MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 9, Number 26, 22 July 2002. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Science Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu Dr. Julian A. Hiscox, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, United Kingdom. J.A.Hiscox@reading.ac.uk Marsbugs is published on a weekly to monthly 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. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available from the Marsbugs web page at http://welcome.to/marsbugs or http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. _____________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) FIRST DISHES FOR THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY ARRIVE AT HAT CREEK SETI Institute release 2) ANTARCTIC MICROBES COLONIZE UNDER MARS-LIKE CONDITIONS From Astrobiology Magazine 3) BIOASTRONOMY 2002: SCIENTISTS LOOK FOR LIFE By Seth Shostak 4) MISSIONS TO KUIPER BELT NOW, EUROPA WITHIN THE DECADE ARE KEY TO SPACE DISCOVERIES National Academy of Sciences release 5) COMPLEX LIFE ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE? GREAT DEBATES: PART I From Astrobiology Magazine 6) BIOASTRONOMY 2002: THE EARTH IS A TOUGH PLACE By Seth Shostak 7) MOSSY SPACE SPIRALS By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips 8) NASA ARCHAEOLOGY BENEFITS SCIENCE, HISTORY NASA release MWS-02-091 9) CSA STUDY GAUGES ASTRONAUT RADIATION EXPOSURE By Tariq Malik 10) HOW FAR AWAY IS OUR E.T. NEIGHBOR? GREAT DEBATES: PART II From Astrobiology Magazine 11) HOW MINIATURE RADIATION DETECTORS WILL KEEP ASTRONAUTS SAFE IN DEEP SPACE By Heather Sparks 12) A SNEAK PEEK AT NASA'S PLANS FOR EXPLORING MARS AND BEYOND By Leonard David 13) SCIENTISTS, DREAMERS CONTINUE REFINING IDEAS FOR FUTURE LUNAR BASES By Leonard David 14) BIOASTRONOMY 2002: EXTENDING THE BOUNDARIES OF ASTROBIOLOGY By Douglas Vakoch 15) FRANK DRAKE AWARD 2002 SETI Institute release 16) ASTROBIOLOGY REPORT: NASA NEEDS COURSE SHIFT By Robert Roy Britt 17) ODDS OF COMPLEX LIFE. GREAT DEBATES: PART III From Astrobiology Magazine 18) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 19) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL releases 20) CONTOUR MISSION OPS: EARTH ORBIT TO HIBERNATION NASA/JHUAPL release 21) THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 22) INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SCIENCE OPERATIONS STATUS REPORTS NASA/MSFC releases 01-170 & 02-178 23) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU releases 24) STARDUST STATUS REPORTS NASA/JPL releases _____________________________________________________________________ FIRST DISHES FOR THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY ARRIVE AT HAT CREEK SETI Institute release 25 June 2002 Full plates are nothing new for SETI Institute staff; but a truck load of 20-foot dishes is something we don't see everyday. On Monday, June 24th, the first shipment of primary reflector dishes rolled out the doors of Andersen Manufacturing in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Taking highways-and a few byways-the route spans three states and will take the unusual load across the California border near Reno early Wednesday morning. The shipment picks up a state highway patrol escort as it winds through scenic parkland in Plumas and Lassen counties before arriving at the Hat Creek Observatory, final destination and future home of the Allen Telescope Array. The Allen Telescope Array at a glance The Allen Telescope Array is a joint project between the SETI Institute and the University of California at Berkeley Radio Astronomy Lab. Funding All SETI science is privately funded. Philanthropists Paul Allen and Nathan Mryhrvold have funded the telescope research and design through the Production Test Array with generous gifts of 11.5 million and 1 million dollars respectively. Array Size The Production Test Array will consist of 3 individual dishes. Pending construction approval, phase funding, and acquisition of all necessary permits, the final telescope will consist of 350 dishes when complete in 2005. Dish Size Each dish is 20-feet in diameter (about 6 meters). Location The facility will be located at the existing Hat Creek Radio Observatory, operated by the University of California, Berkeley in Northern California. This is the current site of the BIMA millimeter array (http://bima.astro.umd.edu/). The BIMA dishes will be combined with six dishes from the Owens Valley Observatory, and relocated to a higher elevation at a more southerly site. Key features Cost effective. The Allen Telescope Array will cost less than half as much as a single radio telescope of similar collecting area. Flexible. Several individual scientists may simultaneously use the array for a variety of observing projects. Robust. Because the instrument consists of many units, the array will remain operational should repair become necessary to an individual telescope. Largest field of view. At a frequency of 1000 MHz, the Allen Telescope Array will observe an area of the sky equal to 36 full moons; Arecibo's viewing field is 1% the area of the full moon. Collecting area. This number of antennas yields approximately one hectare (10,000 sq. m) of geometric collecting area, about the same amount as the new 100 meter telescope at Greenbank, West VA. SETI observing begins SETI observations are scheduled to begin at the Allen Telescope Array upon completion in 2005. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.seti.org/science/ata_delivery_06_25_02.html. _____________________________________________________________________ ANTARCTIC MICROBES COLONIZE UNDER MARS-LIKE CONDITIONS From Astrobiology Magazine 9 July 2002 The dry, salty valleys of western Antarctica are hostile. Mean annual temperatures rarely reach above minus 30-35 degrees Celsius (~minus 90 Fahrenheit). Less annual rainfall than 10 mm (0.4 in) makes these glacial conditions nearer to desertified and rocky soil. Much like similar weather on Mars, desiccation or deep-freezing of virtually any exposed microbes seems inevitable. But returning from a microbe-gathering trip to what in Western Antarctica is called the Quartermain Mountains, a research consortium from 3 countries (Canada, US, and New Zealand) sampled a fascinating colony of fungi. Their new results raise the question: without tapping an obvious liquid water supply, how do such fungi make a living there? Perhaps relying on the high-salt soils to access water below its normal freezing point, these fungi give astrobiologists some new candidates for survival studies in such harsh settings. The research team included colleagues from the Royal Military College, Toronto and York universities in Canada, science teams from Arizona and New Mexico, along with New Zealanders from the private sector (Geochemical Solutions) and the government Land and Soil Consultancy Service. They published their analysis of the Antarctic old soils (paleosols) and fungi discovery in the journal Icarus. As a potential guidepost to study dry, cold soils on Mars, the team entitled their new study, "Morphogenesis of Antarctic Paleosols: Martian Analogue." More than 20 years ago, scientists first discovered that algae, fungi and bacteria could grow inside porous sandstone and surface pavement in the Antarctic Dry Valleys. Since the 1980's researchers have found other active niches for diverse Antarctic biology: long-lived algal mats submerged under 10-foot-thick lake ice crust and bacteria living in hot volcanic fumaroles of Mount Erebus. But by digging 1 to 3 inches below the soil top-layer, the American and New Zealand teams seemed to have uncovered what may prove to offer some surprising survival pathways for the sub-surface fungi. "We went to the iron-rich horizons, where we thought we'd find lots of microbes, because microbes need iron for physiological processes," William Mahaney of York University said. "And we sampled the lower- down, high-salt horizons, where we thought we would find few microorganisms. We found just the opposite." Their new collection included long-lived colonies of insecticidal (insect-killing) fungi and a common species of Penicillium. "The strange thing is, we found several colonies of Beauveria bassiana-- fungi that thrive on insects," said Mahaney. "The colonies may have been there longer than centuries, maybe millennia, maybe since the last Ice Age--I have no idea how long. So the question is, what do these well-developed colonies live on?" Finding out how the microbes live in the harsh Dry Valley region is one job for David Malloch of the University of Toronto (who analyzed the microbes), and some guesses have already been put forward. "Many fungi are able to tolerate low temperatures, dryness, dormancy, low nutrient levels, etc.", says Malloch. "You would fully expect to find fungi and other microorganisms in the Antarctic provided some liquid water is occasionally available and some organic carbon is present for their nutrition." But liquid water is very rare in the Dry Valley. One plausible way to adapt to the Antarctic deep-freeze is to colonize high-salt soil, because salt lowers the apparent freezing point of liquid water. "We found microbes in soil with 3,000 ppm salt concentrations," Mahaney said. "That's so much salt, temperatures can drop to minus 56 degrees Celsius before there's frost bite." In Antarctica particularly, such salty soil may build up from wind-blown ocean salt and the churning of soil by slow, but persistent glacial migrations. The ancient "living" supercontinent One important question to answer is "when did these ancient microbes get their start in Antarctica, particularly if categorized as primarily insect-fungi?" To answer that, one has to revisit the shifting map of Earth, and an ancient time when Antarctica might have harbored some form of insect life. (In fact Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America and India were once part of a supercontinent called Gondwana. About 100 million years ago, it broke apart, and the land masses slowly drifted into their current positions. But before that happened, Antarctica enjoyed a warm tropical climate that supported an array of remarkable animals. In fact, about 560 million years ago, Antarctica was north of the equator. Today, no known large land mammals are found anywhere in Antarctica.) The soil uncovered by the research team dates the fungal colonies to around 10-15 million years old, when Antarctica was likely less hostile than its present day South Pole extreme. To test the age of the fungi, the scientists used a tracer of biological activity, much like carbon dating, but instead relying on another chemical isotope, beryllium-10. "The main issue here is the age of the parent material and the soil formation," says Vic Baker of Arizona. "Carbon-14 can only be used back to about 40,000 years, whereas [beryllium] Be-10 can be used back 10 million years. Also the sample requirements of organic carbon for the C-14 method cannot be met in Antarctica." Survival of the fittest in an unfit place Many scientists are no longer surprised at the robust tolerances found in microbe adaptation, whether those microbes scavenge a living from dry, salty, hot or very cold landscapes. This revised view of what constitutes a tolerable biological condition on Earth, in fact, makes it somewhat surprising when sterile samples are found anywhere on Earth. Such microbes may indeed have a relative (if not absolute) survival advantage over competing life forms: "In soils with such a paucity of life," says Malloch, "there may be more food than eaters. [A fungal] presence there may have more to do with tolerance to the physical environment than to lack of nutrients." If dormancy, sporulation or high-salt soil makes the fungi viable, their presence in sub-surface deep-freeze has the research team intrigued: "They (fungal colonies) were there," says Malloch. "I am convinced of that. I have no idea whatsoever what state they were in at the time the soil was collected." For the intrepid tourist, a trip to the hyper-arid, ultra-cold climate of the Antarctic Dry Valleys comes closer to present-day martian climate than anywhere on Earth. What's next? Further experiments to understand how the fungi cope with such hostile environments are forthcoming. Concludes Malloch: "We don't yet know much about the origin of these materials nor in fact do we really know much about the capabilities of the fungus. However, these questions can be answered by straightforward experimental work. The results of such studies may further support the idea that conditions on Mars could sustain life but ultimately someone will have to go to work on the real thing." But looking skyward for what elsewhere in the solar system might match Antarctica still offers a kind of reference point for planning strategies to sample Mars. As the authors' analysis in the journal Icarus concludes: "We believe that our field-based investigation of parts of the Antarctic yields valuable information about soils and microbial life that may bear significantly on future manned and unmanned missions to Mars, especially since the martian surface archives an active and varied geologic history similar in many ways to that of Antarctic terrains." Collaborators on the investigation include: William C. Mahaney of York University in Ontario, Canada; James M. Dohm and Victor R. Baker of the University of Arizona; Horton E. Newsom of the University of New Mexico; David Malloch of the University of Toronto (who analyzed the microbes); R. G. V. Hancock of the Royal Military College, Ontario, Canada; Iain Campbell of Land and Soil Consultancy Services, Stoke, New Zealand; Doug Sheppard of Geochemical Solutions, Petone, New Zealand; and Mike W. Milner of York University. