MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 10, 10 March 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) HUMANS THE CRITICAL FACTOR IN SPACE EXPLORATION EQUATION By Brian Chase 2) ALLEGED NASA COVER-UP OF MENACING "NEAT" COMET THREAT IS PURE BUNK, EXPERTS SAY By Robert Roy Britt 3) NANODIAMONDS ARE FOREVER? By David Tenenbaum 4) CURES FOR SPACE TRAVELERS By Rosemary Wilson 5) CHINA OUTLINES ITS LUNAR AMBITIONS By Leonard David 6) ATHENA STUDENT INTERNS PROGRAM NASA/JPL release 7) THE REAL WHY By Tad Daley 8) UPDATE ON THE PETITION TO SUPPORT HUMAN SPACE EXPLORATION By Brian Chase 9) SCIENTISTS SAY MARS HAS A LIQUID IRON CORE NASA release 2003-032 10) GREAT IMPACT DEBATE, PART V: ENCORE Moderated by Don Yeomans 11) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 12) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 13) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 14) MDRS EXPEDITION ONE PHASES ONE AND TWO RESEARCH SUMMARY REPORT By Rocky Persaud 15) MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS (MER-1/MER-2): SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT NASA/KSC release 16) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 17) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ HUMANS THE CRITICAL FACTOR IN SPACE EXPLORATION EQUATION By Brian Chase National Space Society release 12 February 2003 It was inevitable that those opposed to human space exploration would take full advantage of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia to ply their trade. Those of us who support the human exploration of space which, thankfully, appears to be the vast majority of Americans according to recent polls understand, at the most basic and instinctive level, the need to explore. But critics say it's too risky, or that our objectives can be better accomplished with robots instead of humans. To the charge of it's too risky, one need only listen to those who are prepared to risk their lives to explore for the benefit of all mankind the astronauts themselves. Each and every time we have lost brave space explorers, the colleagues and families of those who were lost are the first to proclaim the importance of continuing our quest to open the frontiers of space. So long as those individuals who risk their lives remain committed to exploring, we should never give in to the false argument that it's not worth the risk. Well, then, the critics claim, even if people are willing to risk their lives to explore, robotic probes can fulfill our needs in space exploration. The first problem with this notion is the false conflict between robotic and human exploration. Any balanced space exploration and development program should use both, not exclusively one or the other. As a space community, we should refrain from this kind of attack, and focus on the real need in our nation, which is an increased investment in all areas of scientific research. In fact, there will be destinations in our universe with environments so hostile or in locations too remote that humans will never be able to visit, so there will always be a critical role for robotic exploration. As well, robotic probes can and should serve as critical pathfinders for future human missions. But the mobility, dexterity, intellect, reaction time, situational awareness, and observations of human explorers will always surpass the capabilities of robotic or automated probes, even those remotely operated by humans. And if robots are superior to humans, then why do we send research teams to Antarctica? Why do scientists dive in the depths of the ocean? Why do researchers explore the interior of active volcanic formations? Would those same critics opt to replace their presence in an Earth-based laboratory with a robot or automated system? And why do people choose to travel for a vacation, rather than surfing the internet, watching videos or looking at postcards of that same destination? Because mankind has a natural curiosity and a need to explore, and there are activities unique to humans that allow us to observe and interact with our surroundings in ways that robots never will. Our exploration of space is just the first step, though. The mark of a truly spacefaring civilization is the day that ordinary citizens can decide whether to live and work on Earth or opt to live away from our planet. We have a long journey to reach that point, but the journey is worth the risk and the expense, and will yield enormous economic, scientific and commercial benefits along the way. History teaches us that societies that have pushed their frontiers outward have prospered; those that have not have withered and faded into the history books. No society has ever gone wrong opening up the frontier, and we shouldn't stop now. Additional resources Polls show that Americans support human space exploration: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/US/shuttle_spaceprogram_poll03021 1.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_gallup_030218.html Commentaries and articles on human space exploration: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=orl%2D edpmyword04030403mar04 http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kera/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTI CLE_ID=458863 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19119- 2003Feb28?language=printer ________________________________________________________________________ ALLEGED NASA COVER-UP OF MENACING "NEAT" COMET THREAT IS PURE BUNK, EXPERTS SAY By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 28 February 2003 Internet accounts of a comet, supposedly bigger than Jupiter and possibly bearing down on Earth, have concerned citizens e-mailing astronomers and journalists worldwide asking if the end is finally nigh. True to form, the rumors also include allegations of a cover-up by NASA. Scientists say there is absolutely no danger and call the suggestions of cover-up false and even silly. The inaccurate portrayals on various Internet sites range from suggestions that the comet's electromagnetic field will drastically alter Earth's weather in coming days to even wilder notions that it is not a comet but instead the long-missing and hypothetical "Planet X." In some accounts the object is destined to fulfill dire Biblical prophecy. The rumors are all based on a comet called NEAT, discovered late last year and imaged in mid-February by the SOHO spacecraft, which is operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/comet_conspiracy_030228.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NANODIAMONDS ARE FOREVER? By David Tenenbaum 3 March 2003 Back when "nanotechnology" was still pure science fiction, "nanodiamonds" from outer space became science fact. First discovered in meteorites in 1989, these tiny diamonds average 3 nanometers across-- 300,000 of them would fit side by side across the width of a human hair- -and contain just a few thousand carbon atoms. By 1993, scientists discovered that in some nanodiamonds the ratio of different isotopes of the inert gas xenon resembled those detected in supernova explosions. Over time, scientists came to believe that nanodiamond story began with a formation in star explosions that distributed the tiny grains through the universe. One destination was the solar nebula that coalesced into our solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Among other places, the tiny pre-solar (older than the solar system) grains wound up in asteroids, which eventually broke up to form the meteorites in which the first nanodiamonds were discovered. Meteorites originate chiefly in the asteroid belt, which is relatively protected from the ravages of