MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 6, 10 February 2003. Editor/Publisher: David J. Thomas, Ph.D., Science Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu Contributing Editor: Julian A. Hiscox, Ph.D., 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 effectively 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/. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) PIONEER DEEP-SEA EXPLORER FROM RUTGERS DESCRIBES HOT SPRINGS ON SEA FLOOR AS TEEMING WITH VALUABLE MINERALS AND MICROBES Rutgers University release 2) INCREASED US SPACE BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily 3) LIVES LOST, LIVES SAVED: THE BENEFITS OF SHUTTLE SCIENCE By Robert Roy Britt 4) NASA SHOULD LEAD MORE FOCUSED PROGRAM TO REDUCE THREAT FROM HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS National Optical Astronomy Observatory release 03-03 5) IN DEFENSE OF EARTH: KEEPING ASTEROIDS AT A DISTANCE By Leonard David 6) NASA SCIENCE SETS ITS SIGHTS ON HUMAN MARS MISSION By Robert Roy Britt 7) TO THE STARS: NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY LAUNCHES PETITION TO COUNTER SPACE EXPLORATION NAY-SAYERS By Tariq Malik 8) THE PULL OF HYPERGRAVITY By Karen Miller 9) NEWS CONFERENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CREW NASA note to editors 03-013 10) ASTRONAUT SPOUSES & CHILDREN RELEASE STATEMENT NASA release 03-060 11) NO TIME TO CUT AND RUN By Robert Zubrin 12) NASA, UCLA TO LAUNCH NEW INSTITUTE TO IMPROVE AEROSPACE SYSTEMS NASA/ARC release 03-10AR 13) GREAT IMPACT DEBATE, PART I: BENEFITS OF HARD BODIES Moderated by Don Yeomans 14) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 15) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 16) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 17) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 18) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ PIONEER DEEP-SEA EXPLORER FROM RUTGERS DESCRIBES HOT SPRINGS ON SEA FLOOR AS TEEMING WITH VALUABLE MINERALS AND MICROBES Rutgers University release 30 January 2003 With only about 5 percent of the sea floor explored in detail, a picture is emerging of a vast system of natural undersea dynamos, fueled by hot springs, that produce not only valuable mineral deposits, but habitats for unique, heat-loving organisms that can provide materials for products ranging from detergents to pharmaceuticals. That is the view of marine geologist and geophysicist Peter A. Rona of the department of geological sciences and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Rona, a sea-floor mineral resources consultant to the United Nations, has spent more than 40 years exploring the oceans. He published an overview of current work entitled "Resources of the Seafloor" in the international journal Science January 31. One of Rona's discoveries is a metal-rich mound the size and shape of the Houston Astrodome two-and-a-half miles under the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. "At least 50,000 years in the making, the mound is composed largely of combinations of the metals copper, iron, zinc, gold and silver. It was produced by jets of hot, metal-rich sea water," he said. Rona, who continues to dive and has logged research expeditions aboard 11 of the world's 13 deep-diving human-occupied submersible research vessels, said the oceans are no longer considered simply containers for minerals washed off the continents. "Before the discovery of plate tectonics the oceans were thought of as big bathtubs," he said. "Now we know that the earth's crust, most of it under the ocean, is cracked into plates that move and allow heat and materials from the earth's interior to escape. As a result we know that most of the minerals on the sea floor probably come from sources under the sea floor." In fact, Rona said, there is probably as much water circulating under the sea floor as there is in the oceans themselves. "Cold, dense sea water seeps for miles downward through the crust. When it reaches hot layers in the mantle, the water heats and rises with force, dissolving metals from surrounding rocks and blasting out of the sea floor at 650 degrees Fahrenheit. Often the jets are so dense with minerals we call them 'black smokers.'" When the hot jets reach the cold ocean water, the minerals condense and create structures on the sea floor, said Rona. "Besides mineral deposits, the hot water and minerals provide habitats and energy for heat-loving microbes at the bottom of a food chain of newly discovered deep-ocean life forms. These microbes contain enzymes and bioactive compounds that can be used in such applications as DNA finger-printing, detergents, food preservation, oil-drilling and pharmaceutical production." Rona recently delivered a keynote address at a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides a "constitution" for management of the oceans. "When the Law of the Sea was negotiated, we had little realization of how far we had to go in terms of retrieving these materials commercially and no knowledge of the microbes or living systems present," he said. "Miles down, the ocean is an extremely hostile environment. Sea water is corrosive; the pressures are huge. It's analogous to exploring outer space in terms of a hostile and alien environment," he said. "We are only beginning to discover the immense richness and diversity of sea floor resources." The public will have an opportunity to view Rona's undersea work in a giant-screen film to be released later this year, entitled "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," produced by the Stephen Low Company and Rutgers University. Major funding for the film project is provided by the National Science Foundation with additional outreach funding provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Ocean Exploration. Contact: Bill Haduch Phone: 732-932-7084, extension 633 E-mail: bhaduch@ur.rutgers.edu Read the original news release at http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.phtml?ArticleID=2941. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-03h.html http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/299/5607/673 ________________________________________________________________________ INCREASED US SPACE BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily 4 February 2003 Two days after the tragic loss of the US shuttle Columbia and its crew, the Bush administration proposed a 3.1-percent increase of its space budget, which highlights search for extraterrestrial life but puts on hold a new generation of manned orbiters. The spending blueprint, unveiled by the White House Monday, requests nearly 15.5 billion dollars for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in fiscal 2004 beginning on October 1, up from 15 billion dollars NASA is projected to spend in the current fiscal year. It also mysteriously hints that "perhaps the notion that 'theres something out there' is closer to reality than we have imagined"--and generously provides for unmanned exploration of the far reaches of outer space in search of past or existing life. Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030204063247.dn0znoho.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/news/budget_nasa_030203.html. ________________________________________________________________________ LIVES LOST, LIVES SAVED: THE BENEFITS OF SHUTTLE SCIENCE By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 4 February 2003 In the grim wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, space experts, politicians and individuals debate the value of human space flight weighed against the cost in dollars and human lives. It is a cold, hard equation infused with tremendous emotion. Factor in this: experiments done by the Columbia astronauts will lead to improved earthquake safety, cleaner air, better human health and will save lives. Unlike most shuttle missions that serve the International Space Station, STS-107 was a marathon scientific undertaking, with dozens of investigations ranging from tumor growth to global climate change, all work that can't be carried out on Earth. Though much of the valuable data and specimens were lost in the disaster, a remarkable amount was downloaded to ground computers during the mission. The astronauts were, in fact, scientists. Their names will appear in future scientific papers that result from research done during the 16-day mission. Read the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/columbia_experiments_030204.