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article233.html. _____________________________________________________________________ BIOASTRONOMY 2002: SCIENTISTS LOOK FOR LIFE By Seth Shostak From Space.com 11 July 2002 Bioastronomy. It's a nifty word, but is bioastronomy--an enthusiastic amalgam of biology and astronomy--real science? There are about 200 researchers who obviously think so. They've seriously damaged their travel budgets in order to attend a week-long conference in a little-known corner of Australia, The Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland coast. The expansive title of the conference is "Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars." But of course, as any propeller-head will tell you, we don't have convincing evidence for life in the backyard of our solar system, let alone among the stars. Not yet. However, there's a growing consensus in the scientific community that such evidence could turn up, possibly soon. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/bioastronomy_shostak_020711.html. _____________________________________________________________________ MISSIONS TO KUIPER BELT NOW, EUROPA WITHIN THE DECADE ARE KEY TO SPACE DISCOVERIES National Academy of Sciences release 11 July 2002 Sending a probe to the Kuiper Belt and its largest member, Pluto, should be NASA's first priority in solar system exploration, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Larger, more comprehensive efforts are also needed, beginning with a trip to Jupiter's moon Europa, said the committee that wrote the report. "Solar system exploration is the grand human endeavor that seeks to discover the nature and origin of the system of planets in which we live, and find out whether life exists beyond Earth," said committee chair Michael Belton, president, Belton Space Exploration Initiatives, Tucson, Ariz. "To continue this exploration in the most productive way, using finite resources, NASA's missions must be prioritized." The report outlines key objectives and associated missions that could be launched between 2003 and 2013. Objectives include learning how life developed in the solar system, determining whether life exists beyond Earth, understanding the nature and origin of the planets, and discovering how the laws of nature have led to the complexity of the solar system. To address these questions, NASA needs to send a series of robotic spacecraft ranging from small-scale undertakings that cost under $325 million to more extensive midsize missions that cost up to $650 million, the committee said. The small-scale missions should be launched at least once every 18 months. The first of the midsize missions should be sent to the newly discovered and unexplored Kuiper Belt, which is a collection of primitive, icy objects beyond Neptune's orbit; some types of comets are thought to have originated there. Pluto, the largest member of the Kuiper Belt, is about 3 billion miles from Earth and is the only planet in the solar system that has not been directly observed by a robotic probe. The administration's spending bill for NASA for fiscal year 2003, however, eliminates funding for a Pluto mission, citing the lack of community consensus on its importance. But the committee said a Kuiper Belt-Pluto mission should be a top priority because the science is compelling. Exploring the Kuiper Belt will contribute to a more complete understanding of planet formation and the origins of organic matter. Moreover, the technology exists today to build a probe that can visit and compare several objects and determine the diversity of their properties. Larger missions should be deployed once every decade. These flagship missions, costing in excess of $650 million, will allow extended observation and experimentation, the report says. Priority for these missions should go to a spacecraft designed to explore Europa and confirm the presence or absence of an ocean under its icy surface. Europa is likely to contain the three things necessary for life to evolve--liquid water, a source of heat, and organic material. Other recommended midsize missions include collecting and returning to Earth samples from the Moon's South Pole, and deploying a Jupiter orbiter. Exploring a large impact basin located near the lunar South Pole will provide insight into the early history of the Earth-Moon system, added the committee. NASA also needs to create a new orbiter to carry probes to study Jupiter's atmosphere and determine if the planet has a core. To meet future exploration goals, the agency needs to make significant investments in new spacecraft and instrument technology, including the development of nuclear power sources and in-space nuclear propulsion. In addition, NASA needs to partner with the National Science Foundation to build and operate the Large-Aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope, a ground-based facility designed to search the sky and detect the majority of larger, near- Earth objects as well as observe more distant ones in the Kuiper Belt. NASA sponsored the study. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. The report New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy is available on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Copies will be available for purchase later this summer from the National Academy Press; phone: 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. Reporters may obtain a pre- publication copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed below). Contacts: Jennifer Burris, Media Relations Associate Cory Arberg, Media Relations Assistant Office of News and Public Information National Academy of Sciences Washington, DC Phone: 202-334-2138 E-mail: news@nas.edu An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/07/13/pluto.europa/index.html. _____________________________________________________________________ COMPLEX LIFE ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE? GREAT DEBATES: PART I From Astrobiology Magazine 15 July 2002 Many of the questions posed by astrobiology are the subjects of intense debate within the scientific community. How did life originate? What kind of life forms should we expect to find on other worlds? Is there life on Mars, or on Jupiter's moon Europa? How will we know for certain when we've found evidence of life on other worlds? Great Debates (a five-part series) will show you the process of scientific debate in progress, as prominent scientists sift through the available evidence to reach what are sometimes directly opposing conclusions. For our first debate, will explore the factors required to make a planet habitable and the question of whether complex life like that on Earth is common or rare in our galaxy. Any life in the Universe? When the book, Rare Earth, was published two years ago, it raised a great deal of controversy among astrobiologists. Written by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, the book's hypothesis suggests complex life is rare in the universe, and may even be unique to Earth. If life does occur elsewhere, the authors contend, it will only be in the form of single-celled microbial life such as bacteria. This debate will cover a variety of topics prompted by the Rare Earth hypothesis. The participants in today's debate are: Debate moderator Michael Meyer, the Senior Scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters and Program Scientist for the Mars 2001 Odyssey Mission. Donald Brownlee, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Astronomy of the University of Washington in Seattle. Frank Drake, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. David Grinspoon, Principal Scientist in the Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the forthcoming book, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life. Christopher McKay, planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames Research Center. Peter Ward, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Michael Meyer: Thank you for joining the first in what we hope will be a series of Great Debates. Before delving into the vagaries and specifics of planetary and biological evolution, and into a discussion of whether we are unique or common, it might be useful to set a baseline for at least one prerequisite for complex beings--life itself. This leads to the first question: Other than on Earth, is there life in our stellar neighborhood? Peter Ward: There is a cultural assumption that there are many alien civilizations. This stems in no small way from the famous estimate by Frank Drake--known as the "Drake Equation"--that was later amended by Drake and Carl Sagan. They arrived at an estimate that there are perhaps a million intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. The Drake and Sagan estimate was based on their best guess about the number of planets in the galaxy, the percentage of those that might harbor life, and the percentage of planets on which life not only could exist but could have advanced to culture. Since our galaxy is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, the number of intelligent alien species would be numbered in the billions. Surely, if there are so many intelligent aliens out there, then the number of planets with life must be truly astronomical. But what if the Drake and Sagan estimates are way off? If, as could be the reality, our civilization is unique in the galaxy, does that mean that there might be much less life in general as well? In my view, life in the form of microbes or their equivalents is very common in the universe, perhaps more common than even Drake and Sagan envisioned. However, complex life--animals and higher plants--is likely to be far more rare than commonly assumed. Life on Earth evolved from single celled organisms to multi-cellular creatures with tissues and organs, climaxing in animals and higher plants. But is Earth's particular history of life--one of increasing complexity to an animal grade of evolution--an inevitable result of evolution, or even a common one? Perhaps life is common, but complex life-- anything that is multi-cellular--is not. Chris McKay: There is no solid evidence of life elsewhere, but several factors suggest it is common. Organic material is widespread in the interstellar medium and in our own solar system. We have found planetary systems around other sun-like stars. On Earth, microbial life appeared very quickly--probably before 3.8 billion years ago. Also, we know that microbial ecosystems can survive in a variety of environments with liquid water and a suitable chemical energy source or sunlight. These factors suggest that microbial life--the sort of life the dominated Earth for the first two billion years--is widespread in the stellar neighborhood. David Grinspoon: It is always shaky when we generalize from experiments with a sample size of one. So we have to be a bit cautious when we fill the cosmos with creatures based on the time scales of Earth history (it happened so fast here, therefore it must be easy) and the resourcefulness of Earth life (they are everywhere where there is water). This is one history, and one example of life. When our arguments rest on such shaky grounds, balancing a house of cards on a one-card foundation, we are in danger of erecting structures formed more by our desires than the "evidence." Frank Drake: I think this is an occasion where that old principal of good science, Occam's Razor, is helpful. Apply Occam's Razor to the question of the origin of life on Earth. We look at the Earth, and with regards to that origin, as best we know, no special or freak circumstances were required. It took water, organics, a source of energy, and a long time. Deep-sea vents are the current favorite and a reasonable place for the origin. But even if they weren't the culprits, the chemists have found a multitude of other pathways that produce the chemistry of life. The challenge seems to be not to find the pathway, but the one that was the quickest and most productive. The prime point is that nothing special was required. There will be a pathway that works, on Earth and on similar planets. Then, by Occam's Razor, the origin of life on Earth is nothing more than the result of normal processes on the planet. Furthermore, life should appear very frequently on other Earth-like planets. There will be microbial life nearby the solar system. Donald Brownlee: While there is hope and even expectation of nearby extraterrestrial life, the goal of "Rare Earth" was to point out that the universe is fundamentally hostile to life. Most planets and other places in the universe clearly could not support any type of Earth-like creatures. The universe is vast, so there may be many Earth-like places, but they will be widely spaced, and if they are too widely spaced they will be isolated from each other. What fraction of stars harbors Earth-like planets with Earth-like life? Is it one in a hundred, one in a million, or even less? Even the most optimistic have to admit Earth-like environments must be rare. In our book Rare Earth, we suggest that extraterrestrial life is likely to be near but that complex animal-like life is rare and will probably not be found close to us in space. A major question about life relates to the environments needed for its formation and long term evolution. Unfortunately Earth is our only successful example. Predictions of life elsewhere are problematic; presently there is no detectable life elsewhere in the solar system. David Grinspoon: I am not convinced that the Earth's carbon-in-water example is the only way for the universe to solve the life riddle. I am not talking about silicon, which is a bad idea, but systems of chemical complexity that we have not thought of, which may not manifest themselves at room temperature in our oxygen atmosphere. The universe is consistently more clever than we are, and we learn about complex phenomena, like life, more through exploration than by theorizing and modeling. I think there are probably forms of life out there which use different chemical bases than we, and which we will know about only when we find them, or when they find us. An obvious rejoinder to this is, "But no one has invented another system that works as well as carbon-in-water." That is true. But to this I would answer, "We did not invent carbon-in-water!" We discovered it. I don't believe that we are clever enough to have thought of life based on nucleic acids and proteins if we hadn't had this example handed to us. This makes me wonder what else the universe might be using for its refined, evolving complexity elsewhere, in other conditions that seem hostile to life as we know it. Frank Drake: All evidence of the most primitive steps in the first 700 million years of chemical evolution on Earth is apparently lost. We grope towards understanding of that profound gap in our knowledge by working backwards, hypothesizing that there once was an RNA world based on self-catalyzing RNA. But this system evolved from something else, and led to the esoteric DNA-protein world. As David Grinspoon rightly points out, we are not remotely smart enough to hypothesize ab initio the system of the DNA-protein world, or even the RNA world. It was handed to us on a silver platter. This should be a strong warning that we are over our heads when predicting what might have taken place on other worlds. Give us knowledge of another independent origin of life in space, and the doors to great progress in this field may open. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_1_020715.html. _____________________________________________________________________ BIOASTRONOMY 2002: THE EARTH IS A TOUGH PLACE By Seth Shostak From Space.com 15 July 2002 Although bioastronomy is about life off of Earth, a lot of the really interesting research in this field concerns life on Earth. How did biology get underway on our planet, and what were the choke points that could have snuffed it out? Most high school history texts go back a few thousand years or so. Knowing the 4.5 billion years of history before that might give us insight into how life would fare on other worlds. The first chapters of a really complete terrestrial history book are difficult to write. At the Bioastronomy 2002 conference, Australian researcher Mark Harrison pointed out that our understanding of early Earth is hindered by the fact that the geological record pretty much gives out once we go back farther than 4 billion years. There are no intact rocks from the convulsive, first 500 million years of our planet's existence (a period appropriately known as the Hadean era). But Harrison has been able to analyze a rare, but ubiquitous silicon mineral known as zircon: found as small chunks of material that were sometimes produced during the Earth's tumultuous youth. Zircons discovered in western Australia date from the Hadean era, and by studying the isotopes locked in these chips-off-very-old blocks, Harrison has concluded that continental crust began forming on our planet somewhere between 4.0 and 4.4 billion years ago. The continents are very old, in other words. More surprising is the fact that the oceans date back 4.3 billion years, or possibly more. Our atmosphere, which seems to have formed when clouds of gas billowed out of the Earth's mantle, may have appeared quite early too: 4.4 billion years ago. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/bioastronomy_shostak_020715.html. _____________________________________________________________________ MOSSY SPACE SPIRALS By Karen Miller and Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 16 July 2002 Biologist Fred Sack carefully lifted a petri dish from the tray. Inside were precious samples of moss just back from a two-week voyage aboard space shuttle Columbia. He glanced at the growing clumps, blinked, then looked closer. "It was not what I expected to see," recalls Sack. His moss was growing in a spiral. On Earth, moss spores that take root send out hundreds of tiny filaments known as protonemata. These filaments normally grow in an unruly fashion; they make a messy-looking tangle. But the moss onboard Columbia did something different. As if choreographed, the protonemata swirled together in the same direction. They formed a distinctive clockwise spiral like no moss on Earth. "It's the kind of thing," says Sack, "where the shuttle lands, they deliver your tray, you carefully take the dishes out of the hardware and you're ready to start doing some photography. Then all of a sudden you just look at the cultures, and WOW! You know right away it was not random growth." That was four years ago. Sack, who is a professor at Ohio State University (OSU), has studied the spirals ever since, yet they remain a mystery. What was moss doing onboard the space shuttle? Sack and colleagues from NASA had sent samples of Ceratodon purpureus--better known as fire moss--into space to study the way plants sense gravity. Moss is good for such studies, explains Sack, because it contains single cells that are gravitropic--that is, cells that sense gravity and then grow either toward it or away from it. (Moss cells respond to light, too, but the space-spirals formed in darkness. "Phototropism" was not a factor.) Furthermore, moss is small; it doesn't take up much room on the shuttle. Typically, when a gravitropic plant is sent into space, it gets confused; it grows in a disoriented way. These odd spirals, Sack says, mark the first time in space that a plant normally oriented by gravity has grown in a non-random pattern. No one knows exactly how plants sense gravity. One possibility, explains Sack, is amyloplasts: tiny starch-filled particles that float within the cell. Because these particles are heavy, gravity pulls them down. In some cells, like root cells, the amyloplasts sink to the bottom, forming a kind of sediment. In the threadlike protonemata that Sack studies, this sedimentation is more complex. It tends to form not one layer of sediment, but many. In space, the pattern of sedimentation is different than it is on the ground--an important clue, says Sack. Actually, sedimentation shouldn't occur in space at all, he added. In a zero-g environment, the amyloplasts ought to float around at random. Instead, they bunch together. Why? It's part of the mystery. When the normal pull of gravity vanishes, continues Sack, the position of these starch particles is determined solely by structures inside the cell itself. An example would be the cytoskeleton, a network of thin fibers that permeate some cells. The fibers, made of proteins, give cells shape and hold the nucleus and other organelles in place. Perhaps the cytoskeleton also causes amyloplasts to cluster together. It's an idea Sack will test later this year when fire moss returns to space onboard the shuttle Columbia (STS-107). Moss cells inside a device called the Biological Research in Canisters experiment ("BRIC" for short) will be fed chemicals that break down cytoskeletons. Will amyloplasts still form bunches? Or float at random? "We'll see," says Sack with anticipation. Even after researchers figure out why amyloplasts congregate in low gravity, they'll still have more questions to answer. For example, what is the exact mechanism that causes protonemata to spiral? So far, Sack cautions, researchers can only speculate. Perhaps calcium ions, which flow in and out of the cell, control the direction in which the tip of the cell grows. The unique clustering of starch particles in low gravity might affect the movement of these ions, which in turn might instruct moss filaments to curve in a clockwise direction. The upcoming STS-107 research mission will provide lots of new data. Where the first experiment (STS-87) involved only three moss cultures, this one will involve 46 petri dishes, some of which will contain multiple cultures. "By the time Columbia lands," predicts Sack, "there will be many thousands of moss filaments grown on the shuttle for us to study." Sack and his colleagues hope to learn more about the way gravity affects the structure of the cell. Very often, says Sack, in biology you look at a very specialized system--like fire moss--and you find some phenomena that turns out to be important for all cells. Gravity has been a powerful force shaping life on our planet, notes Sack. It's so pervasive, he says, that people don't even recognize its influence. But one trip to space can open your eyes; just take a look at the mysterious spirals of fire moss. Additional information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/16jul_firemoss.htm?list683223 . _____________________________________________________________________ NASA ARCHAEOLOGY BENEFITS SCIENCE, HISTORY NASA release MWS-02-091 16 July 2002 With the help of historic deeds and maps, old photos, historic records and state-of-the-art remote sensing technology, NASA's Dr. Marco Giardino of the Earth Science Applications Directorate at Stennis Space Center and his contractor team are creating realistic visualizations of Gainesville, Miss. They are also testing non- invasive technology for conducting archaeological research and applying what they learn to cultural resource management. When NASA came to Hancock County, MS, in 1961, the towns of Gainesville, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, Logtown and Westonia were relocated to make way for Mississippi Test Operations, now the John C. Stennis Space Center. The sparse population of the area, the natural water access and vast acreage made the area along the East Pearl River a suitable setting for testing the rocket engines that would take Americans to the Moon. Today, the 125,000-acre acoustic buffer zone surrounding the center is a national asset. The sacrifice of the people of Hancock County was not forgotten. Today, the land is preserved and protected and serves as a testing ground for archaeological methods and theories that will benefit historic research far beyond the buffer zone. NASA archaeologists at Stennis are using the historic Gainesville landscape, literally in their own back yard, to advance cultural resource management locally and globally. By merging data from numerous sensors, including orbiting, airborne and on-the-ground geophysical prospecting tools, NASA and contractors Lockheed Martin Space Operations and Datastar of Picayune, Miss., are discovering new information about the history and settlement of Gainesville. "When combined with historic records and placed in the capable hands of our computer visualization folks at Lockheed and Datastar, Gainesville comes to life," said Giardino. "The pioneering remote sensing techniques being validated at Gainesville offer great hope for conducting the federally mandated work of protecting cultural resources in any threatened coastal or riparian environment throughout the Southeastern United States. "In the 1770s, the British surveyor George Gauld was the first documented owner of the land that eventually took the name of Gainesville after Ambrose Gaines, who lived here after 1782," explained Giardino. "We are using an early British land deed of Gauld's property and aerial photography from 1962 to narrow the search for historic buildings and artifacts." Giardino also noted that among his many accomplishments as a cartographer and surveyor, Gauld was on board the ship that made the world's first accurate longitudinal reading. "We have a name, a location and an owner for each plat on this map," said Giardino at a recent