sunlight, heat and chemical reactions that probably destroyed nanodiamonds elsewhere in the solar system. If that understanding was correct, nanodiamonds should be even more common in regions like the Kuiper belt, home of many comets, which is even farther from the Sun. And thus the surprise when, last summer, a new study found no nanodiamonds in cometary debris. The study turned the conventional wisdom inside out, says author John Bradley, director of the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "If nanodiamonds are truly pre-solar, they should get progressively more abundant as you go further out, and they should be more abundant in comets than in asteroids. But we did not find any in comets, which suggests that abundance falls off with distance from the sun, rather than increases." Bradley and colleagues published the study, "Possible in situ formation of meteoritic nanodiamonds in the early Solar System," in the July 11, 2002, issue of the journal Nature. The research analyzed meteorites, and interplanetary dust particles trapped by a U2 plane in the stratosphere. Nanodiamonds are detected using a series of acid baths in a process that has been compared to "burning down a haystack to find the needle." Once the diamonds are isolated, a spectrographic analysis is made of their isotopic compositions. As expected, the meteorites that came from asteroids carried nanodiamonds at roughly one part per thousand by mass. A class of smaller dust particles that were not clustered together, however, showed no trace of diamond. Because these smaller particles appeared more "pristine"--less processed by light and chemistry--the researchers concluded that they had come from comets, not meteorites. The absence of diamonds was surprising, says Bradley, since supernova explosions should have "salted" nanodiamonds through the solar nebula: "This is turning the picture around completely." In retrospect, however, the finding does shed light on a certain inconsistency in the link between nanodiamonds and supernovae. "It was anomalous xenon isotopes that tagged them as pre-solar, but the bulk isotopic composition was the same as the solar system," says Bradley. In other words, although the rare xenon atoms trapped in the diamonds were clearly non-solar, the far more numerous carbon atoms had run-of- the-mill solar-system isotopic ratios. The resolution of this conflict may lie in the fact that most nanodiamonds do not contain even a single xenon atom, says Alan Boss, in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It could be that only one in a million nanodiamonds carries the xenon, and maybe those diamonds are still from supernovae, but the rest of the diamonds come from other processes." But how could nanodiamonds form in the nascent solar system? One possibility, Boss says, is shock caused by continual collisions in the asteroid belt. A stronger possibility, however, is chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a process used to make diamond film in the laboratory. "The microstructural evidence from nanodiamonds indicates that they probably formed by chemical vapor deposition," says Bradley. For two reasons, CVD, in which gases undergo chemical reactions before condensing, was until recently a doubtful source of nanodiamonds. First, CVD works better in non-oxidizing conditions, and the solar nebula apparently had a substantial amount of oxygen. Second, CVD is more efficient when the carbon starts to crystallize on a substrate of atoms such as silicon, but substrate atoms are not found in nanodiamonds. Now, it appears that diamonds can form without substrates, under some oxidizing conditions. More evidence for a stellar-nebula formation came shortly after the Bradley, et al., report, in a study by Caroline Van Kerckhoven and colleagues. "Nanodiamonds around HD 97048 and Elias 1," published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, reported the detection of spectrographic signs of nanodiamonds in two nebulae where stars (and conceivably planets) were forming. As the conventional wisdom about nanodiamonds is revised, Bradley stresses that the question of origins does not require an either/or answer. "My personal view is that nanodiamonds probably form everywhere throughout the galaxy, under all sorts of conditions." For the search for life beyond Earth, the implications of a revised nanodiamond theory could be momentous. If, due to solar heat and asteroid impacts, early Earth was, as Boss puts it, "a molten body with a steam atmosphere," then where did the oceans and organic compounds come from? If the source was, as some suspect, a rain of comet fragments, then understanding the circulation of material through the early solar system is critical to understanding the origin of life. If the source or sources of nanodiamonds can be pinned down, the little crystals could provide a rare source of data on material flow through the primordial solar system, Boss says. Understanding the physics of the nebula is a tough job, he stresses. "This detective story is difficult to unravel. We are 4.5 billion years after the crime, and even though we are at the scene of the crime, we need every piece of evidence to make a cohesive story." For now, the nano-detectives may turn to laboratories rather than the usual tools of spacecraft and telescopes. If most nanodiamonds formed via chemical vapor deposition, researchers need to know more about artificial diamonds. Processes that work today in the lab, after all, may also have worked in the solar nebula 4.5 billion years ago. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article390.html. ________________________________________________________________________ CURES FOR SPACE TRAVELERS By Rosemary Wilson From Liftoff to Space Exploration 3 March 2003 Six, eight, ten hours traveling in a car. You have to get out and stretch your muscles every once in a while, or you get really sore. Imagine how astronauts must feel, traveling for days without getting out to stretch. They get sore too. They also have to deal with long periods of weightlessness, radiation and, maybe the need for medical help on their journeys. Scientists are concerned with all aspects of a mission, including the physical conditions of the astronauts. That's why astronauts train for so many months before they actually venture into space. They have to be in tip-top condition so they can accomplish their assigned tasks. Weightlessness causes astronauts to lose some physical strength during their long trips. Even now, on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station they spend about two hours of every day exercising. They take exercise equipment with them that is compact and easily stored. Scientists are designing a special bicycle track that moves around in a circle. The circle spins and can give the rider some feeling of gravity. This little bit of gravitational force will help an astronaut overcome some of the bad effects of zero gravity. There's another problem--radiation. Our atmosphere filters out most of the damaging radiation coming to Earth. Since astronauts travel outside of our atmosphere, they don't have the benefits of its filtering abilities. Scientists had to design a way to protect the astronauts from damaging radiation. They accomplished this with shields that block out harmful rays. One of the best shields found is hydrogen, even when it's mixed with other things. The most common place you'll find hydrogen is mixed with oxygen in water. But water is heavy! There are other things that have a lot of hydrogen in them that can be used. One such substance is polyethylene. Shields made with this can be only five to seven