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA SHOULD LEAD MORE FOCUSED PROGRAM TO REDUCE THREAT FROM HAZARDOUS ASTEROIDS National Optical Astronomy Observatory release 03-03 4 February 2003 NASA should be assigned to lead a new research program to better determine the population and physical diversity of near-Earth objects that may collide with our planet, down to a size of 200 meters, according to the final report of a workshop on the scientific requirements for the mitigation of hazardous comets and asteroids. The workshop's report also recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) work to more rapidly communicate surveillance data on natural airbursts of smaller rocky bodies, and it concludes that governmental policy makers must "formulate a chain of responsibility" to be better prepared in the event that a threat to Earth becomes known. "As our discussions proceeded, it became clear that the prime impediment to further advances in this field is the lack of assigned responsibility to any national or international governmental organization," said planetary scientist Michael Belton, organizer of the September 2002 workshop. "Since it is part of NASA's newly stated mission to 'understand and protect our home planet,' it seems obvious that this responsibility should reside in NASA." Belton presented the findings of the workshop today in Washington, DC, to officials at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Management and Budget, and the report was delivered to the U.S. Congress. About 2,225 near-Earth objects (NEOs) have been detected, primarily by ground-based optical searches, in the size range between 10 meters and 30 kilometers, out of a total estimated population of about one million; some information about the physical size and composition of these NEOs is available for only 300 objects. The total number of objects a kilometer in diameter or larger, a size that could cause global catastrophe upon Earth impact, is now estimated to range between 900 and 1,230. The NASA-led Spaceguard Survey has a congressional mandate to detect 90% of these kilometer-sized objects by 2008, and it is making "excellent progress" on this goal, the report says. However, a full survey of objects that could cause significant damage on Earth should reach down to NEOs at least as small as 200 meters, the report says, which should be within the capability of proposed ground- based facilities such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the PanStarrs telescope system. Ground-based radar systems will remain a "critical contributor" to obtaining the most accurate possible data on the orbits of many hazardous objects, the report says. The workshop report discusses a preliminary roadmap based on five themes: more complete and accurate surveys of the orbits of potentially hazardous objects; improved public education about the risk; characterizing the physical properties of a range of asteroids and comets; more extensive laboratory research; and initial physical experiments toward a realistic plan to intercept and divert a future incoming object. In order to keep maximum annual expenses on the order of a typical spacecraft mission (approximately $300 million), the report estimates that it would take about 25 years to accomplish this roadmap. The Final Report of the NASA Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids, held in Arlington, VA, from September 3- 6, 2002, is available on the internet at http://www.noao.edu/meetings/mitigation/report.html. The workshop was attended by 77 scientists from the United States, Europe and Japan. It was co-sponsored by Ball Aerospace, Science Applications International Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and the University of Maryland. Contact: Douglas Isbell Public Information Officer National Optical Astronomy Observatory Phone: 520-318-8214 E-mail: disbell@noao.edu Read the original press release at http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr03/pr0303.html. ________________________________________________________________________ IN DEFENSE OF EARTH: KEEPING ASTEROIDS AT A DISTANCE By Leonard David From Space.com 5 February 2003 A group of astronauts, scientists, and technologists want to engage in celestial shoving match. The winner may well be the Earth. The goal of an assembly of experts is straightforward: To significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid "in a controlled manner" by the year 2015. They have dubbed their effort the B612 Project, brought into being by what the group feels is a current lack of action to protect the Earth from the impact of near Earth asteroids (NEAs). For the immediate future, they point out, the changes are slim that our planet will be at the end of the trail for a space rock--one that would cause a highly destructive impact. Nevertheless, the upshot from a heavenly slam shot is extreme, say B612 Project officials, so much so that mitigation efforts should start now. Read the full story at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/asteroid_deflection_0 30205.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA SCIENCE SETS ITS SIGHTS ON HUMAN MARS MISSION By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 5 February 2003 NASA's 2004 budget request, released Monday and overshadowed by the Columbia disaster, represents strong support for space science. It also shows hints of an elevated commitment to Mars both as a science target and a place NASA wants to eventually send humans. For the moment, space science has taken a backseat to the shuttle investigation, within NASA and among scientists, politicians and the public. Researchers acknowledge and appreciate that it could take many months for experiments aboard shuttles to get back on track. But the vast bulk of space science research will proceed pretty much as usual. The shuttle program combined with the International Space Station accounts for only a portion of the overall pure science activities conducted by NASA, a program that includes the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as the Mars Odyssey and Galileo missions. Read the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/nasa_science_030205.html ________________________________________________________________________ TO THE STARS: NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY LAUNCHES PETITION TO COUNTER SPACE EXPLORATION NAY-SAYERS By Tariq Malik From Space.com 6 February 2003 The National Space Society has launched a petition in support of the human exploration of space to counter critics who are calling for an end of human spaceflight following the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia. "We wanted to demonstrate something tangible to political leaders and NASA, something that shows real support for space exploration," said Brian Chase, the society's executive director, in an interview. Since the loss of the Columbia and its crew, critics have flooded the airwaves to speak against the need for manned spaceflight, he added. The petition is available at the National Space Society web site-- www.nss.org--where space supporters can put their name, contact information and their personal views concerning NASA's space program. Over the next few weeks, the society will collect as many signatures as it can, then present them to congressional leaders, NASA officials and the White House. Sign the petition at http://www.nss.org/petition. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/news/nss_petition_030206.html. ________________________________________________________________________ THE PULL OF HYPERGRAVITY By Karen Miller From NASA Science News 7 February 2003 Want to know what 3-g feels like? Go to a carnival. There's a circular ride there that spins dizzyingly fast. Standing inside it, your back is pressed against the wall. It spins faster and faster until, suddenly, the floor falls away. But you don't fall with it. You remain in place, pinned to the wall by forces "as great as 3-g--or three times the normal force of gravity," says Malcolm Cohen, chief of the Human Information Processing Research Branch at NASA Ames. During the past few summers, Cohen has been spinning research subjects in something far more impressive than a carnival ride. He's been studying engineers, mountain climbers, teachers and other paid volunteers as they live for up to 22 hours in a giant, 58-foot diameter centrifuge. His goal? To learn how humans adjust to changes in gravity--particularly strong gravity. NASA is interested because it's not just microgravity that astronauts experience in space. They're exposed to hypergravity, too: up to 3.2-g at launch, and about 1.4-g on reentry. "Under these conditions," Cohen points out, "fluid weighs more." The heart has to change the way it operates, pumping faster, and working harder to push the blood all the way to the brain. This could cause astronauts to become dizzy or even, in extreme cases, to pass out. By spinning people in his centrifuge, Cohen hopes to learn whether the heart's response can be conditioned. Perhaps if astronauts were exposed to controlled doses of hypergravity before launch or reentry, then they might be able to tolerate high g forces better than they otherwise would have. An easier ride to space is not the only potential benefit. Here on Earth, hypergravity could be used to train athletes, providing an environment in which exercises could be conducted with more benefit in shorter time. People who suffer from muscle atrophy might be exposed to it, to stress their muscles more effectively. Centrifuges could be key to long-term space travel, too. That's because microgravity causes the body to deteriorate in a multitude of ways: cardiovascular deconditioning, loss of muscle mass, loss of bone density, and a host of other problems. Artificial gravity could prevent all that--and centrifuges are one plausible way to generate artificial gravity. The participants in Cohen's study have to be less than 