin press release 10) MARS SOCIETY CREATES NEW WEB SITE By Jim Burk 11) SPACE PROGRAM IMPORTANT TO EDUCATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT From the Space Awareness Alliance 12) PACIFIC SYMPOSIUM ON BIOCOMPUTING 2000 Conference announcement ------------------------------------------------------------------ SPACE RESEARCH MAY ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT OF FLU FIGHTING DRUG NASA release 99-39 11 March 1999 A NASA-industry team has used the results of Space Shuttle experiments to develop a new flu drug that may decrease the length and severity of the illness and even prevent the development of symptoms in those exposed to the virus. "With NASA support for space and ground-based research, we successfully mapped the molecular structure of the influenza virus," said Dr. Larry DeLucas, director of the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The mapping exposed the virus' weaknesses in greater detail and our industrial partners were able to develop a drug that exploits those weaknesses." Dr. Ming Luo, a professor at the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, and an international team of crystallographers developed the "molecular map" of the flu virus from space grown protein crystals. The map was used to design drugs that block the undesirable characteristics of the virus. "It's like trying to build a tiny key that fits into a tiny lock," said DeLucas. "Except this lock is living, breathing, flexing, changing temperatures and in constant motion." Pure, precisely ordered protein crystals of large size and uniformity are in high demand by drug developers. When grown on the ground, protein crystals often cannot be grown as large or as well-ordered as researchers desire, obscuring vital pathways to a better understanding of disease. The "frequent flyers" of the space program, protein crystal growth experiments are aboard nearly every Space Shuttle mission, helping researchers unlock the secrets of how to stop infection and disease on Earth. Influenza protein crystals flown aboard the Space Shuttle in May 1996 were used to confirm earlier studies and to determine the effectiveness of potential drugs on the flu virus protein. "By analyzing space-grown crystals of the influenza virus, we were able to get a clearer picture of the virus' structure," said DeLucas. "NASA's support for this research project probably saved considerable time needed to develop this new drug." The flu virus infects 20 to 40 million people in the United States each year, even with vaccines, and thousands are at risk of dying from its complications. The new drug, part of a new class of medicines called neuraminidase inhibitors, was developed in a partnership between NASA and the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography. The new compound was synthesized by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in Birmingham, AL, and is under development by The R. W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Raritan, NJ, a Johnson & Johnson Company. Sponsored by the Space Product Development Office, Microgravity Research Program, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, DeLucas' organization is chartered as a NASA Commercial Space Center-- encouraging private industry to benefit from space technology. Neuraminidase inhibitors are designed to block an active site of influenza neuraminidase, an enzyme associated with the spread of the flu. Unlike vaccines, which have to be taken before exposure and are only specific to certain strains of the influenza virus, a neuraminidase inhibitor may be taken as either treatment or prevention, and is effective against a wide variety of influenza strains. The R. W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute is responsible for all phases of testing the drug in humans. Before becoming available in the United States, the drug must undergo this testing and be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. More information about NASA's Microgravity Research Program experiments can be found at http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news http://microgravity.msfc.nasa.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------ NASA SELECTS NEW BIOTECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENTS FOR DEVELOPMENT By Dave Dooling From NASA Space Science News 8 March 1999 Squeezing through a tight spot and going against the flow are among the biotechnology techniques that will be explored by seven current and former researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. They are among 48 scientists selected under the latest NASA Research Announcement (NRA) focusing on biotechnology. Principal areas of research are protein crystal growth and cell science. One project touches on both of those fields. Dr. Robert Snyder is going to refine a system for purifying proteins and cells. Snyder is a former chief of the microgravity science division at NASA/Marshall's Space Sciences Laboratory. He now works with New Century Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Huntsville. He's studying electrophoresis, a technique that passes an electrical field through a fluid as it flows from one end of a chamber to another. The electric field makes molecules and cells move across the fluid. The speed depends on the molecule or cell's size, mass, or surface charge. Like a prism separating white light into its colors, an electrophoretic system can separate cells and proteins. But it's limited on Earth by convection caused by heating from the electric field. NASA and McDonnell Douglas experimented with electrophoresis aboard the Space Shuttle in the 1980s, but encountered unexpected problems that kept the technique form reaching its full potential. Snyder wants to try a different approach. "We've always felt very strongly that electrophoresis should be designed to take maximum advantage of microgravity in space," he explained. "Previously, we