centimeters thick, about two to three inches, to block out about 30 to 35 percent of the radiation. But what about the other 65 to 70 percent that gets through the shields? There are actually vitamins that help by soaking up radiation-produced particles in our bodies. Astronauts can take large doses of vitamins C and A to help absorb the particles. NASA scientists are also trying to develop medicines that can repair damage after it's done. Now there's one final problem--the need for medical help for illnesses and accidents. Astronauts are thousands of miles and days away from medical help if they get sick or hurt. They need a way to get help quickly. NASA scientists are developing robot helpers with steady hands to perform surgeries. They're also developing machines that can diagnose problems, and maybe treat them in the process. Computers will help doctors on Earth diagnose and treat illnesses. Doctors at home can review computer-generated images. They can then prescribe treatments and medicines for the astronauts. Now, imagine that you are at a distant area of the world. You don't have to worry about weightlessness. You also don't have to worry about radiation to any great degree (don't forget to protect yourself against ultraviolet, UV, radiation). But if you get sick or hurt, you'll need help fast. The medical units NASA is developing could be taken to you easily. A description of your injuries or illness could be sent to doctors using computers. The doctors could then make a diagnosis and prescribe medications and treatments. What about the medications? NASA is even designing a unit that will produce required medications on the spot using materials stored in the unit. We here on Earth can also benefit from the special medical machines NASA is developing. Long periods of travel, radiation, weightlessness, and the possible need for medical help--a lot of problems to contend with while in space. However, NASA and its super team of scientists and doctors are developing methods to address each of these. Space travel is a great stimulus for the development of new technologies. We are pleased that these can help change the way we practice medicine on Earth. We are even more pleased that we are slowly but surely, accomplishing the goal to travel farther and stay longer in space. Read the original article at http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2003/news-medicine.asp?list17103-137. This article was base upon an article that appeared in NASA Science News on 30 September 2002 (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/30sept_spacemedicine.htm). ________________________________________________________________________ CHINA OUTLINES ITS LUNAR AMBITIONS By Leonard David From Space.com 4 March 2003 A top official in China's blossoming space program has detailed that nation's plans for lunar exploration. China this year kicks off an intensive study on technologies required for exploring the Moon, eyeing future use of lunar resources, such as helium-3, as a power source for Earth. Chinese space officials view the Moon as a milestone effort in a multi- step space program, not only useful in strengthening its technological muscle, but also to out-distance other countries in utilizing the Moon in the 21st century. Luan Enjie, vice-minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and director of the China National Aerospace Administration (CNAA), blueprinted his country's lunar plans in an interview published March 3 by the People's Daily news outlet. Read the full story at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/china_moon_030304.html. ________________________________________________________________________ ATHENA STUDENT INTERNS PROGRAM NASA/JPL release 5 March 2003 Attention high school teachers! Apply for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work on a Mars mission! NASA is sending two rovers to Mars this spring and you and your students can be part of the exciting mission from launch through landed operations! The Athena Student Interns Program (ASIP) is designed to give a creative, dedicated group of high school students from across the nation the chance to join the scientists of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission in exploring the Red Planet. Teachers who become part of the Athena Student Interns Program will be asked to choose two students to be mentored by a member of the Athena Science Team. (Athena is the name given to the suite of instruments on the Mars Rovers.) Each teacher and their students will work with a mentor to experience first-hand the preparations for landed operations on Mars. The year-long Athena Student Interns Program culminates with a week-long stay at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California where scientists will use the rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Teachers and interns will be immersed in activities surrounding the actual mission and will actively participate in analyzing data gathered by the rovers. Examples of opportunities available to Athena Student Interns include assisting the Principal Investigator of the Science Team with issues pertaining to rover operations; working with digital models of the martian terrain and atmosphere; using Earth science to understand Mars data; helping to deduce the properties of martian sediments; and working with spectral data to search for clues of past water activity on Mars. Athena Student Interns and their teachers will also have opportunities to convey their experiences to other students, teachers and members of the public by participating in many outreach activities and events. The Mars Exploration Rover Mission offers the promise of exciting discoveries on Mars. The Athena Student Interns Program offers the promise of life changing events for you and your students. Playing an active role in the process of planetary exploration and discovery can ignite a passion for science, math, engineering and technology that is required of our next generation of scientists and engineers and will stay with your students for a lifetime. Application: Online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/classroom/asipApplication01.html PDF* for hardcopy at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/classroom/asipAll.pdf Due date: 31 March 2003 Requirements: Signed signature page and completed application. *PDF files are displayed with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Get your FREE copy at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Read the original announcement at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/classroom/asip.html. ________________________________________________________________________ THE REAL WHY By Tad Daley Mars Society release 6 March 2003 It's time for the space program to stop going around in circles. It's time to go somewhere again. Pioneer 10 has fallen silent. The ancient vessel was the first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter in 1973. It was the first human artifact ever to leave our solar system, as it traversed the orbit of Pluto in 1983. It has continued outward into interstellar space for another two decades--a message in a bottle, awash on the currents of an infinite sea. But on February 26th, NASA announced that it had not received any signal from the tiny messenger for more than a month, and did not expect to hear from it again. Perhaps someday, many decades from now, when technological advances enable us to travel much faster and much further in outer space, a future IASA will dispatch an interstellar cruiser to track down Pioneer 10, lasso it in, and bring it back to the Smithsonian. And just as we