5'8" tall--that's because the outer dimensions of the centrifuge cabin are only 7'7" deep by 5'11" wide. "With its padded walls, the subjects barely have enough room to lie down on the cabin's built-in cot," he explains. The cramped cabin is outfitted with a toilet, a TV, and a laptop loaded with computer games, tests and questionnaires. While they're spinning, participants answer questions about stress, fatigue and motion sickness; they perform complex reasoning tasks; and their vital signs, head movements, and general activity are monitored by sensors and cameras. "Artificial gravity is a potentially useful tool," notes Cohen, "but it's not a universal panacea." The force generated by a spinning centrifuge is not exactly the same as gravity, he explains. If you have a small centrifuge--say, one that might fit in a spaceship--you have to spin it pretty fast to create g levels high enough to be effective. But there's a problem: across the radius of a small centrifuge, g levels change rapidly. "Suppose you're lying on a short-radius centrifuge, with your head near the center, and your feet at the outside, and suppose you have 1-g at your feet. Your head would feel only about 0.2- g, or even less." That's not quite what you would experience in Earth's gravitational field! Rapid spinning creates another concern: if you move your head too quickly while you're inside a fast-moving centrifuge, you might feel uncomfortably like you're tumbling head over heels. This can happen when balance-sensing fluids in the semicircular canals of your inner ear become "confused." Some experiments using centrifuges often include devices that fix the subjects' heads in place, just to prevent that illusion. Traveling through space, however, with your head fixed in place is not practical. Cohen ticks off ways to make centrifugal gravity feasible. Perhaps engineers could develop a centrifuge with a radius of several kilometers, large enough to generate high artificial gravity without rotating fast enough to trigger the tumbling illusion. Rather than using small onboard centrifuges, space travelers might slowly rotate their entire spaceships instead. Alternately, perhaps subjects could be taught to adapt to a rotating environment. The brain is unaccountably good at interpreting strange sensations after they're been around for a while. Witness the way astronauts can be disoriented when they first arrive in space, but soon learn to function in a weightless environment. If humans are spun for long enough, says Cohen, the strange effects of rotation might become familiar. For now, though, Cohen is still trying to determine how different kinds of activities done in hypergravity affect cardiovascular conditioning. Cohen found that his centrifuge riders spent a lot of time lying down, in part because it was more comfortable, and in part because spinning made them drowsy--an effect called "the sopite syndrome." Cohen noted that he was surprised at how strong it was. Going forward, he'd like to examine what happens when they perform a range of predetermined activities, such as standing, in which the g-force places more stress on the heart. Much more research remains to be done. "There are so many options for how best to implement hypergravity most effectively," says Cohen. "Low intensity for long durations, high intensity for short durations, short radius centrifuges, rotating an entire spaceship." We know a lot, he says, but there's much more to learn. It is, after all, a weighty subject. Read the original version of this article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07feb_stronggravity.htm?list5226 0. ________________________________________________________________________ NEWS CONFERENCE WITH INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CREW NASA note to editors 03-013 Reporters will have a chance to discuss activities aboard the International Space Station with the Expedition 6 crew during a news conference on Tuesday, February 11, starting at 9:34 AM EST. The news conference is expected to last about 35 minutes with available video and audio from the Station. Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA Station Science Officer Don Pettit are in the third month of their mission. Bowersox, Budarin and Pettit are continuing their scientific research on board the Space Station. The news conference, which will be broadcast on NASA Television, will enable multi-center question and answer capability for reporters at NASA centers. NASA TV is on GE-2, Transponder 9C, vertical polarization at 85 degrees west longitude, 3880 MHz, with audio at 6.8 MHz. Contacts: Robert Mirelson NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1600 Eileen Hawley Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX Phone: 281-483-5111 ________________________________________________________________________ ASTRONAUT SPOUSES & CHILDREN RELEASE STATEMENT NASA release 03-060 8 February 2003 The Astronaut Spouses Group released the following statement on Friday, February 7. We, the spouses and children of the NASA astronaut corps, would like to thank the people of the world from the bottom of our hearts for the incredible outpouring of support and love that you have shown us in our time of deep grief. NASA centers have been overwhelmed with cards, letters, emails, and phone calls from you expressing your concern and support. We have also received hundreds of personal calls, e-mails, flowers, food, and cards at our homes. The makeshift shrine in front of the Johnson Space Center is overflowing with flowers, signs, and balloons from well wishers from all over the world. Memorial services throughout the world have honored our dear friends. You, our brothers and sisters of the world community, have been a tremendous source of comfort and love to us and we are so grateful. We are deeply mourning our dear friends Rick, Willie, Mike, Kalpana, Ilan, Laurel, and Dave and we ask that you continue to keep their parents, wives, husbands, and children in your thoughts and prayers. "We would also like the world community to know that as terrible and as difficult as this journey has been and will continue to be for all of our families, we cannot stress enough how blessed and honored we feel to be counted as members of the NASA family. We proudly support the noble goals and objectives of NASA and we will continue to support NASA in its finest and its darkest hours. It is our deepest hope that you also will continue to share in our belief and support of NASA's dreams. We believe NASA is a beacon of hope and light to all nations, for NASA has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, that peoples from all races, genders, cultures, religions, and political backgrounds can transcend those differences and become the closest of friends. And these friends will continue to pursue space exploration and scientific discovery for the single purpose of helping and furthering all of mankind. Thank you for your love and support. --The husbands, wives, and children of the NASA Astronaut Corps. Contact: Glenn Mahone/Robert Mirelson NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1600 ________________________________________________________________________ NO TIME TO CUT AND RUN By Robert Zubrin From the St. Petersburg Times 9 February 2003 NASA has gone 30 years without a big dream. In disaster's wake, the time has come to aim higher. Last week, the lives of seven brave astronauts were lost when the space shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry. This has left the nation asking many questions that go well beyond the technical causes of the accident sought by NASA's investigators. Questions like: For what did they die? Was it worth the risk? And perhaps most important, where do we go from here? For what did they die? There are some who say, not much; the scientific experiments carried aboard the Columbia on her last flight were unremarkable and not worth the loss of any life. While criticism of the science program of STS 107 is valid, this argument is false at its core. STS 107 was not a flight taken in isolation, but as part of an overall space program, and needs to be understood that way. We could have won World War II without taking any particular hill or village one might care to name. Does that mean that the men who fell in those actions died for nothing? Hardly; Joe did not die to liberate Hill 423, but to liberate Europe. Did Columbia have a purpose of comparable worth? Yes she did. Columbia's cause was the human future. The Earth is not the only world. There are hundreds of other planetary objects in our own solar system, millions in nearby interstellar space, and hundreds of billions in the galaxy at large. The challenges involved in reaching and settling these new worlds are large, but not beyond human capacity. Should we succeed in becoming spacefarers, we will open up a prospect for a human future that is vast in time and space, and rich in experience and potential to an extent that exceeds the imagination of anyone alive today. When we open the space frontier, we will open the door to the creation of numerous new branches of human civilization, replete with new cultures, new knowledge and epic histories that will add immeasurably to