dig on the former Gainesville site at Stennis Space Center. To search for clues about mysterious landscape features, a ground referencing team from Earth Sciences and Lockheed Martin Space Operations conducted a ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey on a parcel of land at the intersection of Upper and Lower Gainesville roads (the former Union and Main streets). "We're creating virtual images of Gainesville: 2- and 3-D visual renditions of the Gainesville cultural and natural landscape over the last 300 years," said Giardino. "You'll be able to see what Gainesville looked like at different points in time, leading up to the period when NASA acquired the land in the 1960s." Giardino is working with Lockheed Martin Space Operations' Richard Brown, Joe Spruce and others to create visualizations of the town during different phases of history. The multi-stage project begins with the use of early deeds and maps and requires computer-aided integration of multiple sources of geospatial information. "Right now we're putting the pieces together in a 3-D re-creation of 1840s Gainesville as they are revealed through our team's research of existing literature and historical data," said Brown. "We are using historic aerial photography and a high resolution terrain model extracted using stereo photogrammetry to match the landscape and the historic accounts." To show the known elements of Gainesville, Brown has created a hawk's-eye view of Gainesville and produced short video clips that depict the approach to Gainesville via the river. "The video gives you a ride up the river to dock at one of the three most important towns of South Mississippi in that time period," said Brown. "The immediate practical application of this research is to detail what's under the ground at the site using non-intrusive techniques," said Giardino, who will prepare a report on the team's findings for the space center. "We want to identify those areas of the site that have the most historic value and alert our colleagues in the Center Operations and Support Directorate, and especially our Environmental Office, to avoid the costly and damaging disturbance of these localities." The Gainesville research will contribute important technical advances as well. "LMSO and Data Star mapping specialists have digitized and georeferenced several aerial and satellite images, maps and geospatial descriptions of prominent historic sites at Gainesville," explained Spruce. "These geospatial data are being used as a screening tool for guiding archaeological field surveys." "The techniques developed from this work will be made available via publication for others to apply elsewhere," said Spruce. "We want to match coordinates on the ground with features from remotely sensed images," said Giardino. "If we can match the subsurface features we discover with GPR and the surface indicators we see in remote sensing images, then we can predict subsurface features by looking at surface indicators. That way, archaeologists can use non-invasive remote sensing technology to evaluate cultural resources instead of having to dig them up." For more information about the Earth Science Applications Directorate's cultural resource management activities, visit http://www.esad.ssc.nasa.gov. Contacts: John C. Stennis Space Center Stennis Space Center, MS 39529-6000 Phone: 228-688-3341 Lanee Cooksey NASA News Chief Phone: 228-688-3341 _____________________________________________________________________ CSA STUDY GAUGES ASTRONAUT RADIATION EXPOSURE By Tariq Malik From Space.com 16 July 2002 Astronauts working outside the International Space Station (ISS) are exposed to about 27 times as much radiation annually than people on Earth, but the levels are still very low for space, Canadian researchers announced Tuesday. Preliminary results from a year-long study funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) show that astronauts were subjected to lower than expected levels of high-energy proton and electron radiation sent from the Sun over the last five months. The Extravehicular Activity Radiation Monitor study (EVARM) began in February, with astronauts wearing radiation detectors as they worked in space. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/radiation_evarm_020716.html. _____________________________________________________________________ HOW FAR AWAY IS OUR E.T. NEIGHBOR? GREAT DEBATES: PART II From Astrobiology Magazine 17 July 2002 Part one of our debate wrangled with the question of whether life could originate and exist anywhere except on Earth. The general consensus was that simple (microbial) life, at least, may be common in the universe. The focus on microbial life continues today as the moderator asks where we can expect to find life in our solar system and beyond. The participants in today's debate are: Debate moderator Michael Meyer, the Senior Scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters and Program Scientist for the Mars 2001 Odyssey Mission. Donald Brownlee, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Astronomy of the University of Washington in Seattle. Frank Drake, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. David Grinspoon, Principal Scientist in the Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the forthcoming book, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life. Peter Ward, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Michael Meyer: If there is life out there--either microbial or complex--where can we expect to find it? Peter Ward: Life might have originated on Mars and Europa early in the solar system's history (and may live there still). Many of us think that, at best, we'll find evidence that life once existed on Mars and may or may not have started on Europa. My guess is that the Earth is the only place in the solar system where there is existent life--but we might expect to find a rich fossil record of extinct life on Mars. Of all planets beyond the Earth, Mars is by far the best known. It has been poked, prodded, examined and measured by a variety of Earth- and space-borne instruments, including those many that have successfully and unsuccessfully either landed or crashed on the surface of the red planet. An enormous amount of information now suggests that early in its history, while our Earth was still a chaotic and uninhabitable world of magma oceans and unceasing asteroidal impacts, Mars may have been a benign world, of equable temperatures and almost planet-spanning oceans. It may, as well, have been a world with an atmosphere that included oxygen. All of these factors lead to an inescapable conclusion--that the early martian conditions would have been favorable for the development of life. Some scientists have even suggested that life arose on Mars, and then was transported to Earth. For several hundred million years or more these benign conditions may have lasted, and in that time span evolution could have worked wonders. Perhaps the first geologists sampling martian sedimentary rocks older than 4 billion years in age will find not only the fossil remains of bacteria, but also the remains of more complex organisms. Perhaps the fossils of animals will be found. What would that scene be like: the swing of a rock hammer against a martian outcrop, splitting a piece of ancient martian shale, and the heart-stopping joy of finding a mollusk look-alike or the bones of a fish- equivalent? Yet even if life did attain such a rapid rise in complexity on Mars, it did not last, for Mars as an environment for life died early. Even as bacteria on Earth were readying for the rush to higher grades of life, Mars was dying or was already long dead--assuming that life originated there at all. On Mars, the oceans seeped back into the planet or were lost to space, the oxygen in the atmosphere bound itself to rocks, and life died out. David Grinspoon: I agree with the belief that Mars is currently lifeless. My impression that Mars today is dead is derived from the stale atmosphere (no signs of biological disequilibrium yet discerned) and the lack of internally driven geological activity. I think that to support a biosphere over billions of years, a planet needs more than isolated pockets of water. Don't get me wrong--I am a big proponent of Mars exploration. No matter what we find there, we will learn a lot. And if Mars is lifeless, this gets us off the hook because there won't be any difficult ethical choices about human activities there. But all opinions about life elsewhere are just that. We need to go and look. Donald Brownlee: If no evidence for life is found on Mars, then the formation of life probably is neither easy nor common in the solar system. We already have seriously negative results from asteroidal meteorites. There are now over 30,000 asteroidal meteorites in captivity, and none of them show compelling evidence of alien life. Many of these rocks came from bodies that were much richer in water, carbon, and nitrogen than Earth, and many had warm and wet interiors that lasted for millions of years. Life apparently did not form in the asteroids. Presumably this is because asteroids did not have the right environments even though they did have the right building materials. Creation of life apparently needs a richer diversity of disequilibria than can be found inside wet organic-rich interiors of asteroids. Probably what is needed is something akin to environments that occurred on early Earth and hopefully other planets as well. David Grinspoon: We need to keep an open mind for possible bio-signs in unexpected places as we explore the entire solar system and beyond. If we relax our (understandable) attachment to "life as we know it," other intriguing possibilities become worthy of our consideration. For a planet to foster the origin of life and maintain the necessary conditions, I believe that the most important requirement is a planet with continuous and vigorous geological activity over billions of years. Watery conditions are needed for our kind of life, but any chemical environment where complexity can flourish might do, and we don't know enough about planets and about chemical evolution to place good limits on these environments. Although my hunch is that currently Mars is lifeless, I am still holding out for Venus: nice conditions in the clouds, energetic flows, strange UV absorbing pigments, unexplained particle populations, etc., if you don't mind a little acid. Europa, and possibly Titan or Io, also may harbor life. Frank Drake: In places like Io and Titan, we may find the first evidence of other biochemistries that are beyond our powers of prediction. I am a little on the pessimistic side with regards to Io--it has no substantial atmosphere. But Titan! Wow! A prodigious organic chemical factory, some kind of solvent, even an atmosphere. It sounds better than primitive Earth. Sure, it is very cold there, but chemistry still happens easily if more slowly at Titanian temperatures. Could it be that one creature's arctic clime is another creature's balmy tropical island? Don Brownlee: My prediction is that the nearest alien neighbors live in feces and food scrap left on the moon by the six Apollo missions. Even though it's been three decades, there is a good chance that hearty bacteria live and reproduce inside encapsulated small damp places and survive the monthly cycles of heat and cold as well as the effects of solar flares, ultraviolet light, and hard vacuum. If born-on-the-moon organisms are not living in food scraps (and worse) there are probably dormant terrestrial organisms trapped inside vast numbers of components--wire harnesses and tape interfaces that are parts of the lunar lander, back packs, surface experiments, rover, etc. Somewhere out there is Alan Shepard's unsterilized golf ball, which is likely to carry a small zoo of terrestrial microorganisms. Beyond our moon, my great hope is that microbial life or at least fossil evidence for its prior existence will be found on Mars, Europa, or some other solar system body. If we find life elsewhere in our solar system, and show that it is not a distant cousin of terrestrial life, this will greatly support the idea that formation of life is easy and commonplace, given the right environmental conditions. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article237.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_2_020717.html. _____________________________________________________________________ HOW MINIATURE RADIATION DETECTORS WILL KEEP ASTRONAUTS SAFE IN DEEP SPACE By Heather Sparks From Space.com 17 July 2002 There's no doubt that space travel is a risky business. Even in low Earth orbit, today's astronauts face potential mechanical failure and the mental strain of isolation. However, the future of space exploration lies beyond Earth's protective magnetosphere, where an even bigger threat lurks in the form of heavy ion radiation. In just one day of interstellar space travel, for example, an astronaut will face radiation levels equal to a year's worth of incidental radiation on Earth. This radiation can cause DNA to mutate and cells to die. To battle this invisible threat, NASA and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded $11 million to seven United States' universities this winter for the development of nano-scale biomedical technologies that detect, diagnose and battle radiation exposure, cancer, and other diseases at the cellular level. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/radiation_nanobots _020717.html. _____________________________________________________________________ A SNEAK PEEK AT NASA'S PLANS FOR EXPLORING MARS AND BEYOND By Leonard David From Space.com 18 July 2002 NASA has long been hungry to put the Earth in an astronaut's rear view mirror. Today the agency finds itself embroiled in the sticky business of sorting out the financial, technical and scientific woes resident within the multi-billion dollar International Space Station (ISS) program. Putting that turmoil aside, the space agency has quietly scripted a step-by-step plan to send astronauts to locales between Earth, the Moon and the Sun, to Mars and the asteroids, and even farther--to the moons of several outer planets. This suite of far-out space missions beyond Earth's orbit was assembled as a NASA strategic plan for the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS). It is clear, however, [that] until the ISS effort is under cost and managerial control, NASA's escape velocity vision will remain in limbo. Furthermore, the space agency's new chief, Sean O'Keefe, sees as priority one getting the ISS effort under control. But as part of this futuristic plan, new artwork was created specifically to highlight what NASA officials consider as viable steps in human space exploration. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/nasa_plans_020718a.html. _____________________________________________________________________ SCIENTISTS, DREAMERS CONTINUE REFINING IDEAS FOR FUTURE LUNAR BASES By Leonard David From Space.com 18 July 2002 More than thirty years after Apollo 11 astronauts dropped into the history books by kicking up a little lunar dust, there appears to be the makings of a Moon renaissance. That's how experts around the globe see it as they turn their attention to renovating wild lunar territory into a new continent for creativity. A 21st century Moon can serve multiple purposes, from serving as a natural science laboratory and a site for industrialization and mining, to offering watchdog duties that help avoid getting slammed by ugly "outsiders"-- namely menacing asteroids and comets. And hold onto your space helmets. Even NASA may be jumping onto the fast-moving Moon exploration revival bandwagon. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/moonbase_return_020718.html. _____________________________________________________________________ BIOASTRONOMY 2002: EXTENDING THE BOUNDARIES OF ASTROBIOLOGY By Douglas Vakoch From Space.com 18 July 2002 Every three years, hundreds of scientists from around the world meet for the International Astronomical Union's Bioastronomy Conference-- held last week on Hamilton Island, along the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Australia. In the course of day-long plenary sessions punctuated by meals filled with intensive discussions, these scientists challenged the trend toward ever-increasing isolation of one discipline from another. For five days, astronomers talked with biologists, and geologists chatted with chemists, all in an attempt to assess the likelihood that life exists beyond Earth. Dave Theison of the University of Maryland, an astronomer by training, attempted to stretch the boundaries yet further. In addition to presenting his work at the conference, he led a workshop and presented a paper at the Australian-American Fulbright Symposium, which was held in parallel. The Fulbright Symposium helps provide resources to science teachers who want to engage their students through topics related to life beyond Earth. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/bioastronomy_vakoch_020718.html. _____________________________________________________________________ FRANK DRAKE AWARD 2002 SETI Institute release 18 July 2002 The Frank Drake Award for Innovation in SETI and Life In The Universe Research was established by the SETI Institute in 2001 to honor distinguished contributors to the scientific search for life beyond earth. The award is named for Dr. Frank Drake in recognition of his life-long contributions to the search for life beyond Earth. Few scientists in the modern era have fired the popular imagination like SETI Institute Board Chairman Frank Drake. From his work on Project Ozma--the first modern scientific search for intelligent life beyond Earth--to his current work in the new field of optical SETI, Drake's research personifies a pioneering spirit. Setting the benchmark for the future, the SETI Institute chose to honor Dr. Drake as the first recipient of the Drake Award in 2001. Purpose The Drake Award is intended to recognize and encourage outstanding research contributions by a scientist in the fields of SETI and/or Life In The Universe. It may also be awarded to an outstanding student who is pursuing innovative work in these fields. Award The Drake Award consists of a maximum of $5,000 to be distributed in the year of the Award, a plaque describing the nature of the qualifying work of the recipient, and an allowance for travel expenses to attend the presentation event. Establishment & Support The Drake Award is supported by generous contributions to the SETI Institute in honor of the leadership and pioneering role of Dr. Frank Drake. Rules & Eligibility Awards will be based both on past contributions and potential for future contributions of new knowledge to the body of scientific work focused on understanding the origin, nature, prevalence, and distribution of life in the universe, or the understanding of life's development and evolution on Earth. Awards may be given for experimental or theoretical achievements, for a single dramatic innovation, or for a series of research contributions. After a nomination has expired (three consecutive review cycles without being selected), a completely new and updated nomination package must be submitted for the nominee to continue to be considered. Award winners will be selected by a panel of distinguished scientists, appointed by the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Download the Frank Drake Award Nomination Form at http://www.seti.org/pdf/drake_award_2002.pdf. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.seti.org/general/drake_award_2002.html. _____________________________________________________________________ ASTROBIOLOGY REPORT: NASA NEEDS COURSE SHIFT By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 19 July 2002 A committee of top scientists reviewing NASA's five-year-old astrobiology program gives it an overall thumbs up while recommending the space agency revise its approach and improve coordination with other, similar federal research programs. The report also praises the privately run SETI Institute and its search for intelligent life and calls it worthy of more notice by mainstream scientists and agencies. In the late 1990s, NASA created its first "roadmap" for astrobiology, an emerging discipline that incorporates astronomy, biology and many other fields in an effort to characterize life, how it began and evolved on Earth and whether and where it might exist elsewhere in the universe. That initial roadmap is now outdated, according to a report scheduled to be issued today by the National Research Council (NRC), which conducted the independent review at NASA's request. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astrobiology_report_020719.html . _____________________________________________________________________ ODDS OF COMPLEX LIFE. GREAT DEBATES: PART III From Astrobiology Magazine 22 July 2002 The debate about the "Rare Earth" hypothesis continues today with a discussion about complex life and the possibility of its occurrence in the universe. Complex life is generally considered any living thing with multiple cells--as opposed to single celled, microbial life--and, on Earth anyway, includes everything from the simplest slime molds to human beings. The participants in today's debate are: Debate moderator Michael Meyer, the Senior Scientist for astrobiology at NASA Headquarters and Program Scientist for the Mars 2001 Odyssey Mission. Donald Brownlee, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Astronomy of the University of Washington in Seattle. Frank Drake, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute, and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. David Grinspoon, Principal Scientist in the Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the forthcoming book, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life. Christopher McKay, planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames Research Center. Peter Ward, co-author of Rare Earth, and Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Simon Conway Morris, professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge in England. Michael Meyer: I presume that we are in agreement that microbial life, at least, may be common in our stellar neighborhood and even may be present on other planets in our Solar System. That being the premise, the probability of complex life elsewhere is then dependent on the probability of the transition from slime to civilization. It happened here, so why not elsewhere? Do you think that complex life should develop on a sizeable fraction of worlds around other stars? Christopher McKay: As David Grinspoon pointed out earlier, the Earth is our only example of planetary life. This makes it difficult to unravel what is universal and what is accidental about the nature and history of life. Still, one data point is better than none, and when we look at the question of complex life, our one data point seems to say that complex life arose as a result of the rise of free oxygen. If we take this as being generally true, then we can ask the geophysical question. On what types of planets will free oxygen arise and how long will it take to reach high enough levels? On Earth it took billions of years for oxygen to rise to present levels. Partly this is because the Earth is efficient at recycling by plate tectonics. This recycling keeps the Earth habitable by cycling the essential elements, but it also would have been a barrier to the build up of oxygen. Earth probably is not the best possible planet for complex life development, since less plate tectonics would allow a faster rate of oxygen build up. Mars took this to the extreme. With no plate tectonics, a shallow ocean, and only 38% of the Earth's gravity, Mars might have built up oxygen much faster than the Earth. But the lack of plate tectonics doomed Mars to lose its atmosphere through mineralization. We might find that complex life arose on Mars only to be extinguished later. Perhaps the optimal planet for complex life would be an intermediate between Earth and Mars. There may be a range of planet types on which oxygen could arise--and therefore complex life. I would hazard a guess that most--maybe two- thirds--of terrestrial planets with life go on to develop complex life at some stage of their history: an optimist's view. Simon Conway Morris: The problem in my view is, why did complex life take so long to evolve on Earth? Evidence from oxygen data is frankly equivocal. Maybe the redox state of the Earth's mantle was peculiar in comparison with other similar planets. Alternatively, ocean chemistry may have put the lid on things. There could be other dimensions that could explain why there was such a brake on the evolution of complex life--why there were no Meso-Proterozoic dry martinis, but on the other hand, once microbes, then NASA. David Grinspoon: Planetary biospheres are complex entities whose histories are fraught with contingency, accident, and luck. Therefore, the time it took for complex life to arise on Earth is probably much faster than some and much slower than others. We can't stand a mystery without a chief suspect, so we pin the rise of complex life on the rise of oxygen. This may well have factored in, but as Chris pointed out, there is no reason to believe that oxygen rose on Earth as quickly as it might have elsewhere. The rate of plate tectonics is one variable that will change atmospheric history- -there are countless others. For example, if Earth had formed less rich in iron, then oxygen would have risen much more quickly because there would not have been as much iron to devour the oxygen. So in other planetary systems that are less metal-rich, creatures might have evolved to levels far beyond our current state. Peter Ward: On Earth, evolution has undergone a progressive development of ever more complex and sophisticated forms leading ultimately to human intelligence. Complex life--and even intelligence --could conceivably arise faster than it did on Earth. A planet could go from an abiotic state to a civilization