gaze in awe at the Great Pyramids of 5000 summers ago, so too 5000 summers hence might our descendants peer into their own remote past, at Pioneer 10, and ponder one of Homo sapiens' finest hours. Following the tragic destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, many have brooded over why the space shuttle and the space station have never fired the imagination of the public. Sometimes the most obvious answer is also the most correct one. Apollo galvanized the world because it went somewhere. More than a billion absorbed viewers watched the Mars Pathfinder rover because it went somewhere. The space shuttle and the space station have never seared our collective soul because they don't go anywhere. They just go around in circles. Consequently, they're going nowhere fast. It took only 66 years to go from Orville and Wilbur Wright to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. But another 33 have now gone by (this summer is the Wright Centennial) and it's hard to argue that we have much to show for it. How much farther might we venture in another 66--if we only make up our minds to go? Figuring out what caused the disintegration of Columbia, fixing it, and resuming the same operations won't do a thing to fix this larger problem of purpose, this transcendent meaning so conspicuous by its absence. In the wake of the Columbia disaster, it's time for humans to go somewhere again. And the obvious next somewhere is Mars. Set a deadline Tragedy often contains the seeds of opportunity. The moment is ripe for President Bush--or perhaps a Democratic presidential candidate--to do what President Kennedy did so audaciously in 1961: set a deadline. A goal attached to a time certain will generate suspense, drive, and determination. It might just stimulate a critical mass of excitement that could cascade into an avalanche of political support. (Has any political candidate since the end of Apollo even tried to poll or focus group such a proposal?) And a deadline that is plausible, dramatic, and highly symbolic is looming: the 50-year anniversary of the first landing on the moon--July 20, 2019. About sixteen years from now. There is little doubt that we could set down a crew on Mars within a dozen years of a decision to do so. Apollo took only eight. But the clock is ticking, and if we don't make that commitment soon, the opportunity to do so within that half- century window will be lost. We should not go to Mars primarily for the scientific discoveries, though these will undoubtedly be many and profound. We should not even go first and foremost to seek life--though that would surely be the single greatest discovery in all of human history. If the biochemistry made clear that martian life derived from a separate and independent origin, it would strongly suggest that the universe is teeming with the stuff, and strongly imply that somewhere else it has evolved into sentience--that we are not alone. But the real reason we should go is that Mars is the next step to what the Space Frontier Foundation advocacy group calls "breaking out into the solar system." Mars is the next stepping-stone on what the Planetary Society calls "humankind's greatest adventure," the next stop on the infinite journey, the next rung on the ladder to heaven. A human mission to Mars is indispensable to fully exploring our puny solar neighborhood, to establishing lasting colonies on multiple heavenly bodies, and eventually, literally, to reaching for the stars. Mars lies directly on the road toward making ourselves into what the National Space Society calls a "permanent spacefaring civilization." Grand ambitions And why should we want to do that? Because only that can guarantee immortality for the human race. It's easy to envision cosmic events that wipe out all life on Earth (indeed, most living things have in fact been wiped out several times by just such cataclysms in Earth's past). God knows these days it's easier still to envision scenarios by which we foolishly annihilate ourselves. But if a thousand years from now we have established a durable presence in several locations far distant from one another--throughout the solar system and beyond--it's hard to imagine any apocalyptic event that could manage to eliminate us all. If Homo sapiens can hang on until then, we will be as close to immortality as the universe itself. When science fiction giant Arthur C. Clarke--who predicted so many 20th century developments--was asked in 1999 what one thing he never could have anticipated, he replied: "That we would have gone to the moon... and then stopped." Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy of the 1950s, widely considered the greatest epic science fiction series, envisions several quintillion human beings dwelling in several million solar systems, so widely dispersed that fictional future anthropologists debate which among the millions was humanity's original sun. "The man asks why," says Robert A. Heinlein's protagonist D. D. Harriman to his philistine associate in 1949's The Man Who Sold the Moon. "I could tell you why, the real why, but you wouldn't understand." Clarke and Asimov and Heinlein (whose widow and literary muse Virginia died just a couple of weeks before the loss of Columbia) are hardly incidental to this discussion. Science fiction has long inspired many of the real individuals who pushed the frontiers of possibility. German rocket visionary Hermann Oberth could recite Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon by heart. American rocket engineer Robert Goddard was utterly enchanted as a child by H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. "Half the people in the space program were lured in by Robert Heinlein and those who followed his path," says science fiction author Larry Niven today. "Josef Stalin may have influenced more people directly, but in the long run Heinlein may have... a greater effect on the future." Diminished expectations We should go to Mars, and then beyond, for the same reason that Ptolemy and Copernicus and Kepler peered into the void. Because "all men by nature," as Aristotle said in the opening line of his Metaphysics, "desire to know." We should go for the serendipity, the unknown potential--as what President Kennedy called in his May 1961 speech "an act of faith and vision, for we do not know what benefits await us." And we should go for the same reason that Columbia's namesake sailed beyond the sunset. While many of his immediate successors were motivated by commerce, Columbus himself was driven by a fanatical quest for grand achievement, a burning desire for eternal fame. We should go to Mars because we want to do something magnificent and awe-inspiring, something that will belong to the ages, something our descendants will call a Great Thing. "My name is Ozymandias," thundered Shelley's great pharaoh, speaking to the rulers of distant places and distant times. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Since September 11th it has sometimes seemed as if our only meaning and purpose is to forestall Awful Things--new terrorist attacks, corporate meltdowns, international mischief by Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-Il (or George Bush). But the purpose of a civilization is not just to prevent destruction, but to engage in creation. If we let ourselves be deprived of that, then the terrorists surely do win. We will be remembered in 3003 less for the cataclysms we avoided than for the quests we had the courage to commence. Perhaps we can demonstrate our true triumph over Osama bin Laden and his foul cohorts by going to Mars, and bringing a piece of the World Trade Center along. We may in fact be remembered in 3003 for the space program and little else. In Michael Hart's book The 100, where he audaciously ranks the 100 most influential figures of all time, John F. Kennedy makes the list--solely because of the impetus he gave to the moon program. Think Kennedy will be remembered in 1000 years for anything else? How many people today (after only 500) can tell you a single thing about Ferdinand and Isabella, beyond Columbus? Tangible targets There are other, more prosaic reasons for going to Mars as well. One is that Mars will teach us a great deal about Earth. Comparative planetology can provide insights available through no other mechanism. Studies of the atmosphere of Venus played a critical role in awakening us to the threat of self-inflicted global warming. Examinations of martian dust storms led directly to the hypothesis of nuclear winter. A Mars program will also generate innumerable technological spin-offs, just like Apollo. If this inspires more youth to become scientists and engineers and inventors, they themselves will likely generate innovations ultimately worth far more than the cost of the program itself. Velcro 2.0, coming soon to a Home Depot near you. The first mission to Mars will differ from Apollo in many important ways. Serious science can't take place in just a few days, and the first astronauts on Mars will probably stay for several months. A robust rover will be essential, so the explorers can travel hundreds of miles from their landing site. While only one of the 12 men who walked on the moon was actually a scientist, most of the Mars crew will likely be professionally trained in disciplines like geology, meteorology, and biochemistry. Perhaps space policymakers will also heed the advice of Dennis Tito, history's first space tourist, and send along "individuals who represent various creative aspects of our culture"--writers, poets, philosophers, and artists. And elaborate precautions will need to be devised to ensure against biological contamination--of us by possible martian life forms, or of little green men by us. Imagine if we discover that martian organisms have indeed existed for billions of years--and we inadvertently wipe them all out within a few weeks of first contact. Who pays? A human mission to Mars could be surprisingly inexpensive. In the 1990s NASA produced a "Design Reference Mission" just in case they ever did get the funding. It estimated that a steady commitment of $3 billion per year--about 20% of the current NASA budget and less than 1% of the seemingly untouchable military budget--could send three complete round- trip missions to the Red Planet within 15-20 years. The Mars Society claims a leaner, scaled-down mission could be pulled off for half that amount. If we're going to spend $300-$400 billion per year forever until the end of time on "defense", can't we spend a drop in the proverbial bucket for an undertaking worth defending? Even this arguably modest amount of money would not all have to come out of the not-so-deep pocket of the American taxpayer. Although the U.S. government was the sole Apollo funder, a Mars program would almost certainly be funded multinationally, as the space station is today. And imaginative public/private financing schemes might also come into play. Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin has suggested that the whole thing might be funded by TV rights alone. Apollo gave TV rights to several networks for free--why not give them exclusively to one network, for a sizeable fee? Hey, if calling it the McMission to Mars is what it will take to get there, more than a few will take an order of fries with that. Planetary patriots July 20, 1969 saw literally the first footsteps of the nascent Space Age. But for all its nobility, meaning, and magic, future generations may conclude that a vast historic mistake was made on that day. If there's anything that should have been done on behalf of all the Earth, it was the first time a human set foot off the Earth. Aldrin and Armstrong looked up into the moon's black sky at a single borderless planet. But they planted the flag of only part of that planet. They planted the flag of the United States. There is no record anywhere in NASA archives that any other alternative was even considered. No moment could more vividly illustrate the 800-lb gorilla paradox of the 20th century--enormous progress in science and technology and gadgets and gizmos, but stubborn stagnation in our social, political and moral advancement. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after more than half a century? We can put a man on the moon, but we can't figure out how to prevent 800,000 Rwandans from being slaughtered in ten short weeks in 1994? We can put a man on the moon, but we're well on the way to 50 million AIDS deaths and 50 million more AIDS orphans--when all it would take to save them is a sufficient commitment of resources? One might say this means that humanity stands today at a state of technological triumph, but political adolescence. Many Americans today possess a profound sense of human solidarity, a non-negotiable ethic of shared destiny, an intuition that we are all in the same boat on Spaceship Earth. An October 1999 poll found that a full 73% of Americans view themselves as "citizens of the world as well as citizens of the United States." These people consider themselves both national patriots and planetary patriots. They may well pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. But they also pledge their allegiance to humanity. Such sentiments of larger loyalties are hardly new. "I am not an Athenian nor a Greek," said Socrates, "I am a citizen of the world." During the darkest days of the Cold War Princeton political scientist Robert C. Tucker saw the first glimmerings of an "ethic of specieshood," the nascent emergence of Voltaire's "party of humanity." "Our loyalties," said Carl Sagan, "are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth." A great many astronauts have expressed similar sentiments. From up there, they say over and over again, it looks like One World. "The thing is a whole! The earth is a whole!" said Rusty Schweickart. "When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with the whole thing." Kalpana Chawla, born in India, looked down from Columbia's last voyage at the subcontinent, but then decided to spend most of her time looking up. "When you look out at the stars and galaxies," she said just days before she died, "you feel like you come not from any particular place, but from the solar system." Even Neil Armstrong gained such a larger perspective. Interviewed in 1979 for the tenth anniversary of Apollo 11, he was asked how he felt as he saluted the flag. "I suppose you're thinking about pride and patriotism," he replied. "But we didn't have a strong nationalistic feeling at that time. We felt more that it was a venture of all mankind." The moment of truth So let us imagine a slightly different scene than Aldrin and Armstrong's on--oh--April 12, 2019. The first passenger-bearing spacecraft has just set down on the martian plain, near a gully in the long shadow of Olympus Mons: the tallest geological formation in our solar system, three times as high as Everest, so monstrous that an astronaut perched at the summit would essentially be in outer space. Five billion human souls sit transfixed, glued to television and computer screens--the single greatest moment in all history of shared human experience. The door opens. And the chosen one--perhaps today a sophomore at a high school in Ethiopia, practicing right now for her team's big upcoming track meet this very 2003 spring--takes three cautious steps