the human story. This, then, is the cause for which the Columbia crew gave their lives, and its value cannot be doubted. It is thus appropriate that political leaders from across the spectrum have rallied to declare that the recent disaster will not deflect us from our course, and that America will persevere in space. Stagnation is not an option However it is not enough to continue the quest. We must win it. The American space program, begun so brilliantly in the era of Apollo, has spent the past 30 years without remotely comparable levels of achievement. Indeed, in looking at the space program of the 1960's from the point of view of today, one frequently feels oneself in the same position as a eight-century Italian gazing upon the ruins of imperial Rome and saying to himself in amazement, "We once built that?" Why was the space program of the Apollo era so more productive than that of today? Was it because of vastly superior funding? In point of fact it was not. NASA's average budget during the period 1961 to 1973, when it built up from near-zero space capability to storm heaven with the Mercury, Gemini, Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner, NERVA, Apollo, and Skylab programs , was $16-billion in 2000 dollars. That is only slightly more than NASA's current $15.5-billion budget. The problem is not lack of money but lack of focus and direction. For the past three decades the U.S. space program has floundered without any central motivating goal. As a result, funds have been spent at a rate comparable to that of the 1960's without producing anything approaching commensurate results. We need a defining goal to drive our space program forward. At this point of history, that focus can only be the human exploration and settlement of Mars. Why Mars? Because of all the planetary destinations currently within reach, Mars offers the most, both scientifically, socially, and in terms of what it portends for the future of humankind. In scientific terms, Mars is critical, because it is the Rosetta Stone for letting us understand the position of life in the universe. Images of Mars taken from orbit show that the planet had liquid water flowing on its surface for a period of a billion years during its early history, a duration five times as long as it took life to appear on Earth after there was liquid water here. So if the theory is correct that life is a natural phenomenon, emergent from chemical complexification wherever there is liquid water, a temperate climate, sufficient minerals, and time, then life should have appeared on Mars. If we can go to Mars, and find fossils of past life on its surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe. If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs which can reach ground water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it, and by so doing determine whether life as we know it on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere, or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster and more interesting tapestry. These things are worth finding out. In terms of its social value, Mars is the bracing positive challenge that our society needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The space program itself needs challenge. Consider: between 1961 and 1973, under the impetus of its drive toward the moon, NASA produced a hundred times the rate of technological innovation it has shown since, for essentially the same budget. Why? Because it had a goal that made its reach exceed its grasp. You don't need to develop anything new if you are not doing anything new. Far from being a waste of money, forcing NASA to take on the challenge of Mars is the key to giving the nation a real technological return for its space dollar. The challenge of a humans-to-Mars program would also be an invitation to adventure to every youth in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: "Learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world." There will be over 100-million kids in our nation's schools over the next 10 years. If a Mars program were to inspire just an extra 1 percent of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 1-million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors, making technological innovations that create new industries, finding new medical cures, strengthening national defense, advancing the human condition, and generally increasing national income to an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens for the future. Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development of a technological civilization. In contrast to the comparative desert of the Earth's moon, Mars possesses oceans of water frozen into its soil as permafrost, as well as vast quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those clever enough to use them. These four elements are the basic stuff not only of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing, and most important, rocket fuel. Additionally, Mars has experienced the same sorts of volcanic and hydrologic processes that produced a multitude of mineral ores on Earth. Virtually every element of significant interest to industry is known to exist on the Red Planet. While no liquid water exists on the surface, below ground is a different matter, and there is every reason to believe that geothermal heat sources could be maintaining hot liquid reservoirs beneath the Martian surface today. Such hydrothermal reservoirs may be refuges in which survivors of ancient Martian life continue to persist; they would also represent oases providing abundant water supplies and geothermal power to future human settlers. With its 24-hour day-night cycle and an atmosphere thick enough to shield its surface against solar flares, Mars is the only extraterrestrial planet that will readily allow large-scale greenhouses lit by natural sunlight. Mars can be settled. For our generation and many that will follow, Mars is the New World. In establishing our first foothold on Mars, we will begin humanity's career as a multiplanet species. How Do We Get There? Humans to Mars may seem like a wildly bold goal to proclaim in the wake of disaster, yet such a program is entirely achievable. From the technological point of view, we're ready. Despite the greater distance to Mars, we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to launch humans to the moon in 1961 when John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to achieve that goal -- and we were there eight years later. Given the will, we could have our first teams on Mars within a decade. How can this be done? Let us start with the present, with the space program flat on its back. This is what we must do: First, the shuttle must be restored to flight. NASA must investigate the accident, determine the cause, and eliminate it, along with other possible sources of vulnerability identified in the course of the investigation. This can be done in less than a year, during which time the space station can be supported by Russian Soyuz crew transfer vehicles and Progress supply modules. Once the shuttle is flying again, its operations should be confined for the foreseeable future to space station orbit, where the crew would have a safe haven, and where Russian capabilities are available for rescue. There is thus no need to collapse NASA's present program. However, that said, the present program is entirely inadequate to get us anywhere. While we must restore the shuttle to flight as soon as possible because it is all we have, we must replace it as soon as possible because it is obsolete. The shuttle is obsolete, not simply because it is based on 1970's technology, or because its highly stressed components are becoming worn out with repeated use, but because it is the wrong launch vehicle to support the needs of a visionary space program. In truth, the shuttle is not a space lift vehicle at all; rather, it is a self- launching space station. It is not a truck with a heavy hauling capability, it is a Winnebago whose primary function is to move itself. The shuttle at lift off has the same thrust as a Saturn V moon rocket, yet it has only 15 percent of the payload, because 85 percent of the mass it delivers to orbit is that of the orbiter itself. This is why it is the least efficient payload delivery system ever flown. It is true that at a time when we had no place to stay on orbit, having a self-launching temporary space habitat made some sense. But now that we have a space station, using the massive shuttle as a means of transferring crew to and from it is wildly suboptimal. We don't need a giant Winnebago to travel to our country home; all we need is a small car. Specifically, what we need is a small crew transfer vehicle, either of the Apollo capsule variety or a mini-shuttle like the proposed Orbital Space Plane, which at a mass 10 percent of the orbiter would be light enough to launch on top of a Delta or Atlas launch vehicle. These expendable launch vehicles cost one-tenth as much as a shuttle launch, and would be safer to ride to orbit as well, since they are modern, brand new every time they are flown, and positioned beneath the payload they are lifting, rather than to its side. Thus if something goes wrong with the