in 100 million years, as compared to the nearly 4 billion years it took on Earth. Evolution on Earth has been affected by chance events, such as the configuration of the continents produced by continental drift. Furthermore, I believe that the way the solar system was produced, with its characteristic number and planetary positions, may have had a great impact on the history of life here. It has always been assumed that attaining the evolutionary grade we call animals would be the final and decisive step. Once we are at this level of evolution, a long and continuous progression toward intelligence should occur. However, recent research shows that while attaining the stage of animal life is one thing, maintaining that level is quite another. The geologic record has shown that once evolved, complex life is subject to an unending succession of planetary disasters, creating what are known as mass extinction events. These rare but devastating events can reset the evolutionary timetable and destroy complex life while sparing simpler life forms. Such discoveries suggest that the conditions allowing the rise and existence of complex life are far more rigorous than are those for life's formation. On some planets, then, life might arise and animals eventually evolve--only to be soon destroyed by a global catastrophe. Frank Drake: The Earth's fossil record is quite clear in showing that the complexity of the central nervous system--particularly the capabilities of the brain--has steadily increased in the course of evolution. Even the mass extinctions did not set back this steady increase in brain size. It can be argued that extinction events expedite the development of cognitive abilities, since those creatures with superior brains are better able to save themselves from the sudden change in their environment. Thus smarter creatures are selected, and the growth of intelligence accelerates. We see this effect in all varieties of animals--it is not a fluke that has occurred in some small sub-set of animal life. This picture suggests strongly that, given enough time, a biota can evolve not just one intelligent species, but many, so complex life should occur abundantly. There is a claim that "among the millions of species which have developed on Earth, only one became intelligent, so intelligence must be a very, very rare event." This is a textbook example of a wrong logical conclusion. All planets in time may produce one or more intelligent species, but they will not appear simultaneously. One will be first. It will look around and find it is the only intelligent species. Should it be surprised? No! Of course the first one will be alone. Its uniqueness--in principal temporary-- says nothing about the ability of the biota to produce one or more intelligent species. If we assume that Earths are common, and that usually there is enough time to evolve an intelligent species before nature tramples on the biota, then the optimistic view is that new systems of intelligent, technology-using creatures appear about once per year. Based on an extrapolation of our own experience, let's make a guess that a civilization's technology is detectable after 10,000 years. In that case, there are at least 10,000 detectable civilizations out there. This is a heady result, and very encouraging to SETI people. On the other hand, taking into account the number and distribution of stars in space, it implies that the nearest detectable civilizations are about 1,000 light years away, and only one in ten million stars may have a detectable civilization. These last numbers create a daunting challenge to those who construct instruments and projects to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. No actual observing program carried out so far has come anywhere close to meeting the requirement of detecting reasonable signals from a distance of 1,000 light years, or of studying 10 million stars with high sensitivity. Donald Brownlee: But how often are animal-habitable planets located in the habitable zones of solar mass stars? Of the all the stars that have now been shown to have planets, all either have Jupiter- mass planets interior to 5.5 AU or they have Jupiters on elliptical orbits. It is unlikely that any of these stars could retain habitable zone planets on long-term stable orbits. On the other hand, many of the stars that do not have currently detectable giant planets could have habitable zone planets. But even when rocky planets are located in the right place, will they have the "right stuff" for the evolution and long term survival of animal-like life? There are many "Rare Earth" factors (such as planet mass, abundance of water and carbon, plate tectonics, etc.) that may play important and even critical roles in allowing the apparently difficult transition from slime to civilization. As is the case in the solar system, animal-like life is probably uncommon in the cosmos. This might even be the case for microbes: how can scientists agree that microbial life is common in our celestial neighborhood when there is no data? Even the simplest life is extraordinarily complicated and until we find solid evidence for life elsewhere, the frequency of life will unfortunately be guesswork. We can predict that some planetary bodies will provide life-supporting conditions, but no one can predict that life will form. Frank Drake: Only about 5% of the stars that have been studied sufficiently have hot Jupiters or Jupiters in elliptical orbits. The other 95% of the stars studied do not have hot Jupiters, and just what they have is still an open question. The latest discoveries, which depend on observations over a decade or more, are finding solar system analogs. This suggests that 95% of the stars--for which the answers are not yet in--could be similar to our own system. This is reason for optimism among those who expect solar system analogs to be abundant. David Grinspoon: I think it is a mistake to look at the many specific peculiarities of Earth's biosphere, and how unlikely such a combination of characteristics seems, and to then conclude that complex life is rare. This argument can only be used to justify the conclusion that planets exactly like Earth, with life exactly like Earth-life, are rare. My cat "Wookie" survived life as a near-starving alley cat and wound up as a beloved house cat through an unlikely series of biographical accidents, which I won't take up space describing but, trust me, given all of the incredible things that had to happen in just the right way, it is much more likely that there would be no Wookie than Wookie. From this I do not conclude that there are no other cats (The Rare Cat Hypothesis), only that there are no other cats exactly like Wookie. Life has evolved together with the Earth. Life is opportunistic. The biosphere has taken advantage of the myriad strange idiosyncrasies that our planet has to offer. Not only that, life has created many of Earth's weird qualities. So it is easy to look at our biosphere, and the way it so cleverly exploits Earth's peculiar features, and conclude that this is the best of all possible worlds; that only on such a world could complex life evolve. My bet is that many other worlds, with their own peculiar characteristics and histories, co-evolve their own biospheres. The complex creatures on those worlds, upon first developing intelligence and science, would observe how incredibly well adapted life is to the many unique features of their home world. They might naively assume that these qualities, very different from Earth's, are the only ones that can breed complexity. Additional information on this article is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article239.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_3_020722.html. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 22 July 2002 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html Astrobiology Magazine, 2002. Complex life elsewhere in the universe? Great debates: part I. Astrobiology Magazine. Astrobiology Magazine, 2002. How far away is our E.T. neighbor? Great debates: part II. Astrobiology Magazine. Astrobiology Magazine, 2002. Odds of complex life. Great debates: part III. Astrobiology Magazine. R. R. Britt, 2002. Astrobiology report: NASA needs course shift. Space.com. G. Horneck, D. Stoffler, U. Eschweiler and U. Horneman, 2001. Bacterial spores survive simulated meteorite impact. Icarus, 149:285-290. G. Horneck, P. Rettberg, G. Reitz, J. Wehner, U. Eschweiler, K. Strauch, C. Panitz, V. Starke and C. Baumstark-Khan, 2001. Protection of bacterial spores in space, a contribution to the discussion on panspermia. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 31:527-547. C. Mileikowsky, F. Cucinotta, J. W. Wilson, B. Gladman, G. Horneck, L. Lindegren, J. Melosh, H. Rickman, M. Valtonen and J. Q. Zheng, 2000. Natural transfer of viable microbes in space. Icarus, 145:391-427. National Research Council, 2002. Life in the Universe: An Examination of United States and International Programs in Astrobiology. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. R. Stenger, 2002. Scientists clamor for Pluto, Europa missions. CNN. D. Vakoch, 2002. Bioastronomy 2002: extending the boundaries of astrobiology. Space.com. Terrestrial extreme environments articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s2.html Astrobiology Magazine, 2002. Antarctic microbes colonize under Mars- like conditions. Astrobiology Magazine. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html L. David, 2002. Scientists, dreamers continue refining ideas for future lunar bases. Space.com. L. David, 2002. A sneak peek at NASA's plans for exploring Mars and beyond. Space.com. T. Malik, 2002. CSA study gauges astronaut radiation exposure. Space.com. K. Miller and T. Phillips, 2002. Mossy spirals. NASA Science News. S. Shostak, 2002. Bioastronomy 2002: scientists look for life. Space.com. H. Sparks, 2002. How miniature radiation detectors will keep astronauts safe in deep space. Space.com. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s4.html A. Howard and P. Horowitz, 2001. Optical SETI with NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder. Icarus, 150:163-167. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html S. Shostak, 2002. Bioastronomy 2002: the Earth is a tough place. Space.com. Astrobiology and extreme environments book list http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology_b ooks.html National Research Council, 2002. Life in the Universe: An Examination of United States and International Programs in Astrobiology. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. National Research Council, 2002. New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL releases 2-10 July 2002 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Tuesday, July 9. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. Instrument activities at the conclusion of the C32 sequence included maintenance of the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument Low Energy Magnetospheric Measurement subsystem motor, power off of the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Narrow Angle Camera replacement heater to lower temperatures for C33 imaging activities, and the conclusion of the Solar Conjunction Experiment. Spacecraft activities included a Reaction Wheel Assembly unload and a return to thruster control, clearing of the high water marks, and an AACS periodic engineering maintenance containing a main engine gimbal actuator exercise, Backup Assisted Load Format Injection Loader maintenance, and backup reaction wheel exercise. C32 was the last sequence of Cassini's cruise subphase. C33, the first sequence in the Space Science Subphase, was uplinked and began execution this week. Initial instrument activities included a Radio and Plasma Wave Science high frequency receiver calibration, an ISS dark frame observation and a Spica observation to support haze anomaly resolution, and a Cosmic Dust Analyzer test of a new housekeeping data type. Spacecraft activities included transition to reaction wheel control, clearing of the AACS high water marks, and an autonomous Solid State Recorder memory load partition repair. Radio Science data acquisition for the Solar Conjunction Experiment ended July 5, completing the month-long experiment. During this time the Radio Science Team and Mission Support and Services Office personnel provided round the clock support. About 24 megabytes of data were collected, with about 90 percent being open-loop data and the other 10 percent being closed-loop data. Data analysis has begun. The official end of Superior Conjunction occurred when the Sun-Earth- Probe angle reached 15 degrees. The Spacecraft Office reported reaction wheel predictions for the 30-day conjunction period were met as expected, and that no desaturations were required. Command testing was performed during the week surrounding minimum separation. Results were found to be similar to the previous 2 conjunction periods. Commanding is unaffected down to about 2 degrees Sun-Earth- Probe angle, then drops