down the ladder, and then plants her boot squarely onto the surface of Planet Mars. And she says: "That's one small step for one small woman. But it is one giant leap for the people of Planet Earth--of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We come in peace, we come to explore, we come to endure. And we come on behalf of all the family of humankind. So today, here in the soil of Planet Mars, I plant the flag of Planet Earth." That single act, a decade or so hence, could become the defining moment of the 21st Century. It would be an infinitely precious gesture, one that would make all Earthlings feel a part of the venture. In the words of Loretta Hidalgo, co-founder of the annual Yuri's Night World Space Party held on the double anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight in space and Columbia's first shuttle launch every April 12th: "It would bring together the best of humanity... in a way that is inspiring, inclusive and heroic." "The choice, as Wells once said, is the Universe or nothing," said Arthur C. Clarke in the closing passage to his first book, Interplanetary Flight. "The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to a close." "Living systems cannot remain static," says Wyn Wachhorst in his lyrical paean, The Dream of Spaceflight. "They explore or expire." Our first human on Mars will be followed by the rest of her crew, and then by more missions, and then by Mars Base Columbia, Mars Base Challenger, Mars Base Soyuz, and Mars Base Apollo One. And these in turn will be followed by the conquest of more planets, then by colonies on Phobos and Deimos and Ganymede and Titan, and then--who knows, perhaps with someone 4 years old today as a 124-year-old witness--by voyaging from our own solar system to another. De profundis, ad planatae, ad astra: from the Earth to the planets to the stars. The unfinished cathedral A wise society is one that looks more than half a lifetime in either direction. George F. Kennan, that wise man of American foreign policy, likes to observe that we confront and surmount our epochal challenges not just for the benefit of our descendants, but as a debt to our ancestors. Why else was Charlie Smith, a 124-year-old former slave, invited to sit in the VIP stands as witness to the night launch of Apollo 17 in 1972? Why else did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon bring along with him on Columbia a small pencil sketch of the majestic earth as seen from the moon--drawn nearly three decades before anyone actually saw that sight by a 14-year old boy who didn't make it out of Auschwitz alive? Mars beckons us because of what science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon called "the main current which created you and in which you will create still a greater thing, reverencing those who bore you and the ones who bore them, back and back to the first wild creature who was different because his heart leaped when he saw a star." We continue to explore the cosmos because it is our debt to Willie McCool, Judy Resnick, Roger Chafee, and Vladimir Komarov. But it is also our debt to all those who have labored on the unfinished cathedral that is human civilization--Albert Schweitzer and Dorothy Day, Bolivar and Bach, Gutenberg and Galileo, Magellan and Michelangelo, Augustus and Ashoka. It is our debt to the slaves who sweated, toiled and perished to build the Great Pyramids--for thousands of years the tallest structures on Earth, pointing toward the infinite sky, called by their builders their "stairways to heaven." It is up to us to complete their work. We go to Mars, and reach for the stars, because it is our debt to the unnamed Cro Magnon women or men who painted those unimaginably breathtaking landscapes in the Lascaux Caves a long 150 centuries ago, and who held in their hearts the barest glimpse of a human destiny of unlimited possibility. Seven months before Aldrin and Armstrong walked on the moon, the astronauts of Apollo 8 were the first humans to leave Earth orbit and fly to the moon, and the first among us ever to look upon the whole Earth, suspended among the blazing stars. Scientist and author David Brin has suggested that these three fortunate souls were perhaps the first humans to grasp that that whole was more than the sum of its parts, that it was something deserving of our loyalty, our allegiance, our singular patriotism. On Christmas Eve 1968, mission commander Frank Borman read from the book of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Our first human on Mars may well read from the holy text of Christians, Muslims, and Jews as well--this time from the book of Exodus: "God," she will read, "called to him out of the bush, 'Moses, Moses.' And Moses replied, 'Heneni!' 'I am here!'" Tad Daley, an international policy analyst, is a Fellow at the UCLA Center for Governance. He ran for U.S. Congress in a 2001 special election to represent Los Angeles, on a platform emphasizing transnational vital interests. The preceding article was an expanded version of an op-ed piece that Professor Daley published in USA Today on February 17. ________________________________________________________________________ UPDATE ON THE PETITION TO SUPPORT HUMAN SPACE EXPLORATION By Brian Chase National Space Society release 6 March 2003 First of all, I want to thank you for the overwhelming response to sign the National Space Society's petition to support human space exploration. We have obtained more than 5,000 signatures so far and it is growing every day. However, in the coming months, we will need to garner even greater support to counter the critics who continue to call for ending human space exploration. They don't understand the fundamental importance to our society, and it's up to us to ensure our national leaders understand how critical it is to continue opening the frontiers of space. So we need your help to spread the word about the petition. Please ask your friends, family, and colleagues to sign the petition. Forward them the WWW address (www.nss.org) and urge them to sign today. It is important that we add thousands of names to this already strong list, but we need your help to make that happen. Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support human space exploration, but we need to register our support in more ways than polls (two recent poll results are listed at the end of this message). We can't let our future in space slip away because our voices weren't heard. NSS will also be waging a nationwide campaign to rally support for human space exploration, but in order to be successful we need to continue growing our membership. If you aren't already a member, please consider joining or donating to NSS. You can do both at www.nss.org. Other things you can do: * Add the petition logo to your personal or business WWW site. Log on to http://www.nss.org/petitionbanner.html to find out how. * Write supportive letters to your local media. If you need contact information, Congress.org (http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/) is an excellent resource to locate media outlets in your area. * Add a note in your e-mail signature to encourage people to sign the petition. The note in my signature is "Sign the Petition to Support Human Space Exploration at www.nss.org." * Join the National Space Society and get involved in a local chapter. Finally, I want to share with you a recent op-ed (article #1 in this issue of Marsbugs) that was published in the February 24 issue of Space News. I felt it was important to address the issue of why humans are critical in exploring space, and that the ultimate objective of our exploration is greater than just science--it is to enable the settlement of space. You might find it useful if you are discussing the matter with friends or colleagues, or if you want to submit letters to your local newspaper. Thank you again for your strong support! Ad Astra! ________________________________________________________________________ SCIENTISTS SAY MARS HAS A LIQUID IRON CORE NASA release 2003-032 6 March 2003 New information about what is inside Mars shows the red planet has a molten liquid iron core, confirming the interior of the planet has some similarity to Earth and Venus. Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, analyzing three years of radio tracking data from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, concluded that Mars has not cooled to a completely solid iron core, rather its interior is made up of either a completely liquid iron core or a liquid outer core with a solid inner core. Their results are published in the March 7, 2003 online issue of the journal Science. "Earth has an outer liquid iron core and solid inner core. This may be the case for Mars as well," said Dr. Charles Yoder, a planetary scientist at JPL and lead author on the paper. "Mars is influenced by the gravitational pull of the Sun. This causes a solid body tide with a bulge toward and away from the Sun (similar in concept to the tides on Earth). However, for Mars this bulge is much smaller, less than 1 centimeter (0.4 inch). By measuring this bulge in the Mars gravity field we can determine how flexible Mars is. The size of the measured tide is large enough to indicate the core of Mars can not be solid iron but must be at least partially liquid." The team used Doppler tracking of a radio signal emitted by the Global Surveyor spacecraft to determine the precise orbit of the spacecraft around Mars. "The tidal bulge is a very small but detectable force on the spacecraft. It causes a drift in the tilt of the spacecraft's orbit around Mars of one-thousandth of a degree over a month," said Dr. Alex Konopliv, a planetary scientist at JPL and co-author on the paper. The researchers combined information from Mars Pathfinder on the Mars precession with the Global Surveyor tidal detection to draw conclusions about the Mars core, according to Dr. Bill Folkner of JPL, another co- author of the paper. The precession is the slow motion of the spin pole of Mars as it moves along a cone in space (similar to a spinning top). For Mars, it takes 170,000 years to complete one revolution. The precession rate indicates how much the mass of Mars is concentrated toward the center. A faster precession rate indicates a larger dense core, compared to a slower precession rate. In addition to detection of a liquid core for Mars, the results indicate the size of the core is about one-half the size of the planet, as is the case for Earth and Venus, and that the core has a significant fraction of a lighter element such as sulfur. In addition to measuring the Mars tide, Global Surveyor has been able to estimate the amount of ice sublimated, changed directly into a gaseous state, from one pole into the atmosphere and then accreted onto the opposite pole. "Our results indicate the mass change for the southern carbon dioxide ice cap is 30 to 40 percent larger than the northern ice cap, which agrees well with the predictions of the global atmosphere models of Mars," said Yoder. The amount of total mass change depends on assumptions about the shape of the sublimated portion of the cap. The largest mass exchange occurs if we assume the cap change is uniform or flat over the entire cap, while the lowest mass exchange corresponds to a conically shaped cap change. JPL manages the Mars Exploration Program for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Contacts: Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 Mary Hardin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-0344 The Science Express article is available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1079645v1. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/science/07MARS.html?tntemail0 http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_core_030306.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-general-03b.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0303/06marscore/ ________________________________________________________________________ GREAT IMPACT DEBATE, PART V: ENCORE Moderated by Don Yeomans From Astrobiology Magazine 10 March 2003 In this encore to the Great Impact Debate series, the debate participants respond to questions posed by our readers. Such questions include: "Are nuclear detonations, such as those depicted in the movie 'Armageddon', the best way to divert asteroids?" and "Can a passing asteroid dramatically increase the Earth's temperature?" Reader: I remember hearing about an asteroid that passed close to Earth, but we didn't even know it was there until it had already passed us. How could an asteroid just appear out of nowhere like that if we're always scanning the sky for them? Don Yeomans: I believe you are referring to asteroid 2002 EM7, an object that passed 1.2 lunar distances of Earth on March 8, 2002, but was not discovered until four days later. In this particular case, this rather small, 50-meter sized object passed Earth coming from the direction of the sun, so it was in the daylight sky, and hence unobservable with ground-based telescopes. Objects of this size pass unnoticed within a lunar distance of Earth every few months. Many are not discovered because they are small and faint. Current survey telescopes often cannot pick them up until they approach the Earth, so the time window for discovery is relatively short. The asteroid 2002 EM7 was discovered when it became observable in the nighttime sky. While close to the Earth, such objects have a distinctive apparent motion against the stellar background, and it is this motion that allows their discovery by wide-field survey telescopes. Once discovered, these objects are normally observed for a long time-- long enough that an accurate orbit can be determined and predictions can be made about their future motions in space. Then we can determine if such objects will come close to Earth again. Alan Harris: Such asteroids pass near the Earth many times before they impact. The objective of the Spaceguard Survey is to discover asteroids as they pass by the Earth on one of those prior occasions, which is exactly what happened with 2002 EM7. Whether the asteroid was discovered while approaching or receding is not a major issue. Reader: In movies like "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact," nuclear detonations are used to try to divert near-Earth objects. But I've heard this really is not a good option, because it would break the asteroid into many pieces and increase our odds of being hit. What is your opinion? Clark Chapman: The advantage of using nuclear weapons to destroy asteroids is that they are our most powerful devices by far. But the disadvantages are many. In particular, the more we learn about asteroids and comets, the more we realize that they are incredibly fragile. Most asteroids larger than a few hundred meters across are now thought to be "rubble piles"--collections of rocks, boulders, and "mountains" simply resting against each other, loosely held together by the tenuous gravitational field of the ensemble. Any sudden force applied to such an object would likely tear it apart into a swarm of objects. The total impacting energy of the swarm would be the same as the original asteroid, but spread out across the Earth's surface. In any case, once you disrupt a comet or asteroid into many different chunks, you've lost all ability