MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 6, Number 7, 17 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) "LA NIŅA" HANGS ON JPL image advisory 2) SPACELAB JOINED DIVERSE SCIENTISTS AND DISCIPLINES ON 28 SHUTTLE MISSIONS From NASA Space Science News 3) BOOK REVIEW--THE DEEP HOT BIOSPHERE Reviewed by Julian Hiscox 4) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MISSION STATUS JPL release 5) CASSINI MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 6) MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 7) BACK-ISSUES NEEDED By David Thomas ------------------------------------------------------------------ "LA NIŅA" HANGS ON JPL image advisory 10 March 1999 The cold pool of water in the Pacific known as "La Niņa" still persists, although it is slowly weakening, according to scientists studying new data from the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite. A new image, produced using sea-surface height measurements taken by the satellite, is available on the Internet (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/elnino/). It shows sea-surface height on February 27, 1999 relative to normal ocean conditions, reflecting the heat content of the ocean. The low sea level or cold pool of water along the equator (shown in purple and blue), commonly referred to as La Niņa, still dominates the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This La Niņa, which first appeared in May through June 1998, still persists, although it is slowly weakening, scientists say. Given its persistence and present strength, the ocean cooling trend is expected to continue to exert a strong influence on global climate systems throughout the spring and into the early summer. This situation is similar to the 1997-1998 El Niņo, which extended into late summer 1998. The world's oceans are the great reservoirs of heat that influence global climate because they can cool or heat the atmosphere above. This transfer of heat drives weather patterns across both land and sea. La Niņa provides a physical link connecting the large, slow changes in the ocean with predictable changes in day-to-day weather. "La Niņa shifts the high-altitude weather highway known as the 'jet stream,'" said Dr. William Patzert, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It funnels storm tracks to the Pacific Northwest, which has resulted in heavy rainfall and lots of snow in that region so far, as well as the upper Midwest. Much of the Southwest, by contrast, has been shielded from stormy weather and, as a result, has received significantly less precipitation than normal to date. "This year's La Niņa was average in its intensity, but at its peak, it was associated with a 15- to- 20-centimeter deep trough (6 to 8 inches) in the central tropical Pacific," Patzert said. "The depression was correlated with a 2- to- 3-degree Centigrade (about 3.5 to 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit) dip in normal ocean surface temperatures." The image also shows that the very large, unusual area of higher or warmer water (shown here in red and white) in the western Pacific Ocean, from the tropics to the Gulf of Alaska, continues to expand. Although the appearance of this feature is not fully understood, it is recognized as influential to overall weather and climate. The white areas in the image indicate that the sea-surface height is between 14 and 32 centimeters (6 to 13 inches) above normal; in the red areas, sea-surface height is about 10 centimeters (4 inches) above normal. The green areas indicate normal conditions. The purple areas are between 14 to 18 centimeters (6 to 7 inches) below normal, and the blue areas are between 5 to 13 centimeters (2 to 5 inches) below normal. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the TOPEX/Poseidon mission for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. ------------------------------------------------------------------ SPACELAB JOINED DIVERSE SCIENTISTS AND DISCIPLINES ON 28 SHUTTLE MISSIONS From NASA Space Science News 15 March 1999 When scientists start conducting science experiments on board the International Space Station, they will be drawing on a heritage developed on 29 Space Shuttle missions that carried Spacelab, a reusable laboratory for space. In the process, Spacelab brought together scientists whose diverse disciplines would have kept them from meeting but for one fact. Their experiments somehow made the right fit, or at least did not interfere, so they could fly together. "The thing I enjoyed the most was the opportunity to work for seven years with really competent people," said Dr. Loren Acton, a payload specialist on Spacelab 2. Acton was then with the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory. He now is with the Montana State University in Bozeman. "It was a pleasure to be part of a program where you could count on everyone. It was a wonderful experience to be involved in so many different fields of science." On his flight in 1985, Acton, a solar physicist, also worked on experiments in plant growth, vitamin D metabolism, and infrared, X-ray, and cosmic ray astrophysics. Last week, NASA and the National Academy of Sciences held a two-day symposium "Spacelab Accomplishments Forum." Spacelab was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) in the 1970s and early '80s as its entry into manned space flight. When Space Shuttle development started in the early 1970s, NASA recognized that it needed a facility that would allow scientists to conduct research on the Shuttle while in orbit. A permanent space station was still several years in the future, and scientists wanted to expand on research and lessons from the Skylab space