just adapted 1-g equipment designed for use on Earth." Snyder and Percy Rhodes, another NASA retiree also working at New Century Pharmaceuticals, are designing a new electrophoretic system that adds a flow field and uses the electric field to focus the materials he wants to separate. "There's an incredible interest on the part of the protein crystal growth community for purer proteins" so they can eliminate impurities that cause defects, Snyder explained. "Also, a variety of cells are extremely interesting for fractionating. You want to get purified cells, for certain treatments, so you don't overload the patient with other components that they don't need." Once you have the purified proteins, much remains to be learned about how they assemble into crystals, and how that process might be improved. "We're going to study how important different sites on proteins are to the crystallization process," said Dr. Marc Pusey of NASA/Marshall's Space Sciences Laboratory. Molecules form crystals because of atomic attractions between specific points on the molecule. Proteins--also called macromolecules because of their size--may have a large number (up to 70 points or more for even a small protein) that must connect in a highly specific manner. But no one is sure which ones are most critical for crystal growth. "By going in at the genetic level, we can study where the molecules are joined the strongest or the weakest," Dr. Pusey explained. "We may be able to alter some of these points--without affecting the function of the proteins--to make better contacts and improve the quality of the crystals. We can also study how important these contacts are to the nucleation and crystal growth process, and learn about the factors which drive crystal growth itself." Dr. Robert Naumann, also a former chief of the microgravity science division, is working on growing better crystals by putting them in a tight spot. Naumann now works at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. "One of the reasons we don't always get good crystals in space is that we can't always limit the movement of nutrient to the crystal," he explained. In this case, nutrient means proteins in solution. As the molecules join the expanding crystal, the concentration in that small region is depleted, and more molecules diffuse from the richer areas. But that unrestricted diffusion may be part of the problem. "It's like people going into a soccer stadium," Naumann explained. "If you have a few doors, the people have plenty of time to get in and find their seats. If you open it wide, they rush in and sit anywhere." And that can result in crystals that grow with less than ideal arrangements. Naumann's experiment will develop a growth technique that will limit the access that the molecules have and thus give the molecules more time to find their seats. It will take longer to grow crystals, but the result should be improved quality for crystals grown both on Earth and in space. Dr. Russell Judge of NASA/Marshall also is looking at how microgravity improves crystal quality. "We want to determine how the growth of crystals affects their quality," Judge said, "and then take that into space to see how microgravity is enhancing the growth characteristics that lead to good crystals. From this we want to develop techniques, so that by observing crystal growth on the ground, we can predict which proteins are likely to benefit the most from microgravity crystallization." He will experiment with a number of materials representing different classes of proteins including, commercial enzymes and food storage proteins. Dr. Craig E. Kundrot, a senior scientist in the Laboratory for Structural Biology, will optimize microgravity growth procedures to improve the quality of problematic crystals that have resisted efforts to grow better specimens in space. "So far, we have used microgravity experiments to make good crystals better," Kundrot said. "But we have not tried to make poor ones better." He will work on three types of ribonucleic acid, two proteins, and a protein-DNA complex. "They all have different problems," Kundrot said. "In one system, only one experiment in ten gives a crystal good enough for x-ray diffraction studies. Another has a diffusion scatter that swamps and fogs those nice spots in the diffraction image." Others are so fragile that they break when being mounted for study, and another has a tendency to "twin," spontaneously become Siamese twins instead of a single crystal. "Also, I believe that going from poorly diffracting crystals grown on the ground to good ones grown in space is the most attractive use of space from the pharmaceutical industries' point of view," Kundrot said. Another aspect of the work is searching for new crystallization conditions in space. "There are good reasons to believe that it is easier to find conditions for growing crystals in space rather than on the ground," he continued. "The space 'haystack' is smaller than the earth 'haystack' in this version of the 'needle in the haystack' problem. If true, this would also be of commercial interest. Dr. Daniel C. Carter of New Century Pharmaceuticals Inc., Huntsville, former director of the Laboratory for Structural Biology, also was selected. He will investigate "Protein Crystal Growth Facility-Based Microgravity Hardware: Science and Applications." [For more information on this and related topics, see http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/msad08mar99_1.htm] ------------------------------------------------------------------ NEW MARTIAN METEORITE FOUND By David Whitehouse, BBC News Online Science Editor 11 March 1999 A brown stone the size of a coconut has been identified as only the 14th known meteorite from Mars. An anonymous meteorite hunter picked it up in the Dar al Gani region of the Libyan Sahara desert last year. Early data indicates that Dar al Gani 489 is very similar to the piece of rock that was