booster, (as in the Challenger incident) the crew capsule can get away, and if something should fall from it (as in Columbia), the crew vehicle will not be hit. However this done, we do not abandon the shuttle launch infrastructure. Rather, by freeing the shuttle launch stack of the orbiter, and giving it a hydrogen/oxygen upper stage instead, we reconfigure it into a true heavy lift launch vehicle capable of duplicating the performance of the Saturn V. With such a system, we could deliver 120 metric tons to low Earth orbit (in place of the current shuttle's 20), or send payloads in the 50-ton class on direct trajectories to the moon or Mars. Using such a system together with appropriate payload elements which could be readily developed over the next five years, human Mars exploration could begin before this decade is out. Here's how it could be done: In 2009 we launch a single one of these shuttle-derived heavy lift boosters off the Cape, and use it to throw to Mars an unfueled and unmanned Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) After landing on Mars, the ERV runs a pump to suck in the Martian air -- mostly carbon dioxide -- and reacts this with a small amount of hydrogen brought from Earth to produce a large supply of methane/oxygen rocket propellant. Then, in 2011, another booster is used to shoot the crew out to Mars. Because their return ride is waiting for them on the planet's surface, the crew does not need to fly to Mars in a giant futuristic spaceship. Instead, a basic habitation module would do. The crew lands their hab on Mars in the vicinity of the ERV and use as their house for a year and a half while they explore the Red Planet. At the end of that time they get in the ERV and fly home, leaving the hab behind on Mars. Thus, as one mission follows another, more habs are added to the base, in the process building up mankind's first foothold on a new world. No great impossible breakthroughs, science fiction futurism or gargantuan technologies are needed to do this. Just some good brass tacks engineering, some 19th century industrial chemistry, and a little bit of moxie. We don't need to spend the next 30 years with a space program mired in impotence, spending large sums of money and taking occasional causalities while the same missions to nowhere are flown over and over again and professional technologists dawdle endlessly in their sand boxes without producing any new flight hardware. We simply need to choose our destination, and with the same combination of vision, practical thinking, and passionate resolve that served us so well during Apollo, do what is required to get there. If done in a well-managed program, the total development effort cost before the first flight could be kept in neighborhood of $20-billion. After that, each mission by the copy would cost around $2-billion. That's a sum that this country can easily afford. It's small price to pay for a new world. It's a pittance for delivering the birth of a new age in human history. A Proper Memorial The Columbia seven are heroes, and the tears of noble men and women will water their graves for many years to come. In the United States, public schools and university engineering buildings will be named after each of the crew members. In Israel, no doubt, Col. Ramon will be remembered, among other ways, by trees planted in his memory. It is a good custom, I think, the Israeli way of tree-planting. It remembers life by creating life. I believe in this instance, though, we should take it further. To truly honor the Columbia crew, let us resolve not to bend in our efforts until seven trees in their honor can be planted on Mars. From death let forth life; from tragic loss, victory. Dr. Robert Zubrin, an astronautical engineer and formerly senior engineer with Lockheed Martin, founded Pioneer Astronautics, which does research and development for NASA. He is president of the Mars Society (marssociety.org) and author of The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, published by Simon and Schuster. He wrote this essay for the St. Petersburg Times. Read the original article at http://www.sptimes.com/2003/02/09/Perspective/No_time_to_cut_and_ru.shtm l. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA, UCLA TO LAUNCH NEW INSTITUTE TO IMPROVE AEROSPACE SYSTEMS NASA/ARC release 03-10AR 10 February 2003 To help develop new, compact devices and systems for future aerospace systems, NASA and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) today opened a research institute that will use biology to inspire innovation. Scientists at the new institute, the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration (ICMSE), will mimic living cells to help develop new technologies. Presentations about the new institute will take place today beginning at 9:30 AM PST and continue until 6:00 PM PST in the Grand Ballroom of the Tom Bradley International Hall on the UCLA campus. "Using nature to help us develop fresh ideas for better space flight is an idea whose time has come," said Scott Hubbard, director of NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "I am delighted that NASA will be working with such a wide variety of university scientists and students from a number of disciplines to help enable future space exploration," Hubbard added. "Biological systems have acquired an amazing ability to manage information on multiple levels--organizing themselves into increasingly complex structures, from tissues to organs to complex human biological systems," said Chih-Ming Ho, associate vice chancellor for research and ICMSE director. "Our strategy is to mimic the cell's information- processing abilities to establish a model for space system design that will redefine space exploration technology," Ho said. "For future developments in sensors, devices and systems for mission needs, NASA is looking to biology for inspiration. That is what the UCLA institute is all about," said Meyya Meyyappan, director of the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA Ames. "The UCLA scientists will look at the fusion of biotechnology with an emerging field like nanotechnology and an established field like information technology," according to Meyyappan. Nanotechnology is the study of how to build materials and products with atomic precision. A nanometer is roughly 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The institute includes UCLA engineering, medical, physical and life sciences researchers as well as scientists from the California Institute of Technology, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, and Arizona State University. In addition, UCLA graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in the institute's work. The institute will conduct research that could lead to devices on the molecular scale, but also will deal with entire aerospace systems. Institute goals include creating nano and micro scale sensors, actuators and energy sources; writing computer codes; and developing technologies for biological experiments, astronaut health monitoring and spacecraft resource management. Energy production systems that the institute may develop could offer "dramatic gains in power, lifetime and efficiency in nanometer-sized spaces," according to institute scientists. Technical information about NASA nanotechnology can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.ipt.arc.nasa.gov. More information about the new institution can be found at: http://www.seasalum.ucla.edu/cmise.cfm http://ho.seas.ucla.edu/mainflash.html Contacts: John Bluck NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Phone: 650-604-5026 or -9000 E-mail: John.G.Bluck@nasa.gov Pamela Corante University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Phone: 310-206-8788 E-mail: Pcorante@support.ucla.edu ________________________________________________________________________ GREAT IMPACT DEBATE, PART I: BENEFITS OF HARD BODIES Moderated by Don Yeomans From Astrobiology Magazine 10 February 2003 This second in our "Great Debate" series brings together a group of scientists who are experts on asteroids and comets. Over the course of this debate, the participants will discuss the past, present, and future effects of asteroid and comet impacts. Today's session concerns the scientific value in studying asteroids and comets, and also whether past impacts have caused some of the mass extinctions of life on Earth. Participants Clark Chapman: scientist at the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies, in Boulder, Colorado; member of the MSI/NIS (imaging/spectrometer) team of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to Eros. Alan Harris: senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute; an affiliate of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Benny Peiser: social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. He has written extensively about the influence of NEO impacts on human and societal evolution. Joe Veverka: professor of astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; principal investigator for NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) mission. Peter Ward: professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Don Yeomans: (debate