station. At the same time, ESA wanted to become involved in manned space flight. After exploring several options, NASA and ESA agreed upon a modular research laboratory--soon called Spacelab--that would fit inside the Shuttle's payload bay. The two basic sets of hardware allowed scientists to conduct experiments inside--protected in a pressurized module--or outside with instruments mounted on pallets exposed to space. Building on its experience from the three-man Skylab space station (1973-74), NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center was placed in charge of Spacelab development and missions and, later, payload control during missions. Space Sciences Laboratory scientists would serve as mission scientists and as principal or co-investigators, and large teams would become involved in support roles during the missions. Depending on the research planned for the mission, Spacelab could be assembled in a dozen arrangements, such as a long module with one pallet, a short module with three pallets, or four pallets and no module. In time, NASA, the Air Force, and industry developed other carriers for payloads that had unique needs that Spacelab did not meet, or that did not need everything Spacelab offered. Nevertheless, from 1982 through 1998, Spacelab was the focal point for experiments conducted by Americans in space. Because the missions were limited in duration 10 days, then 19 days with the addition of an energy kit--it was anything but a luxury cruise. "It's kind of like a science marathon," said Dr. Fred Leslie, a materials scientist with NASA/Marshall. He was a payload specialist for the second U.S. Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1) in 1995. "Once we unstrap from our seats after launch, there's a lot of things to do," Leslie said. These include helping the pilots stow launch plans and spacesuits, break out orbital plans, and handle other tasks for operations. "That kind of sets the tone for much of the flight," Leslie continued. "Everything was scheduled to within 5-minute increments. I thought it was ideal because I enjoyed staying busy with experiments." The first Spacelab mission was flown in 1983, but NASA already gained a little experience when it flew engineering models of Spacelab pallets on the second and third Shuttle missions in 1982-83. The pallets were not fully outfitted, and the flight crew had to divide their time between testing the Shuttle, their primary mission, and operating the experiments. Nevertheless, the mapping radar carried on STS-2 and the space physics and solar instruments carried on STS-3 showed tremendous potential. The first true mission, Spacelab 1, was flown November 28-December 8, 1983, aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. In a mission billed as "science around the world and around the clock," the crew divided into two three-man shifts and worked almost continuously for 10 days. They grew the first protein crystals grown in space, scanned the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, measured radiation from the sun, and experimented with the behavior of fluids. While the results from Spacelab 1 added to the expanding body of knowledge in space sciences, the protein crystal growth experiments would have a fundamental impact on health research. In their experiments, European scientists grew crystals that were larger and had more neatly ordered molecules than crystals of the same materials grown on Earth. The implication was striking: without gravity's effects to pull them down into a mash resembling broken glass, large biological molecules could be grown for analysis by X-rays on Earth. This opened the potential for understanding the structures of proteins that tell viruses, bacteria, immune cells, and enzymes how to work. From this, scientists could develop drugs targeted for a specific function with few side effects. For example, NASA recently announced that such research for the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography in Birmingham, AL, may lead to drugs the reduce the severity and duration of the flu. In contrast to Spacelab 1's deliberate effort to demonstrate its utility to all aspects of science, the next two Spacelab missions were dedicated to specific disciplines. Spacelab 3 (March 1985) carried an array of materials science experiments and atmospheric instruments. Spacelab 2 (July 1985) carried instruments to study the sun, stars, and comic rays. Spacelab 3 became an outstanding demonstration of how scientists can share resources across disciplines, and of the utility of people in space. Soon after launch, a major atmospheric spectrometer (ATMOS) ran into trouble. A laser that measured the changing position of key optics inside ATMOS developed a leak in its power supply. In a couple of days, the drop would allow electrical arcing that would short out ATMOS. The materials scientists agreed to defer many of their experiments so the Shuttle could maneuver and let ATMOS make its key observations right away instead of at the end of the mission. Inside, payload specialist Taylor Wang was solving a different kind of power problem. One of three sound generators in his Drop Dynamics Module had shorted out, killing hopes of running experiments on how drops behave. Wang, who also was the principal investigator, got into his work--literally. He opened the rack containing the DDM and, working almost without a break, isolated the failure and rewired part of the DDM. Several dramatic pictures showed Wang with his legs sticking up in the air as the DDM rack appeared to swallow him. With the problem fixed, he worked non-stop to run nearly all of his experiments before the mission had to return home. Following