classified as the 13th Martian meteorite-- Dar al Gani 476. Indeed, the two specimens may have been fragments from the same fall. The full story can be read at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_294000/294187.stm ------------------------------------------------------------------ BRINGING MARS INTO THE IRON AGE By Dave Dooling From NASA Space Science News 3 March 1999 Science base could quickly become self-powered. A metal-making process known to the ancient Romans could be pressed into service to bring Mars into the Iron Age--and start opening the solar system to human habitation. "If you look at the soil composition of Mars, the one thing that really strikes you is that it's 5 to 14 percent iron oxide," said Dr. Peter Curreri, a materials scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "It's almost ore-grade material." Using Mars ore, Curreri says, early explorers could build receivers to generate electricity from radio waves beamed from a mother ship in Mars orbit. While NASA does not have a program to put humans on Mars, it is developing technologies and mission concepts for such a possibility. A gleam in the eye "What really put the gleam in my eye," said Curreri, "when I got into space 20 years ago as a graduate biotechnology student, was the concept that if you can process materials in space for use in space, you can really open up the frontier. Putting a manufacturing device on the Moon or Mars can provide products that weigh 20 times or more the weight of the propellants to deliver it. That becomes a very powerful lever." Curreri's NASA career has focused on learning how to process materials in the microgravity environment of Earth orbit. Now he is looking to the planets where processes would take place in gravity fields less than that of Earth. In a recent study, Curreri and Dr. David Criswell of the University of Houston borrowed from several concepts to provide a new twist on making Mars habitable. They presented the results, "Potential for In Situ Rectenna Production on Mars," at a recent space development conference in Albuquerque, N.M. Curreri's study has several drivers, including the high price of the manned Mars mission proposed in 1989 and a requirement to develop a non-nuclear Mars mission option. The high price tag spurred Mars supporters to look at the possibility of using local materials to make propellants for the return trip. The non- nuclear option led to the Solar Clipper. This combines an ion drive with large solar cell arrays proposed in new NASA studies of solar power satellites, another 1970s idea. The unmanned Solar Clipper would boost itself to a high Earth orbit over the period of a year. After the crew arrives on a small, faster craft, the Solar Clipper would use a chemical rocket to make the final boost to Mars. In several schemes under study, an unmanned propellant factory would precede the manned crew to Mars. This craft would refine the Martian carbon dioxide atmosphere and mixed it with hydrogen (brought along or electrolyzed from water ice in the polar caps) to make liquid oxygen and methane to power the crew's return to Mars orbit. Unleaded or regular? "Say we had to make a trip to California by car," Curreri explained. "We could build a tractor-trailer rig and haul a huge tank of gas to get us out there and back. It's like that now with rockets because we have to take the propellant for the return trip all the way out there. Or, we could build a smaller car and refill when we get there." The idea for making Mars propellant originated in the early 1970s with the late Dr. Gerard O'Neill of Princeton University. It has been promoted vigorously by Dr. Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer who felt that "living off the land" would make the journey cheaper than a mission that attempted to take everything with it. Refining your own propellants becomes a challenge if you restrict yourself to solar power systems on the surface, Curreri says. To satisfy the mission's needs, astronauts would have to deploy the equivalent of six football fields of solar arrays and then keep them dusted off, and use fuel cells or batteries for power during the night--after the expense of landing them. Curreri thought that the Solar Clipper could be pressed into double duty once it arrives at Mars. The Clipper's solar cells would provide more than enough power to run the Mars outpost. The trick is getting the electricity to the ground. Red means iron Beaming it [electricity] as microwaves that a special rectifying antenna--the rectenna--turns into direct current electricity can do that. Engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center had considered that possibility but found themselves boxed in at two ends of the radio spectrum. At the long wavelengths that are easily broadcast now, the outpost would need a 20 km-wide field covered with rectennas. A small field is possible, but that requires broadcasting at much shorter wavelengths that engineers do not expect will be practical in the near future. Curreri and Criswell took a different approach. Mars is rich in iron. "That's why it's the Red Planet," Curreri explained. "It's covered with rust." Iron has little use in aerospace vehicles because it is heavy and corrodes readily. In Mars' gravity field, only 0.38 that of Earth, iron and everything else weighs less. Iron will not corrode readily because Mars' thin atmosphere has virtually no free oxygen. And, most of a rectenna's mass is in the metal for the dipole antennas. "What if you were to make that metal on Mars?" Curreri asked. "You could make refining the ore a part of the propellant refining process." Using water to convert carbon dioxide to methane also yields carbon monoxide, a reducing agent that reacts with rust to produce carbon dioxide and free iron. "It's a process that's been used since the time of the Romans to refine iron ore," Curreri said. A chemical reactor could process Mars' air