moderator) senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. Don Yeomans: Comets and asteroids are the most numerous bodies within our solar system. They are thought to represent the leftover bits and pieces from the planetary formation process that began some 4.6 billion years ago. Most asteroids formed in the inner solar system, and the inner rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) formed as collections of asteroid- like material. Asteroids today range from a few meters to several hundred kilometers in size. The structures of asteroids can range from very weak rubble piles of rock to chunks of solid iron. Because asteroids formed closer to the early sun, they are largely devoid of the ices that are characteristic of comets. Comets formed in the region where the large planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune--now reside, so these planets are thought to have formed from comet-like material. Comets are icy dirt balls ranging in size from less than a kilometer to several tens of kilometers. The tails of comets form when they approach the sun and some of their ices vaporize, releasing glowing gases and dust particles that reflect sunlight. Many comets are fragile bodies that can split into pieces for no obvious reason. After many passages by the sun, a comet exhausts most of its ices and either disintegrates into a cloud of dust particles or turns into an extinct comet that looks like an inactive asteroid. On a daily basis, an average of about 400 tons of cometary and asteroidal material rains down upon the Earth, mostly in the form of particles far too small to be noticed. Whenever you see a shooting star, you are likely witnessing a particle about the size of a grain of sand colliding with the Earth's upper atmosphere and causing the air molecules to glow as the particle burns up. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are defined as those comets and asteroids that, in their orbits about the sun, approach within 1.3 times the Earth's distance from the sun. Some of these objects can, and do, closely approach the Earth. Because NEOs can approach and even hit the Earth from time to time, there have been press reports over the last few years about a number of objects that have a remote chance of threatening Earth. Before we get into whether or not these objects do represent a significant threat to Earth, let's discuss some positive aspects of these objects, such as why they are scientifically important. Also, what role (if any) did they play in the formation and evolution of life on Earth? Clark Chapman: In many ways, if asteroids and comets did not exist, we would not exist. It seems clear that the Earth and other planets were created, in whole or in part, by the gravitational gathering together ("accretion") of countless asteroids and comets. The later ones to fall in may have been particularly responsible for the life-giving waters in Earth's oceans and atmosphere. A benefit of early giant impacts is that they have helped shape the geology of our world, which modern civilization is now exploiting. There is a decided correlation between giant impact craters and important raw materials like oil. Some articles in petroleum-science journals claim that impacts, like the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago, break up subterranean rocks and provide regions where oil is likely to collect. The Chicxulub impact is why Mexico is in the second-tier of oil-producing nations. I also don't think it is a coincidence that one of the world's largest supplies of nickel comes from the giant Sudbury impact crater in Canada. Comets and asteroids will have a vital role to play in the near future, as mankind eventually ventures into space. Because they are so numerous and have so little gravity, they provide the most accessible sources of raw materials for use in interplanetary space endeavors--for shielding astronauts from cosmic radiation, for fuel, and even for sustenance of interplanetary travelers. Because of asteroids and comets, we won't have to haul these necessary resources up from the surface of the Earth. Joe Veverka: There is a real potential that we will be able to exploit some NEOs for space resources, probably not immediately but very likely in a few decades from now. Compared to many solar system objects, NEOs are relatively accessible. NEOs also offer one of the best means of answering some fundamental questions about the evolution of our solar system in general, and of our Earth in particular. There is a strong likelihood that among the numerous NEOs are pieces and fragments of relatively rare and distant bodies, and that these fragments contain important clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system and its planets. Given an increasingly complete inventory and a gradually improving ability to characterize NEOs, we soon will be able to identify such key objects among the vast population and mount efforts to explore and sample them. Clark Chapman: As Joe Veverka said, the small bodies that remain in the solar system provide precious information about how our planetary system formed. That's because the planets have all, to varying degrees, been subjected to heating and melting, chemical reactions, geophysical forces, and other processes that have virtually erased all evidence of how the planets formed and the first several hundred million years of planetary evolution. Even relatively recent epochs on bodies like Venus, Io, and Europa have been erased by rampant geological forces. Most comets and asteroids, by contrast, are relatively pristine bodies, little changed over the eons. They are like time-travelers from the distant past for scientists to examine. Benny Peiser: I find it very difficult to see any positive traits in comets or asteroids. From a psychological perspective, it is understandable that we try to put a positive spin on the ultimate threat NEOs pose to human survival. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton was the first to suggest that cometary impacts were essential for the preservation of the world since they "refurbished" and "replenished" the planets, the sun, and the stars. While the general public at the time regarded comets as harbingers of doom and disaster, Newton claimed they were "absolutely necessary for the watering of the Earth, and the production and nourishment of vegetables." So much for wishful thinking. As we have discovered during the last 50 years, the sad truth is that asteroids and comets have been the foremost agents of environmental annihilation and the key obstacles to the evolution of life. Life has taken root on Earth not because of cometary deliveries of organic material and volatiles but in spite of extensive NEO bombardment. We only need to look at the other pockmarked planets of our solar system to recognize that impacts essentially extinguish the chances for the evolution of life. Complex forms of life have survived on Earth because we seem to be uniquely situated in a habitable niche that comprises relatively decent protection from colossal, life-exterminating impacts. We should bear in mind that 99.9% of all species that ever dwelled on Earth were wiped out, most likely, as a result of large impacts. As long as we remain incompetent to take full control over these destructive forces, any over-optimistic undertone regarding asteroids and comets seems untimely to me. We need to get our priorities right first. The anticipated opportunities for science to take advantage of and exploit NEOs for space exploration remains an ambition for the distant future. In order to bring this long-term goal to fruition, we need to learn how to reshuffle the cosmic game of dice to our advantage. Clark Chapman: Here I differ with Benny Peiser. Even the catastrophic influence of asteroids has been mainly beneficial to mankind. We mammals have definitely benefited from the evolutionary competition unleashed 65 million years ago when the Chicxulub impact caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) mass extinction of dinosaurs and other dominant species. My understanding of the post-Cambrian (last ~600 million years) evolution of life on this planet is that evolution has been profoundly influenced by major epochs of sudden upheaval due to mass extinctions. According to the hypothesis of David Raup of the University of Chicago, these mass extinctions may well have been due to comet and asteroid impacts. All signs point to an impact as the cause of the Permian extinction (the greatest-ever mass-extinction), as well as lesser ones like the K/T extinction. While such events have wiped out many species of life, they have provided the environmental niches for evolutionary change. As the late Stephen Jay Gould argued, evolution favors the more randomly selected species that are able to adapt to unexpected sudden changes rather than those that slowly evolve in competition with their competitors in a nearly constant world. I would expect Benny Peiser to applaud this attribute of impacts. In any case, I agree that we should avoid becoming the next dinosaurs. But I hope and expect that no major impacts will happen during the present century. Alan Harris: First of all, in contradiction to Benny Peiser's remarks, Peter