Spacelab 3 was Spacelab 2 with a cluster of solar telescopes on the new Instrument Pointing System plus X-ray and infrared telescopes and the "Chicago egg," a large cosmic ray detector from the University of Chicago. Although the sun and stars were the focus, Acton noted that the mission "was about as multi-disciplinary as you could imagine. One of the things we learned was that we tried to accommodate and carry out great a variety of experiments. Spacelab missions went into hiatus, along with the rest of NASA's manned space program, following the tragic loss of Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Shuttle flights resumed in 1988. In late 1990, ASTRO-1 started an increasingly hectic schedule for Spacelab. By the time the series ended in 1998, a total of 28 Space Shuttle missions had carried Spacelab hardware. Five missions used modified pallets to carry mapping radar and other instruments, and thus are not counted as true Spacelab missions. Of the remainder, 15 used the Spacelab long module to house scientists and experiments (the short module option was never flown) and eight used trains of two or three pallets to carry telescopes and other instruments. ASTRO-1 and -2 carried a battery of three ultraviolet telescopes to observe the universe in light that is filtered out by Earth's atmosphere. A series of three Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science missions (ATLAS-1, -2, -3) re-flew atmospheric instruments and solar monitors from earlier Spacelab missions. By flying them together, scientists could calibrate atmospheric measurements made by unmanned satellites launched years earlier. Several Spacelab missions were dedicated to the science of how materials behave in the microgravity environment of space: two International Microgravity Labs (IML-1 and IML-2), two U.S. Microgravity Labs (USML-1, and -2), Spacelab-J for Japan, Spacelab D2 for Germany, and Microgravity Sciences Laboratory-1 (MSL-1), a forerunner of how science will be conducted aboard the International Space Station. Three Spacelabs focused on how life adapts to and changes in space: two Space Life Sciences (SLS-1 and -2) and Neurolab, the last mission to use Spacelab hardware. The Life and Microgravity Sciences mission (LMS) combined both fields. Spacelab has also been pressed into service as a supply carrier with pallets carrying replacement parts to the Hubble Space Telescope and supplies for the Mir space station. With NASA concentrating on preparations for International Space Station--including a wide array of materials, life sciences, and physics experiments--Spacelab was retired in 1998. While the Spacelab missions were highly successful, they did require a large effort on the part of NASA's science and engineering teams. The hardware is being distributed to space museums, including the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. But it leaves a distinguished legacy. Lessons about how to conduct science in a demanding and dynamic environment are shaping research on Earth and on ISS. Spacelab has become one of Isaac Newton's "shoulders of titans" on which future space scientists will stand as they shape the 21st century. ------------------------------------------------------------------ BOOK REVIEW--THE DEEP HOT BIOSPHERE Reviewed by Julian Hiscox Title: The Deep Hot Biosphere Author: Thomas Gold Pages: 235 ISBN: 0-387-98546-8 Publisher: Copernicus The recent discovery of terrestrial organisms living deep within the Columbia River basalt in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in Earth as deep as three kilometers below the surface, provides a model for the possibility of organisms living deep below the Martian surface protected from the harsh ultra-violet radiation that bathes the surface and the extremely cold temperatures. These organisms survive by metabolizing hydrogen that has been produced by chemical interactions between pore water and the basalt, they are thought to be completely independent of any input chemical energy from the surface, and are thus completely divorced from the Sun. One of the key proponents of the idea of a "deep hot biosphere" is Thomas Gold, author of a recent book of the same title. Gold (and others) argues that the amount of biomass deep beneath the Earth far exceeds that found in the traditional view of the biosphere - the oceans, surface and atmosphere. Any habitat suitable for the growth of higher organisms will also permit microbial growth, but in addition, there are many habitats unfavorable to higher organisms where microorganisms exist and even flourish. Microbes can live in the deserts of Antarctica--the coldest driest places on Earth, to hot springs--the hottest, wettest places on Earth. More controversially Gold argues that petroleum deposits (and fossil fuels in general) do not originate from the breakdown and compression of decaying biological material, but instead formed before the atmosphere was changed by life from a predominately carbon dioxide/nitrogen atmosphere, to the oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere we have today. This forms one of the major focuses of Gold's book. The latter few chapters would be of direct interest to those interested in the origin of life on the Earth and possibly Mars. Other candidate places in the solar system for origin of life events such as one of Jupiter's satellites, Europa, is not discussed. However, the book is extremely stimulating and well worth the read. ------------------------------------------------------------------ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MISSION STATUS JPL release 10 March 1999 The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft successfully began its prime