and soil into rocket propellant and into rectenna parts. The iron would be rolled up as strips to make dipoles and wire to form a mesh reflector behind the dipoles. The waste, or slag, would be formed into insulator strips going between the dipoles. A powerful place to be "If we put the Solar Clipper 17,023 km up, it would be in areosynchronous orbit, meaning its orbital period matches the rotation of Mars, then we would have continuous power," Curreri said. This is like the geosynchronous orbit used by communications satellites around Earth so an antenna is always pointed at the satellite. The initial Mars lander would carry enough materials to make a 1.5 km-wide rectenna that would provide 150 kilowatts of electricity to power the refinery. As it cranked out rocket propellant, iron, and slag, automated equipment would expand the rectenna to 20 km in diameter. That would boost the power output to more than 7 megawatts, enough to run a large exploration base. Continued expansion would only require the shipment from Earth of rectifier circuits, which are small and lightweight. Unlike solar arrays that would have to be dusted off periodically, the rectenna would require little maintenance since the dust particles are too small to interact with the radio waves. And the rectenna would work year-round, night and day, with the exception of short eclipses during the spring and autumnal equinoxes. "Eventually you end up with a power-rich environment on Mars," Curreri said. "Then Mars becomes the second safest place in the solar system for humans. It's an attractive haven instead of aborting a mission and trying to come home." Curreri says this would be the start of an interplanetary economy. "We should begin marrying the concepts for the exploration of space with the utilization of space," he said. "The key is to build. Rather than just going to Mars to say we did it, you want to go there and build an infrastructure so people could stay and live." [For more information on this and related topics, see http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/msad03mar99_1.htm] ------------------------------------------------------------------ MUSH! SLED DOGS CARRY ASTROBIOLOGY TO DIZZYING HEIGHTS By Tony Phillips From NASA Space Science News 12 March 1999 Space Science News home "Life on the Edge" advances to a mountain summit at 13,000 feet. Last month a 50 pound canister of yeast and other microbes arrived at a 13,000 foot summit in California's White Mountains. It was the first step in a new educational program called "Life on the Edge," which aims to expose grade school students to some of the basic principles of astrobiology and to explore the possibilities for life elsewhere in the Solar System. "The basic idea" says Dr. David Noever, a member of NASA/Marshall's astrobiology research group, "is to subject a collection of benign microorganisms to some of Earth's harshest environments, including geothermal vents, high mountain peaks, and even the South Pole. After the microbes have been exposed to these severe conditions for a period of time, we will recover them and distribute them to classrooms. Grade school students can perform simple laboratory protocols on their samples to see how their microbes fared, and they'll be able to compare harsh environments on Earth to places like Europa, the Moon, and Mars." The first phase of Life on the Edge is being conducted as a joint effort between NASA/Marshall's Space Science Laboratory and the University of California's White Mountain Research Station (WMRS). The WMRS maintains four research facilities for high-altitude research in the White Mountains of eastern California. The highest facility sits atop the White Mountain summit, a wind- swept peak at 14,249 feet. Conditions there are severe. Near the summit, air pressure is only 600 millibars and the sustained temperature during winter is a frigid -20° C. Annual precipitation is less than 12 inches, most of which arrives as snow in winter. The temperature, pressure, and low humidity are similar to conditions at Earth's south pole during the austral summer. "Most of what we do is research in physiology, wildlife biology, and geology," says Dave Trydahl, the WMRS station manager. "This astrobiology activity is a new area for us and we're eager to support it." The WMRS staff have opened their facilities as shelters for the dog sled team, broken some difficult trails with snowmachines, and helped convey the yeast vessel to its present location. "We haven't yet made it to the top (at 14,249 feet) despite 4 trips with the dog sled team and 2 trips in snowmobiles," says Dr. Tony Phillips, a NASA astronomer and musher. "We've been delayed by severe storms, white outs, minor injuries to me and to the dogs--you name it. It's an extreme environment up there. That's why it's so difficult." "But," he continued, "we have conveyed the microbes to a summit at 13,000 ft, not far from the 14,249 foot peak, and they are exposed to the environment there. We're planning additional trips in the near future to move them to the top." Some of the yeast packets will be recovered in May for distribution to classrooms. Others will remain at the top through the winter of 1999-2000 for prolonged exposure to severe conditions. What's it like dogsledding in the White Mountains? Tony Phillips contributed this account based on his most recent trip. Blondie's Revenge or "My dog ate the microbes!" February 25, 1999: "My team of eight Siberian Huskies and I began a 50 mile sled run to the summit of the White Mountains on a perfect day for sledding. It was cold, the trail was well-packed, and we began our steep ascent averaging about 6 mph. We had previously advanced the yeast packets to 13,000 ft, only 1000 ft below the summit, and this time we hoped to reach the top." "About 13 miles into our trip one of my sled dogs--a giant, enthusiastic puller named Blondie--twisted his leg. The usual procedure when