to about a 10% command acceptance rate at 1 degree separation. The Huygens Probe team has finalized the sequence for Probe Checkout #10 and delivered it to the Sequence Virtual Team. ISS completed the final report for the decontamination activities performed in C32. SCO distributed a draft version of Probe Relay Critical Sequence Document to the Probe Mission Review Team. The kickoff meeting was held for the second Tour Science Planning Virtual Team process. Under development are Science Operation Plans for S11 and S12, covering orbits 8 through 12. This process will complete in October of this year. Status presented at last week's Project Science Group meeting held in Lisbon, Portugal included Cassini Program, Huygens Probe, Science Planning, and archiving reports. Each of the Target Working Teams, science teams and Discipline Working Groups also presented status reports. Discussions were held on options for communications with Earth during Saturn Orbit Insertion. Topics at this week's Mission Planning Forum included a status report on rolling downlinks and rocking downlinks, an update on results of ranging on/off for 70m stations and arrays, and the orbiter activity plan during the Huygens mission. Discussion included restrictions on orbiter science activities. The orbiter activity plan will be presented at next week's Probe Relay Design and Risk Review. Uplink Operations Team members traveled to the University of Michigan to perform training classes on the Pointing Design Tool for Cassini Plasma Spectrometer and Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer instrument team members. Mission Assurance has developed a set of metrics for risk management status reporting. A task plan has been negotiated with Raytheon, to implement the metrics in the on-line Risk Management Tool along with the capability to download the risk management database into an Excel spreadsheet. The metrics will provide an illustration of the aggregate project risk exposure, over time and by mission phase. Cassini Education Outreach has taken delivery of the final version of each of 20 educator briefs that form the basis for the "Saturn In Your Kitchen and Backyard" series. Each activity is inquiry based, hands-on, and is aligned with national science education standards. The educator briefs will be available through the education section of the Cassini web site. 11-17 July 2002 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Tuesday, July 17. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. Instrument activities this week included Composite InfraRed Spectrometer Instrument and Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) calibrations, development of Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) Instrument Tour Observation Modes, and calibration of the RPWS High Frequency Receiver. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer performed a star characterization, scattered light observation, instrument solar port observation, and executed an instrument spectral calibration. The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) performed instrument solar port and SPICA observations. In addition, spacecraft activities included a Reaction Wheel momentum unload, clearing of the AACS high water marks, and uplink and execution of an ACS Gyro Calibration mini-sequence. The purpose of the mini-sequence was to determine the misalignments, scale factors, and scale factor uncertainties for the Inertial Reference Unit (IRU). The misalignments and scale factors map directly into accurate attitude estimation. The uncertainties, which are currently quite large, directly affect how long we can suspend stellar ID before we accumulate large attitude errors. The activity consisted of a series of turns using the reaction wheels. By using the scalable feature of the parameter estimation portion of the Cassini Attitude Control Flight Software, the spacecraft was able to autonomously compute the necessary information. All computed values were significantly below tolerances and indicate excellent performance of the IRUs. This was a first time activity for the Cassini spacecraft and in fact, a first time activity for any JPL mission. The Integrated Test Laboratory completed exercising a procedure to normalize RPWS and UVIS flight software. This activity will be performed on-board the spacecraft in late July. The Cassini/Huygens program held a joint independent review of the Huygens Probe Mission. Participants from JPL, the European Space Agency, and private industry supported the two-day review. Included on the agenda were mission design, navigation strategy, critical sequence design, and ground and flight operations scenarios. Instrument Operations has collected all presentations from the on- going Science and Uplink Office Seminar series and additional pertinent Cassini training materials for reproduction on a MAC/PC compatible CD-ROM. The CD makes these materials readily available for on-going training. The second of three input ports for Science Operations Plan implementation of tour sequences S09 and S10 was reached this week. The merged product was handed off to ACS for end-to-end pointing profile validation. The final input port also closed this week for the Science Planning Team development of the C34 sequence. This merged product was also delivered to ACS for end-to-end pointing profile validation. Uplink Operations presented requirements for Target Options and Modules scheduled for Mission Sequence Subsystem D9.0 at this week's Cassini Design Team meeting. Outreach gave a series of presentations on the Cassini mission, and presented educator activities to 30 classroom educators participating in a 2-week NASA Educator Workshop (NEW). Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. _____________________________________________________________________ CONTOUR MISSION OPS: EARTH ORBIT TO HIBERNATION NASA/JHUAPL release http://www.contour2002.org/news.php?id=13 8 July 2002 After a successful launch, what's next for CONTOUR? Here's a quick look at some of the key spacecraft operations planned as CONTOUR orbits Earth, leaves Earth's orbit and enters its first hibernation period. Keep in mind that CONTOUR is a very flexible mission and the timing of maneuvers and operations may change, so keep checking the CONTOUR Web site for the latest schedules and news. The CONTOUR Mission Operations Center is located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. Launch to August 15, 2002 CONTOUR is in an elliptical orbit around Earth. During each 42-hour phasing orbit CONTOUR comes as close as 200 kilometers (124 miles) out to 115,000 kilometers (71,300 miles)from Earth. The spacecraft performs several maneuvers that adjust its attitude as well as the timing and height of the phasing orbits. Over several weeks CONTOUR gradually moves into position to fire its solid rocket motor and leave Earth's orbit on August 15. August 15, 2002 At 4:46 AM (EDT), about 225 kilometers above the Indian Ocean, CONTOUR will fire its STAR-30 solid rocket motor for approximately 50 seconds, getting the 1,922 meters-per-second boost it needs to escape Earth's orbit. (The maneuver is the solid rocket motor's only use.) CONTOUR then embarks on a course around the Sun that will bring it back to Earth and toward its target comets. August 17-22, 2002 With CONTOUR in a stable spin mode, mission operators activate and check out the spacecraft's guidance and control system. Operators will determine the "G&C" system works properly before turning on the craft's science instruments. August 25 - September 22, 2002 Mission operators switch CONTOUR to 3-axis mode, checking spacecraft operations in the mode designed for Earth swingbys and comet encounters. Instrument covers are deployed and the instruments themselves are checked out and calibrated. On September 17, the spacecraft will be 1.07 astronomical units (more than 99 million miles or 160 million kilometers) from the Sun--about the same solar distance for the Encke flyby in November 2003. On or around that date the mission team will run a simulated Encke encounter to check power levels and instrument performance. CONTOUR returns to spin mode on September 22. October 9-31, 2002 After a maneuver October 9 to correct the spacecraft's orbit and another (about a week later) to adjust its attitude and spin rate, CONTOUR is powered down and enters hibernation by October 31. During hibernation all the spacecraft's instruments and subsystems are turned off; only the command receivers, thermostatically controlled heaters and critical core components stay on. The mission operations team stands down until preparations begin to "awaken" CONTOUR in July 2003. _____________________________________________________________________ THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS ON GALILEO NASA/JPL release 15 July - 11 August 2002 As the Galileo spacecraft continues its long trek back in towards Jupiter for its final planned science pass in November, the first two weeks of this reporting period are occupied by an event called solar conjunction. This occurs roughly every 13 months as the paths of Jupiter and the spacecraft have them appear to pass behind the Sun as seen from Earth. Solar conjunction itself is an instantaneous event, and occurs on Thursday, July 18, at 1:51 PM PDT, when the line of sight from Earth to Galileo will skim a mere 20th of a degree over the visible surface of the Sun. However, for a period of about 3 weeks centered around that event, the spacecraft is less than 7 degrees from the Sun and radio interference from the turbulent solar atmosphere makes communication unreliable. This period will end on Sunday, July 28, and normal spacecraft activities can resume. Normally, the spacecraft is placed in a quiescent state during conjunction, with no activities planned. Recent problems with our on-board tape recorder have prompted engineers to suggest an alternate strategy. To prevent the tape from sticking to the record heads, we now have the recorder continuously moving slowly up and down the entire length of the tape in small steps, traversing all four tracks of tape about every 36 hours. This action should condition the tape, making it less likely to stick when we start to move longer distances and at higher speeds. The current motion will continue until early Tuesday morning, July 30, clearing the way for a more aggressive series of tests of the recorder. On Friday, August 2, the next series of tape recorder tests will begin. During the conjunction test, it took 29 small steps to move from one end of the tape to the other. These new tests will increase our stride so that it only takes six steps to move the length of the tape. Five days later, on Tuesday, August 6, we pick up the pace again, and will span the tape in only two steps, a pace we will maintain until Monday, August 12. Subsequent tests are being planned that will increase the speed with which we traverse the tape, to gain confidence that we can again use the recorder freely, as we have planned for the Amalthea flyby in November. On Tuesday, July 30, routine maintenance of the propulsion system is performed. On Thursday, August 1, the spacecraft is turned in place by 4 degrees to keep the communications antenna pointed towards Earth. The spacecraft is still well outside the magnetosphere of Jupiter on the sunward side of the planet, and continuous data collection by the Magnetometer, the Dust Detector, and the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer instruments provides scientists with information about the interplanetary medium. For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo _____________________________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SCIENCE OPERATIONS STATUS REPORTS NASA/MSFC releases 01-170 & 02-178 11 July 2002 Checkout and activation of the new Microgravity Science Glovebox began during the past week aboard the Space Station. "This week is not just the start of a new experiment on the Station but the start of a broad new research capability for the Station in the coming years," said Linda Jeter, team lead for the Glovebox at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and project manager for its first two experiments. The key feature of the phone booth-sized Glovebox rack is a windowed work area with built-in gloves on its sides and front. It was designed to enhance the Station's science capabilities by providing a facility where the crew can work safely with experiments that involves fluids, flames, particles and fumes that otherwise would be difficult to contain in the near-weightless microgravity environment on the Station. "This is a multi-disciplinary facility that can support research in the fields of materials, biotechnology, fluid science, combustion science and more," Jeter said. "Without the Glovebox, many kinds of hands-on experiments would be impossible or restricted on the Station." The Glovebox provides a safe sealed work environment equipped with mechanical, electrical, data, fluid, gas and vacuum utilities, lighting and thermal control. It