mapping mission at 4 PM Pacific time March 8, 1999. The spacecraft is executing a sequence of commands with its high-gain antenna in a fixed position. During this sequence, Global Surveyor records science data for nine orbits (about 18 hours) when all the instruments are pointed at Mars and then spends three orbits (about six hours) pointed at Earth playing back the data. The playbacks occur roughly between 9 AM and 3 PM Pacific time each day. During the playback orbits, the flight team can receive data from Global Surveyor only when the spacecraft is in view of Earth. For about half of each orbit, there is no communication with the spacecraft because it is behind Mars and out of view. The data, when received on the ground, are one day old. For example, the data being returned today were recorded between 4 PM Pacific time on Monday and 9 AM Pacific time on Tuesday. New images from Global Surveyor taken during last week's camera calibration will be released each day for the rest of this week. Starting next week, new images from the mapping phase will be posted to the Internet on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The images are available at http://www.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/images/index.html and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov There will be no new images during the week of March 29 when the deployment of the spacecraft's high gain antenna is scheduled to occur. ------------------------------------------------------------------ CASSINI MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 10 March 1999 The Cassini spacecraft remains in excellent health as it continues on its long voyage to Saturn. Current spacecraft activity is dominated by routine maintenance of computer and mechanical systems onboard. The next batch of commands that will operate the spacecraft over the next nine weeks is scheduled to be radioed to Cassini later this week. Last weekend, the antenna through which Cassini's telecommunications are conducted was switched back from one of two low-gain antennas to the other to accommodate the changing geometry as Cassini moves along its flight path. The high-gain antenna, which will be used as the primary antenna when Cassini reaches Saturn, was recently used to check out each of Cassini's scientific instruments. Some 60 members of the international Cassini/Huygens science team gathered at JPL last week for detailed planning of scientific observations of Saturn, and to discuss opportunities to study the planets Cassini will pass on the way -- Venus, Earth and Jupiter. The science team resolved to adopt a specific orbital tour plan for Cassini's four years in orbit around Saturn. The plan allows for 44 close flybys of the large moon Titan, which is a prime target for the entire Cassini/Huygens mission. Each flyby of Titan will represent an opportunity for Cassini's instruments to closely study that moon's atmosphere, interior, surface characteristics and interactions with Saturn's magnetic environment. One instrument, the Titan radar mapper, will use imaging radar to "see" through Titan's opaque, brown- orange atmosphere to reveal the surface in photograph-like detail. The observations made by the Cassini orbiter will complement those made by the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe, which will drop via parachute onto Titan's surface, studying the atmosphere, its chemistry, weather, and cloud structure on the way down while making additional measurements on the surface. The tour selected also allows superior, long-term studies of Saturn's rings at varying illuminations, detailed global mapping of Saturn, and measurements of various regions within Saturn's magnetic environment over time. In addition, the tour includes three specially targeted close flybys of the moon Enceladus, and one each of Dione, Rhea, Hyperion and Iapetus. Many opportunities exist for additional detailed studies of all of Saturn's many moons over the course of the mission. Cassini is traveling at a speed of about 81,100 kilometers per hour (50,500 mph) and has traveled more than 1.2 billion kilometers (745 million miles) since launch. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. ------------------------------------------------------------------ MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS REPORT JPL release 15 March 1999 The Mars Polar Lander has successfully completed its second course correction to refine its flight path to the red planet. At 5:05 AM Pacific time today, the spacecraft fired its four maneuvering jets for just under 10 seconds changing its speed by a mere 0.89 meter per second (2.0 miles per hour). The spacecraft's next maneuver is scheduled for September 1, when its flight path will be targeted for a specific landing zone near the planet's south pole. Observations of the south polar region by instruments onboard the currently orbiting Mars Global Surveyor will be used to pick a safe landing spot. Mars Polar Lander is now 16,510,000 kilometers (10,070,000 miles) from Earth, traveling at a speed of 1,680 meters per second (3,700 miles per hour). The spacecraft will land on Mars on December 3, 1999. ------------------------------------------------------------------ BACK-ISSUES NEEDED By David Thomas While doing some routine maintenance on the Marsbugs archives, I found that I was missing issues 13, 14 and 15 from volume 2 (1995). All of my backup records, both electronic and hardcopy are also missing these issues. If anyone has copies of these issues (electronic or hardcopy), please send me copies so that I can update the archives. ------------------------------------------------------------------ End Marsbugs Vol. 6, No. 7