a dog is hurt is to bundle him into a bag, which sits in the basket of the sled. The rest of the team then pulls the musher and the injured dog to safety." "With this in mind I unsnapped Blondie from the gang line, and lifted him into the sled bag. Or tried to. The rescue quickly turned into an epic wrestling match. Although I am twice as heavy as Blondie, and arguably smarter, it was no contest. After a brief struggle, the sled was over-turned, my face was covered in snow, and Blondie stood panting happily back in position with the rest of the team. Blondie wanted to pull, not ride. After a few repetitions of this procedure, Blondie won out. I returned him to the team, and we headed for home. It was not a very productive trip, except for Blondie who proved that he can pull just as hard on 3 legs as he can with 4." February 28, 1999: "Two days later we made another assault on the White Mountains. Blondie, who was still limping slightly, stayed home and was replaced in the team by Peanut, a small female Husky. Blondie was clearly affronted by being left behind, but we couldn't risk aggravating his injury. In retrospect I wish I had taken him. I might have avoided the revenge he exacted days later." "This run began much like the last. A hard-packed trail. A cool breeze. Good conditions for sledding. "At first we made record time. The dogs ascended 2500 feet in only 2.5 hours. It looked as if we would reach the summit in a single day with energy to spare." "Since our last run the wind had blown enormous snowdrifts along the trail. At one point, where the underlying path was carved from the side of a mountain, the trail disappeared entirely under a drift of rock hard snow that spilled steeply downward into a 150 foot ravine. The trick was to make it across without slipping sideways down the side of the mountain." "From a distance it looked sled-able. No problem, I thought, if we go fast enough. We went fast, all right, straight down to the bottom of the crevasse." "Regaining the trail was not easy. The snow was so hard that I couldn't punch my fingers through the surface for a handhold. (They are still swollen from trying.) The only way up was by crawling crab-like on my stomach, pulling the dogs and sled behind me. The dogs helped as much as they could, but on the slippery slope they couldn't stand up for long. One, two, then three legs would slip, followed by a funny little 'ufff' sound and a downward tug on the sled. Our ascent back to the trail lasted more an hour." "Once up, I nearly fainted. Then I nearly barfed. It would've been a good workout at sea-level, but at 11,500 feet it felt about midway between devastating and catastrophic." "We eventually discovered a detour and continued sledding, but the damage was done. We were three hours behind schedule and the exertion of our adventure in the crevasse had given me a serious case of altitude sickness. By 4:30 p.m., ill and exhausted, I decided to stop for the night at Barcroft Station (elevation 12,500 feet)." "Altitude sickness is no fun, and I won't belabor the details. Throughout the night I melted snow for cup after cup of herbal tea (my wife's special remedy) and, miraculously, I was fit to sled again by morning. On the morning of March 1, I hooked up the dogs and we left Barcroft Station for a stopping point at 13,000 feet where the yeast has been exposed to the harsh mountain environment for over 5 weeks." "Rather than convey the yeast from there to the summit, which I felt was beyond my limits at that moment, I decided to photograph the area and to collect snow and soil samples for later microbial analysis. At present no one knows which, if any, indigenous microorganisms live in the wind-swept peaks of the White Mountain range. We hope to find some that might later be identified as local extremophiles." "I spent over an hour collecting samples, including rocks, snow and soil. I packed them carefully into the sled bag, turned the team around and finally headed home." "Descending from 13,000 ft to 8,500 ft was easier than the climb the day before, and we reached my truck before nightfall. It had been a difficult two-day journey, but I felt that the many microbe samples tucked away in my sled bag made the trip worthwhile. I drove home, tired but satisfied." March 2, 1999--Blondie's Revenge: "A day after we returned I was preparing to ship our hard-won samples to the Marshall Space Flight Center where astrobiologists would examine them for evidence of microbial life. Blondie, still recuperating from his injury, was asleep in my office when I placed the sample bag on my desk and left briefly for a cup of tea." "When I returned only Blondie remained. The sample pouch was on the floor in shreds. Fragments of plastic vials and swirl bags littered the floor. Blondie stretched and let out a long, satisfied belch. My dog ate the microbes!" "Blondie is recovering nicely so we know that any White Mountain extremophiles are not pathogenic to huskies. In fact, huskies may be the toughest extremophiles we encounter during the Life on the Edge experiment." "We're going back again in two weeks for more samples. This time I plan to take Blondie with me." Life on the Edge is a collaborative educational project being developed between NASA/Marshall Space Science Laboratory, the University of California White Mountain Research Station (WMRS) and the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA). Participants include David Noever, Richard Hoover, Tony Phillips, John Horack, and Dale Watring of NASA; Dave Trydahl, Joe Szewczak, and Susan Szewczak of the WMRS. ------------------------------------------------------------------ MARS '98 MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 4 March 1999 The Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft successfully performed its second planned course correction this morning at 5:35 a.m. Pacific time to fine-tune its path to Mars. The spacecraft initiated a