isolates the experiment from the operator and the station environment. The Glovebox was developed by the European Space Agency and built by Bradford Engineering B.V. in The Netherlands. The first Glovebox experiment began today when Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson activated the Solidification Using a Baffle in Sealed Ampoules (SUBSA) experiment. Also assisting the Glovebox activation from the Marshall Center this week was a support team from the European Space Agency. SUBSA is the first of two materials science experiments that will study basic physical processes similar to those used to make semiconductors for electronic devices and components used in jet engines. The 16-hour sample processing run is the first of 10 samples that will be processed during Expedition Five. It will be followed by a similar experiment in the Glovebox later during the Expedition. Whitson began setting up the SUBSA experiment last Friday and completed the installation on Tuesday, including the collection of pictures and video for downlink to scientists on the ground. Whitson and the Operations Center checked out the Glovebox facility on Monday and Tuesday, including power, control lights, air circulation, pressure sensors, airlock interlock, video system and laptop computer, before beginning the experiment on Wednesday. For this investigation, glass tubes called ampoules filled with indium antimonide crystals previously solidified on Earth will be placed in a furnace, melted and then cooled to re-solidify in microgravity and form solid single crystals. Scientists on the ground are able to observe each sample as it is processed and send commands to the furnaces. Over the weekend, Whitson began her Renal Stone sample collection and data recording. Whitson is the principal investigator for the Renal Stone experiment. On Monday, Commander Valery Korzun performed on- board training for the Renal Stone experiment and began his diet log as part of the experiment, which studies a possible preventative for kidney stone formation in space. Flight Engineer Sergei Treshev began his Renal Stone collection activities on Tuesday to be completed Thursday. Hardware will be stowed following completion of activities by all crewmembers. Other experiments in the Destiny lab continue to operate normally including the Advanced Astroculture, Protein Crystal Growth Single Thermal Enclosure System and the StelSys liver cell tissue experiment, which has been completed with samples now in frozen storage. Images returned this week of the soybean plants in the ADVASC show them to be very healthy. Photography subjects for the Crew Earth Observations research program this week included air quality in the western Mediterranean, changes in Lake Nasser and the Toshka Lakes in Egypt, fires over much of subequatorial Africa, smoke from Canadian forest fires drifting over the northeastern United States, and lake levels and agricultural activity in the Eastern Sierra watershed. On Friday, the first sample run of the Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment during Expedition Five is scheduled to be completed after a 15-day run. Samples processed in the ZCG furnace are expected to lead to insights in electronic printing and transmitting electronic data. The Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, manages all science research experiment operations aboard the International Space Station. The center is also home for coordination of the mission-planning work of a variety of international sources, all science payload deliveries and retrieval, and payload training and payload safety programs for the Station crew and all ground personnel. 17 July 2002 Astronauts literally got their hands on a new tool for conducting research aboard the International Space Station in the past week. Checkout and activation of the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG), ferried to the Station recently by Space Shuttle Endeavour, was completed and the first scientific research began. "We experienced some normal startup difficulties but nothing unexpected for a new piece of equipment like this," said Charles Baugher, glovebox discipline scientist for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. "We've begun our first experiment, the Solidification Using a Baffle in Sealed Ampoules (SUBSA) experiment and we're continuing to conduct Glovebox science this week." The SUBSA experiment is the first of two Expedition Five materials science experiments that will study basic physical processes similar to those used to make semiconductors for electronic devices and components used in jet engines. Last week's 16-hour experiment will be followed by a second SUBSA test pending completion of additional non-sample testing this week. A total of 10 samples will be processed during the Expedition. The principal investigator for SUBSA is Aleksandar Ostrogorsky, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. For this investigation, quartz tubes called ampoules filled with indium antimonide material previously solidified on Earth are placed in a furnace inside the Glovebox, melted and then slowly cooled to re-solidify in microgravity and form single solid crystals. Scientists want to study how impurities--tellurium and zinc in this experiment--added to a semiconductor to control its properties can be more uniformly distributed throughout the material. "I think my experiment went as nice as we expected or hoped," Ostrogorsky said. "We had a minor computer/communication problem, which could be expected, considering that both MSG and SUBSA are being used for the first time. The clarity of images was excellent. The molten semiconductor material was performing as we wanted, without separating from ampoule walls or releasing undesirable bubbles that have been reported in several previous microgravity investigations. A specific feature of SUBSA experiments is that one can really see the semiconductor crystals growing for the first time in space. In the previous Space Shuttle experiments, the investigators had to wait for the samples to return to analyze the crystals, without seeing the crystal grow. We want to get reproducible results the Shuttle did not provide enough flight time to do a series of experiments that could provide reproducible results." The key feature of the phone booth-sized Glovebox rack is a sealed work area with windows and built-in gloves on its sides and front. It was designed to allow Station crews to work safely with experiments that involve fluids, flames, particles and fumes that otherwise would be difficult to contain in the near-weightless microgravity environment on the Station. A European Space Agency industry team including ASTRIUM, Bradford Engineering, Verhaert, and ATOS-ORIGIN developed the Glovebox for NASA. The crew and ground controllers last Friday completed the first Expedition Five sample run of the Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment. The samples from the 15-day experiment remain in the furnace awaiting return on the next Shuttle mission, while new samples will be shipped to the Station for a new round of research. Samples processed in the ZCG furnace are expected to lead to insights in electronic printing and transmitting electronic data. Soybean plants inside the Advanced Astroculture experiment continued to grow well during the past week. The crew continued to tend the plants on Monday, adding new nutrient fluid and collecting gas and condensate samples for analysis on the ground. As part of their Crew Earth Observations photography research on Monday, the crew participated in a multi-agency experiment called Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers - Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL-FACE). The experiment is designed to collect measurements of clouds that will help improve climate models. The Station photos have the potential to provide profound visuals for use in describing and interpreting measurements by the other participating agencies. Scientists asked that they downlink the digital images as soon as possible. Other CEO photography subjects this week included air quality over the eastern Mediterranean, the Nile River delta, fires in Angola, Florida thunderstorm anvils, lakes of the eastern Sierra, high central Andean glaciers, and Lake Poopo in Bolivia. On Thursday and Friday this week, the Expedition Five crew is scheduled to conduct the Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing (MEPS) experiment, which is exploring an improved method of drug delivery. Five test runs are planned for Thursday and three more for Friday. The automated experiment will combine two liquids to form tiny liquid-filled bubbles surrounded by a thin membrane. The device cures, filters, washes and harvests the microcapsules for analysis on the ground. Experiments such as this could eventually lead to the development of anti-tumor drugs that allow the delivery of higher doses of chemotherapeutic drugs to specific treatment sites, reducing the unwanted side effects experienced by cancer patients. Contact: Steve Roy Media Relations Department Phone: 256-544-0034 E-mail: Steve.Roy@msfc.nasa.gov An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iss-science-02b.html. _____________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU releases 8-12 July 2002 Deuteronilus Mensae (Released 8 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020708a.html Terby Crater (Released 9 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020709a.html Terra Tyrrhena/Millochau Crater (Released 10 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020710a.html Amenthes Crater (Released 11 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020711a.html Huo Hsing Vallis (Released 12 July 2002 http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020712a.html 15-20 July 2002 Hrad Valles (Released 15 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020715a.html Ophir Planum (Released 16 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020716a.html Spallanzani Crater (Released 17 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020717a.html Ulysses Patera (Released 18 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020718a.html 1st Manned Lunar Landing and 1st Robotic Mars Landing Commerative Release: Viking 1 Landing Site in Chryse Planitia Visible Image (Released 20 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020720a.html 1st Manned Lunar Landing and 1st Robotic Mars Landing Commerative Release: Viking 1 Landing Site in Chryse Planitia Infrared Image (Released 20 July 2002) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20020719b.html All of the THEMIS images are archived at http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. Dr. Philip Christensen leads the THEMIS investigation at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORTS NASA/JPL releases 12 July 2002 There was one Deep Space Network tracking pass (downlink only) this past week, and all subsystems are normal. One planned communications pass was given to NASA's CONTOUR mission to support initial mission launch operations. A second communications session became downlink- only when the ground system went down because of a power interruption. Because commands could not be sent during this pass, the spacecraft has not been commanded for 14 days. The spacecraft is programmed to automatically go into safe mode if no commands are received for 17 days. The 17-day period was chosen based upon scenarios similar to what just occurred. An additional short DSN pass is now scheduled this weekend just to send a command that will reset the command loss timer, preventing the spacecraft from entering safe mode. Commands for testing the motion of the navigation camera's mirror at low rates are in development and will be sent to the spacecraft next week. Project personnel were interviewed for a Discover magazine article. On Thursday July 11, NASA TV hosted live satellite interviews with project manager Tom Duxbury and aerogel scientist Peter Tsou--who spoke in the first Chinese-language live shot in JPL history. 19 July 2002 There were three Deep Space Network (DSN) communications passes in the past week and all subsystems are normal. Commands for a test of the navigation mirror rate were reviewed and will be sent to the spacecraft next week. New configuration files were successfully sent to the spacecraft, updating the knowledge of the Earth and Sun positions. These files are periodically updated with the latest trajectory data to provide better pointing knowledge. The team completed a detailed review of the Comet Wild 2 encounter fault tree, an analysis of all the possible complications that could arise during the Comet Wild 2 encounter. This is an exercise to identify and fix any potential problems in advance. For more information on the Stardust mission--the first ever comet sample return mission--please visit the Stardust home page at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov. _____________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 9, Number 26.