Ward has presented data showing that while it is true that the majority of species that have ever existed are now extinct, only a minority of those, a few percent in fact, were victims of mass extinctions. Instead, most extinct species have come to an end at some random time between mass extinctions. The point is [that] extinctions happen all the time. A mass extinction may produce a very high spike in the momentary rate of extinctions, but averaged over a very long time constitute only a minor fraction of the total extinctions. The second contradictory point Ward has made, this time to one of Chapman's comments, is that the evidence that the Permian extinction is due to an impact is close to nil. To be sure, this is still an unsettled question, and by no means has anyone offered a definitive alternative to impacts, but the evidence supporting an impact cause is very weak. I attended a meeting in which Walter Alvarez, one of the originators of the K/T impact scenario, gave essentially the same evaluation of the evidence (or lack thereof) regarding the Permian extinction. He reflected on his battle to gain acceptance on the impact cause of the K/T extinction, and was almost apologetic in observing that everyone now assumes other extinctions must be caused by impacts. In fact, the evidence is really persuasive for only one extinction--the K/T one that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Combining these two points--that most species meet extinction not as a part of a mass extinction, and that only one out of four major (and none of many minor) extinctions can be definitely attributed to an impact--it appears that death by asteroid is not the most likely end in store for our species. We should not be obsessed with it to the exclusion of other environmental and societal concerns. Peter Ward: The 1980 discovery that a mass extinction had been caused by an asteroid impact was revolutionary. Questions then arose regarding the frequency of asteroid and comet impacts on Earth. By examining the size and frequency of meteor impact craters, Gene Shoemaker and others calculated that we might expect a K/T-sized impact every 100 million years. This frequency roughly fits the facts on Earth: there have been five major extinctions in the past 500 million years. But the K/T extinction is the only one undoubtedly caused by an impact. And a salient fact remains--the K/T asteroid came nowhere near wiping out all animals and plant species. We took this hit, reeled a bit, and got back to business relatively quickly. In the 500 million years of animal life on the planet, the most consequential extinction of all was at the end of the Permian. This event resulted in an enormous amount of extinction, but came nowhere near to eliminating animal and planet life. For all of its wreckage, within ten million years the world had caught up to its prior biodiversity, and then surpassed it. But there is no credible evidence that this extinction was caused by an impact. Over the past decade a new truth seems evident: instead of finding ever more mass extinctions of greater severity, we are finding fewer. The so called "Big Five"--the mass extinctions of the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous--have been whittled down to a "Big Three." New work by Mike Foote and his students at the University of Chicago suggests that the first two of these events, while undoubtedly major crises of some sort, were not in the class of the later Mesozoic events. My own new work on another of the so-called "Big Five," the extinction at the end of the Triassic, also suggests that it was never a threat to ending animal life on the planet. The K/T event seems unique. None of the other major extinctions appear to have been wholly or even partially caused by impacts. Clark Chapman: If, by his last statement, Peter means that there is no undisputed proof that the end-Permian extinction was caused by an impact, then that is true. But surely the correct approach is to assume that it was caused by impact, unless proven otherwise. The debates on the Alvarez hypothesis about the K/T must have taught us that the fact of asteroids and comets is at least as weighty as interpretations of facts in the stratigraphic record... and that impacts should no longer be relegated to being the explanation of last resort. It is unlikely that there will be as conclusive a "smoking gun" as the Chicxulub crater provides for the K/T extinction. Most of the Earth's surface has been recycled by plate tectonics since then, so any resulting crater has likely been destroyed. But huge asteroid impacts must occur on 100-million-year time scales. They must do unimaginably enormous damage to the ecosystem, and there is simply no other plausible killing mechanism to explain the Permian mass extinction. No other disruption of our planet can approach the sudden global devastation guaranteed by such an impact. Each year, research shows that the great extinctions happened more and more instantaneously--a prime attribute of an impact disaster. Indeed, it is the extraordinary immediacy of the global environmental holocaust that makes impacts such an effective mass-killer. Living things simply have no time and nowhere to run to escape death. Peter Ward: Two years ago the work by Luann Becker and others seemed to show that the end-Permian event was impact-caused, as evidenced by their finding of fullerenes ("bucky balls" with trapped Helium 3). However no lab has been able to replicate these results, and there is no other evidence for an impact. Furthermore, new work by Greg Retallack in Antarctica, Roger Buick in Australia, and my own work in South Africa using stable isotopes shows that the Permian extinction may have had multiple causes. The K/T extinction, on the other hand, is presumed to be caused by a single event--the signature of an impact-induced mass extinction. There is better evidence for an impact as the cause of the Triassic event, but new evidence suggests it played a minor role in this extinction. The finding of Paul Olsen and his colleagues of an iridium layer at the Triassic/Jurassic (T/J) boundary is evidence for an impact. But most sections (unlike the K/T event) show no evidence at all of large body impact--for example, iridium, shocked quartz, spherules, or a single carbon isotope anomaly. The only large crater of about T/J age, the 100-km diameter Manicouagan crater in Quebec, is slightly older than the extinction and thus predates it. My own work, and that of my team in western Canada, can find no evidence of an impact at the T/J boundary in spite of intensive searching by experts. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article373.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 10 February 2003 Terrestrial extreme environments articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles2. html National Research Council, 2003. Frontiers in Polar Biology in the Genomics Era. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. P. A. Rona, 2003. Resources of the sea floor. Science, 299(5607)673- 674. Rutgers University, 2003. Sea floor hot springs as teeming with valuable minerals and microbes. SpaceDaily. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles3. html R. R. Britt, 2003. Lives lost, lives saved: the benefits of shuttle science. Space.com. R. R. Britt, 2003. NASA science sets its sights on human Mars mission. Space.com. K. Miller, 2003. The pull of hypergravity. NASA Science News. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles5. html E. Goldman, 2003. Puzzling over the origin of species in the depths of the oldest lakes. Science, 299(5607)654-655. D. Yeomans, 2003. The great impact debate, part I: the benefits of hard bodies. Astrobiology Magazine. Planetary protection articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles6. html L. David, 2003. In defense of Earth: keeping asteroids at a distance. Space.com. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 2003. More focused programs to assess and reduce asteroid threat needed. SpaceDaily. Astrobiology and extreme environments book list http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology_book s.htm P. Ulmschneider, 2003. Intelligent Life in the Universe: From Common Origins to the Future of Humanity. Springer Verlag, Berlin. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 10 February 2003 The investigation of the Columbia tragedy continues to make headlines in both space and general media. I have included (below) a non-exhaustive list of links to recent articles on the subject. http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&start=25&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF- 8&group=sci.space.news&selm=b20lie%24rmr%241%40nntp1.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.national-academies.org/headlines#sh0203 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/10/national/nationalspecial/10SHUT.html?t h http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/national/nationalspecial/09PRIV.html?t h http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/national/nationalspecial/08NASA.html?t h http://www.space.com/columbiatragedy/ http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_investigation_030207.