turn to the correct orientation for the maneuver, then fired its four maneuvering engines for 8.2 seconds, changing its speed by just 0.86 meters per second (1.9 miles per hour). The spacecraft performed as expected in all respects, returning to its nominal orientation for cruise within 10 minutes after completion of the maneuver. Today the orbiter is 17.8 million kilometers (10.8 million miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of 2,090 meters per second (4,590 miles per hour). The next course correction for the Mars Climate Orbiter is July 25, 1999, two months before its September 23 arrival at Mars. Mars Polar Lander also continues to perform well on its way to Mars. This week, the meteorology sensor package was powered on for its second in-flight calibration and health check. Telemetry from this activity was as expected. Otherwise, no activities were conducted on the lander so that the flight team could focus on the development and execution of the orbiter's course correction maneuver. Today the lander is 14.9 million kilometers (9.2 million miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of 1,868 meters per second (4,180 miles per hour). The lander's next trajectory correction maneuver is scheduled for March 15, 1999. It arrives at Mars on December 3, 1999. ------------------------------------------------------------------ NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 10 March 1999 Mars Global Surveyor has begun its mapping of Mars on March 8, 1999. New images taken by the spacecraft this month are already available on the MGS web site. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/index.html or http://www.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/images/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ STARDUST MISSION STATUS JPL release 5 March 1999 NASA's Stardust spacecraft continues to operate smoothly since its perfect launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on February 7. The performance of the Delta II rocket in delivering Stardust onto its interplanetary trajectory was so precise, in fact, that the mission's first course correction maneuver, scheduled for February 22, was deemed unnecessary and was cancelled. The dust flux monitor instrument has been turned on and is now operational, with initial data being forwarded to co- investigator Dr. Anthony Tuzzolino at the University of Chicago, where the instrument was built. The dust flux monitor will register impacts by particles as Stardust flies through the coma of Comet Wild-2 on January 2, 2004. The comet and interstellar dust analyzer, provided by Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, has also been turned on, and the Stardust team expects to complete its testing this week. On March 19, the Stardust operations team plans to turn on the navigation camera, which will help target the spacecraft and also provide images of Comet Wild- 2's nucleus. The spacecraft is now more than 10.6 million kilometers (6.5 million miles) from Earth, traveling on a long trajectory that will carry it through a stream of interstellar dust on its way to its encounter with Comet Wild-2. Stardust's objectives are to gather particles flying off the nucleus of Comet Wild-2 and return them to Earth for scientific analysis, and to collect and return samples of interstellar dust flowing through our solar system. Stardust is the first spacecraft ever launched on a mission to bring back material from beyond the Moon. It is also the first U.S. mission to a comet. Stardust's sample return capsule is due to parachute into Earth's atmosphere and land on the U.S. military's Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City on January 15, 2006. Stardust, built and operated by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colorado, is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. ------------------------------------------------------------------ JOURNEY TO COLLECT "STARDUST" BEGINS Lockheed Martin press release http://www.ast.lmco.com/astroweb/press99/den008.shtml 7 February 1999 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the Lockheed Martin Astronautics-built Stardust spacecraft today at 4:04 p.m. EST on a seven-year mission to collect cometary material and, for the first time ever, bring it back to Earth. "With the successful launch of Stardust, we have delivered three spacecraft to orbit within 60 days--the Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander and Stardust," said Dr. Ray Colladay, Astronautics president. "We also are monitoring and controlling all three spacecraft in addition to the Mars Global Surveyor from our facilities near Denver. This is a tremendous team effort between Lockheed Martin, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory." Stardust is the first U.S. mission dedicated solely to a comet and the first mission designated to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon. The main objective of Stardust is to capture a sample from a well-preserved comet called Wild-2 (pronounced "Vilt-2"). Stardust will meet up with Comet Wild-2 in January 2004. During its closest approach to the comet, Stardust should come within 93 miles (150 kilometers) of the comet nucleus and will take detailed images of the surface features with an onboard navigation camera. Just before the spacecraft's closest approach to the nucleus, Stardust will deploy a tennis-racket-shaped particle catcher filled with a smoke-colored glass foam called aerogel to capture the comet particles. While flying through the comet's coma, the spacecraft will capture particles and store them in a sample return capsule. The spacecraft also will collect interstellar dust from a recently discovered flow of particles that passes through our solar system from interstellar space. On January 15, 2006, the samples will be returned to Earth in the sample return capsule that will parachute gently onto the salt flats of the Utah desert for retrieval. The comet and interstellar samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about the origin of solar systems, planets and life. Lockheed Martin has supported NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in missions of exploration to every planet in our solar system except Pluto -- the only planet that has yet to be explored. Stardust is a mission under NASA's Discovery Program, which sponsors low-cost system exploration projects with highly focused science goals. Astronautics is involved in four other Discovery Program missions. The company played an important role in the Pathfinder mission, and is an industrial partner with NASA on the Genesis mission that will return samples of solar wind particles following launch in January 2001. In November 1998, the company also was selected to conduct implementation feasibility studies for Aladdin, a mission to gather samples from Mars' moon Phobos and Deimos; and VESPER, an orbiter that would study the atmosphere of Venus. If Aladdin is selected for development, as the industry partner, Astronautics will design and build the Aladdin sample return capsule, the sample collector and the spacecraft structure and propulsion system at its facilities near Denver, Colo. If VESPER is selected for development, as the industry partner, Astronautics will build the VESPER spacecraft, perform system integration and test and provide mission operations at its facilities near Denver, Colo. Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space was the industry partner on a fifth Discovery mission called Lunar Prospector that is orbiting and mapping the composition and gravity field of Earth's Moon. Lunar Prospector was launched on January 6, 1998 on an Astronautics-built Athena II rocket. As part of NASA's Mars Surveyor program, Astronautics also built the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft that were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., on December 11, 1998 and January 3, 1999, respectively. Astronautics is one of the operating units of Lockheed Martin's Space & Strategic Missiles Sector headquartered in Bethesda, Md. Astronautics designs, develops, tests and manufactures a variety of advanced technology systems for space and defense. Chief products include planetary spacecraft and other space systems, space launch systems and ground systems. For more information contact: Evan McCollum (303) 977-5364 (Denver) (303) 594-3081 (cell) (303) 977-5937 (message) (888) 617- 1239 (pager) E-mail: Evan B. McCollum@lmco.com Joan Underwood 888-369-2496 (pager) 303-971-7398 (office) E-mail: Joan.B.Underwood@lmco.com Janet Clark 888-476-5453 (pager) 303-971-2218 (office) E-mail: Janet.H.Clark@lmco.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ MARS SOCIETY CREATES NEW WEB SITE By Jim Burk 5 March 1999 I'd like to tell you about an exciting new web site that the Mars Society has put together in the past couple of weeks--MarsNews.com [http://www.MarsNews.com]. The site is designed to be a one-stop source for Mars News. We index all Mars news stories written by the major media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, Space Today, SpaceViews, etc. and organize them for you. We also have a lot of details about the current and future Mars missions and information on the search for Mars life and technology that will help us all get to Mars. And of course, plenty of links! The site is online now, and we will be "beta testing" it for the next week or two. It would be great if everybody reading this could spend some time looking at the content, trying out the search feature, and sending mail to us with his or her comments/suggestions/ideas/criticisms. We are also looking for interested people to volunteer to be "assistant editors" at the site, and they would help us search the net for the latest news & enter stories into our news database. Thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy the web site. Jim Burk President, Mars Society Puget Sound Managing Editor/Webmaster, MarsNews.com [webmaster@marsnews.com] ------------------------------------------------------------------ SPACE PROGRAM IMPORTANT TO EDUCATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT-- SURVEY FINDS AMERICANS STILL HAVE HEADS IN THE STARS From the Space Awareness Alliance 4 March 1999 Three out of four Americans say the space program should play an important role in key areas of national life--including education, health research and the environment--according to a survey conducted on behalf of the Space Awareness Alliance. The survey also found that two out of three Americans have a very favorable opinion of space exploration. In the nationwide survey of 1,000 registered voters, 74 percent of the respondents said it was important that space technology and research be used for educational purposes in the classroom. Only 4 percent said it was not important. Interesting enough, African- Americans supported the use of space technology and research for educational purposes at a significantly higher level (83 percent) than the overall survey sample. Americans also believe that medical research should be a prime beneficiary of space research, with 73 percent of those surveyed saying it was important to use space technology in health-related areas. Just one out of 20 Americans said it was not important. Although support was fairly consistent across the board, men with advanced college degrees and incomes over $60,000 most strongly favor the use of space research for health-related matters. Americans are similarly bullish on the relationship of space exploration to another issue of national importance--the environment. Seventy four percent of respondents agreed that the U.S. space industry should use technology and space research to help protect the environment. People in the west (78 percent) and under the age of 35 (79 percent) were most vocal in their support. Other areas respondents