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/first_responder_03020 6.html http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_devore_heroes_030205.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_debrisPM_030206.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_updatePM_030206.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/columbia_nosecone_030204.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_updatePM_030203.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_debris_030210.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_inquiry_030209.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03e.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030207013657.42lxeokd.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030206015400.1e88dbns.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030205193844.w9ixkr0y.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030204090848.okvq6mjb.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030204004102.fub8ih6o.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030203220455.9wskr240.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030203220419.clgbd412.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030203163048.v0sc90xk.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030204064430.hnhqbthw.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030202143958.ql3mkne5.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030204063247.dn0znoho.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030209212403.je1fqqpl.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030208014158.ks6sncnl.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030207224110.yse7glco.html http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030208object/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030207briefing/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030207avweek/ http://qs240.pair.com/sfnvideo/sts107/030207timeline_qt.html http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030207columbia/ http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/ 20030209/ap_on_sc/shuttle_investigation ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 30 January - 5 February 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Monday, February 3. 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/operations/present-position.cfm. All teams and offices supported a Cassini / NASA Quarterly review. On-board activities this week included a memory readout of flight software partitions, and clearing of the ACS high water marks. Instrument activities included Radio and Plasma Wave High Frequency Receiver (RPWS) calibrations, RPWS high rate observations, Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) high voltage test, and uplink and execution of a CDA flight software checkout mini-sequence. The Project held the first of two uplink approval meetings for the Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) and Command and Data Subsystem (CDS) flight software uplink and checkout activities. The project approved the procedures and files for the transfer of the ACS and CDS Flight Software to the solid-state recorders. Also approved were the procedures and files for the checkout of the ACS software. A second approval meeting addressing the CDS checkout procedures will be held in early March. The Spacecraft Operations Office completed the second Probe Relay Operational Verification Test, which tests a portion of ground operations during the probe mission. The third segment of the test will be delayed to allow the teams to factor in the lessons learned from the two previous runs. The Navigation team has released a new Cassini Reference Trajectory update in support of the Huygens Probe mission. Changes include addition of trajectory correction maneuvers (TCM) 19a and 19b. TCM-21, which has no deterministic component, achieves both the ascending and descending ring-plane crossing distances around Saturn orbit insertion of 158,500 km. Ring plane crossing times and closest approach to Saturn are approximately 25 seconds earlier, SOI still starts at 1:09:57 UTC but now ends at 02:46:53 UTC on July 1, 2004. The Titan-b target was changed slightly to accommodate the new probe mission, the probe targeting maneuver (PTM) and Orbit deflection maneuver (ODM) times were updated, and the PTM now targets to a -65 degree body-fixed probe entry angle. The Orbiter Science and Target Working teams delivered Revs 27-29 this week. Not included were the T17 and T18 Titan flybys. These flybys require thruster usage, so final integration has been deferred until March/April 2003 when the tools to evaluate thruster consumables are delivered. The first merge process has been completed and reports published for Science Operations Plan implementation of tour sequences S15/S16. The next official input port is scheduled for mid-February. Final images have been generated by the Multi-mission Image Processing Laboratory from stellar observations performed three weeks ago for instrument calibration purposes. There are 49 Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Narrow Angle Camera images and 47 Wide Angle Camera images processed. This completes ISS science image activity until after the conclusion of C36, which focuses on CDS and ACS flight software checkout. ISS will be supporting optical navigation engineering tests during this sequence. The Instrument Operations Radio Science Subsystem task leader made a summary presentation at the February NASA Quarterly on the goals and accomplishments of the second Gravitational Wave Experiment that ended in mid-January. The Instrument Operations team hosted a distributed operations site Operations Team Lead meeting in conjunction with the January Project Science Group meeting. Agenda items included a demo of new Cassini Information Management System 2.4 capabilities, a tutorial about the new Real Time Interface Unit (RTIU)/sequence translator, and RTIU/ITL (Integration and Test Laboratory) bus monitor traffic data capabilities. The CIRS science team delivered version 2.0 instrument flight software to the Project Software Library. It will be uplinked to the spacecraft in several weeks. Delivery coordination meetings were held to review Radio Science Subsystem Predicts V1.3, Cassini Information Management System version 2.4, the Cassini Operations Reference Encyclopedia V3.1- containing flight rules and the telemetry dictionary, and mPLOT v1.l5 - an AACS plotting tool used by the Kinematic Predictor Tool. A first cut at how an extended mission might be developed, designed, and implemented by the project was presented at this week's Mission Planning Forum. The Mission Assurance Manager convened the Cassini Risk Teams this week. Probe Mission and Facility Instrument identified risks were discussed and dispositioned by the Risk Management Team. Risks identified by the Principal Investigators were dispositioned later in the week, in conjunction with the ongoing Project Science Group activities. All risk items were successfully dispositioned and action items were assigned for refinements, as necessary. Last week Cassini Outreach presented current status and near term goals of the mission's outreach program to team members attending the Project Science Group Meeting, and Saturn Observation Campaign Members held star parties in Colorado, Virginia, and the Netherlands. 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. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 3-7 February 2003 Chasma Boreal Dunes (Released 3 February 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030203a.html Remnants of Lost Geology (Released 5 February 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030205a.html Dust Devil Streaks (Released 6 February 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030206a.html Etched Terrain in Terra Meridiani (Released 7 February 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030207a.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. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen 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 REPORT NASA/JPL release 7 February 2003 This past week, the Stardust flight team had three periods of communication with the spacecraft courtesy of the antennas of JPL's Deep Space Network. The telemetry relayed during this interval indicated the spacecraft is healthy and all subsystems continue to run normally. This past week saw the Cometary and Interplanetary Dust Analyzer returned to operations. The Stardust team ran a calibration test on the instrument and found it to be operating "as advertised". The Cometary and Interplanetary Dust Analyzer is a mass spectrometer that will be used to study the chemical composition of individual particulates in the comet's coma during Stardust's encounter with Comet Wild 2 in January 2004. It will operate 24/7 until after Stardust's encounter with Comet Wild 2, 329 days from today. Information on the present position and orbits of the Stardust spacecraft and Comet Wild 2 may be found on the "Where Is Stardust Right Now?" web page located at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/scnow.html. 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 10, Number 6.