felt should be high on the space industry's and NASA's to-do list included communications, agriculture and the development of everyday products. Americans appear to have taken note of this last item. When asked how much technology developed for the space program ends up available to consumers, 67 percent said some or a great deal, 26 percent said not much and 6 percent did not know. "The results of this survey confirm that the public continues to believe strongly in the nation's space initiative, with 65 percent saying they have a highly favorable opinion of space exploration," said Don O'Neal, chairman of the Space Awareness Alliance. "The challenge we face is to continue to demonstrate the benefits of space-related technology and research to people's lives, particularly in areas that matter most--healthcare, education and the environment." One interesting side note of the survey is that it supports the notion that Americans are becoming more and more technologically savvy. Of the 1,000 people surveyed, 59 percent said they accessed the Internet and 20 percent said they logged on daily. The study was released in conjunction with Spaceweek, March 7-13, an annual event to celebrate the space program and its impact on life on earth. It is celebrated in more than a dozen countries around the world. This week, Spaceweek is offering the National Space Test(tm) as a challenge for all Americans to test their knowledge of the many benefits derived from Space. The nationwide survey of 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of 3 percent was conducted by Shandwick Research on January 29 through February 1, 1999. The Space Awareness Alliance (SAA) is a non-profit consortium composed of government, corporate and other non-profit entities with an interest in space. SAA supports a national public awareness effort to broaden awareness, understanding and support for the important role space plays in people's lives and the tremendous impact it will have on our future. ------------------------------------------------------------------ PACIFIC SYMPOSIUM ON BIOCOMPUTING 2000 Conference announcement From the PSB 2000 web page (http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/psb/) March 1999 The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB 2000) is an international, multidisciplinary conference for the presentation and discussion of current research in the theory and application of computational methods in problems of biological significance. Papers and presentations are rigorously peer reviewed and are published in an archival proceedings volume. PSB 2000 will be held January 5-9, 2000, in Honolulu, Hawaii at the Sheraton Waikiki. [NB: The exact start date of the meeting is tentative and, pending availability, may be changed to January 4.] PSB 2000 will bring together top researchers from the US, the Asian Pacific nations and around the world to exchange research results and address open issues in all aspects of computational biology. PSB is a forum for the presentation of work in databases, algorithms, interfaces, visualization, modeling and other computational methods, as applied to biological problems, with emphasis on applications in data-rich areas of molecular biology. The PSB has been designed to be responsive to the need for critical mass in sub-disciplines within biocomputing. For that reason, it is the only meeting whose sessions are defined dynamically each year in response to specific proposals. PSB sessions are organized by leaders in the emerging areas, and targeted to provide a forum for publication and discussion of research in biocomputing's "hot topics." In this way, PSB provides an early forum for serious examination of emerging methods and approaches in this rapidly changing field. Call for Session Proposals We encourage you to submit a proposal for such a session before February 16, 1999. See the detailed call for sessions for more information. Call for Tutorial Proposals PSB 2000 will offer a series of tutorials. If you are interested in teaching a tutorial at PSB 2000, please read the call for tutorials and submit your proposal by June 1, 1999. Conference Registration and Travel Reservations You will want to make travel and hotel reservations as early as possible this year. We are negotiating discounted airfares, car rentals and accommodations, and will post additional information here as it becomes available. We recognize that the cost of traveling to a resort area during peak tourist season can be high, especially this year. We have done everything we could to keep expenses to a minimum, and we will provide an expanded "Guide to PSB on the cheap" this year. Because of Honolulu's urban nature (including public transit, fast food, etc.) it should be possible to spend less overall at PSB 2000 than at previous PSBs. Travel Support PSB has limited funds for travel support to PSB 2000. Soon we will have more information about how to apply for travel support. Sponsors PSB gratefully acknowledges the support of its sponsors. We would like to offer a special thanks to the Department of Energy for their participation since the founding of the conference, and for their commitment to support PSB'99, PSB 2000, and PSB'01. The International Society for Computational Biology will again provide travel fellowships this year. Other sponsorships are pending. If you or your organization would like to be a sponsor of PSB, please contact Keith Dunker (dunker@mail.wsu.edu). Previous PSB Meetings Information about previous PSB meetings, including the full electronic proceedings, is available. See http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/psb/ For more information: PSB Conference Coordinator Kevin Lauderdale PSB Coordinator Section on Medical Informatics SUMC, MSOB X-215 Stanford, CA, USA 94305-5479 Telephone: (650) 725-0659 FAX: (650) 725-7944 ------------------------------------------------------------------ End Marsbugs Vol. 6, No. 6