to affect what happens next. In short, it is a very bad idea. Reader: How would a comet impact differ from an asteroid impact? Or would there not be much difference among objects of the same size and velocity? Alan Harris: The main difference applies to objects just barely big enough to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, like the Tunguska event. We can conclude the Tunguska cosmic body was a "hard stone" asteroidal object, because if it had been soft and fluffy it would have exploded at a much higher altitude than it did. Likewise, an iron body would have hit the ground and produced a crater about the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona. But for larger objects, the nature of the impactor hardly matters. A 1 kilometer diameter object will punch right through the atmosphere regardless of its velocity or composition. So if it is that large, there is not much difference in effect between iron, rock, or a snowball of the same mass. Reader: Suggested strategies to divert asteroids include an electromagnetic machine that hurls dirt from the surface, an orbiting parabolic mirror to heat up the surface and create a plume of vaporized material, or the low-tech strategy to "paint-it-black," where the asteroid is coated so solar heating would divert the asteroid. (Or alternatively, to strip a thin layer from the surface--the newly exposed colors would change the asteroid's thermal properties enough to move it.) What do you think of these options, and what would be your favored mitigation strategy if we only had three to five years of advance warning? Clark Chapman: The three approaches suggested in the question are potentially viable. I see problems with the practicality of the electromagnetic "mass driver" concept, but it is possible that a scheme could be developed with more research. Three to five years warning is rather short, though, so there would be little time to develop any technologies that don't already exist. I am very dubious about the "paint it black" concept, especially in the context of a short warning time. The so-called Yarkovsky Effect, in which a spinning body is slowly accelerated due to asymmetric re- radiation of sunlight impinging on the body, is very weak and probably would be effective only over a much longer duration. And having just gone through a terrible saga last year getting my house painted, I'm skeptical about the practicality of "painting" or "stripping" the surface of an asteroid! The best technique might depend upon the size and nature of the threatening body. I like the concept being explored by the B612 Project: attach a low-thrust rocket (a long-acting, nuclear-powered plasma engine) to the asteroid, de-spin it, and then move it away from its Earth-impact trajectory. But further development and integration of the engineering concepts are needed. Reader: Could we reduce the danger from planet-killer sized asteroids by locating all the troublesome objects and mining them out of existence? We would get valuable materials and also save the planet. Alan Harris: There are two problems with this concept. First, "all the troublesome objects" at present is zero, and is likely to remain so. We don't expect to find any asteroids on a collision course with the Earth. If we did find one, "mining it out of existence" would be a vastly greater enterprise than simply deflecting it off of a collision course. There is a common misconception of the utility of space resources. With present technology, it makes no sense to go into space for resources to bring back to Earth. The only sensible utility of mining asteroids is for resources to be used in space--that is, to reduce the amount of mass that must be thrown up into space against the Earth's gravity. We might contemplate mining the offending asteroid to gain fuel to deflect it, or for mass to run a mass driver, but not to bring stuff back home. Reader: How many times in recorded history has a significant asteroid or comet impact occurred? You mentioned the event in China where 10,000 people may have been killed by asteroids. Is that the most deadly asteroid event that has occurred for humans? Benny Peiser: We have no idea how many significant impacts have occurred during the last 10,000 years. While we have a number of historical records that appear to refer to cosmic impacts, many of these accounts are too ambiguous to give us any reliable information. This predicament is also true for the various reports regarding the alleged impact disaster in China during the 15th century. Clark Chapman: A paper was published about half-a-dozen years ago that interpreted ancient Chinese records in terms of meteoroid impacts. I found essentially all of the instances in that paper to be incredible. A case of stones raining down on an army violated one of the most characteristic aspects of meteoroid falls: all the stones were interpreted to have been about the same size. Instead, real debris from outer space--whether broken up in outer space or in an atmospheric explosion--forms a "power-law size distribution." There are a few big objects, and increasing numbers of small objects at ever-smaller sizes. Eyewitness reports in modern society are notoriously unreliable, and reports from different cultures in ages long past are even more so. Presumably these historical accounts refer to something, but I doubt that most (or any) of them have much to do with impacts. Benny Peiser: Unless you can verify the existence of an unambiguously dated impact crater, historical records and eyewitness accounts are regarded as insufficient evidence for an impact. We even find it difficult to believe the descriptions of experienced astronomers, such Leon Stuart, who claimed to have observed--and indeed photographed--a lunar impact in 1953. This is a real dilemma since only around 5 percent of terrestrial impacts produce a hypervelocity impact crater. For every crater- producing multi-megaton impact, we can expect about 10 atmospheric or oceanic impacts that fail to produce a "smoking gun." In other words, the vast majority of small asteroids striking the Earth explode in the atmosphere. In rare cases, as happened in Tunguska, atmospheric impacts can cause considerable destruction on the Earth's surface without leaving any compelling fingerprints (like an impact crater). It is striking, nevertheless, that significantly more terrestrial impact craters exist that date to the Holocene (the last 10,000 years) than we have historical impact reports for. It seems the vast majority of historical impacts went unnoticed. Another possibility is that impact reports were censored by religious authorities who were concerned about the demoralizing implications of these "divine interventions." Reader: I read a story about an asteroid that is expected to pass close to Earth sometime around the year 2016, and the temperature of the Earth would be raised to 50 degrees Celsius (122°F) at the moment it passes by. Is that possible? Alan Harris: No. The topic of cosmic impacts brings out a lot of crackpot claims, and this appears to be one of them. Even an asteroid "the size of Texas" (as breathlessly declared in the movie "Armageddon") would have no discernable effect passing close to the Earth--as long as it didn't hit. Reader: A proposal recently submitted to the European Space Agency has a fleet of five mini-probes targeting an asteroid considered potentially dangerous. Once in space, the probes would use ion propulsion engines that provide thrust by shooting out a stream of electrically charged particles. How well do you think this would work? Don Yeomans: The European Space Agency has received several recent proposals to utilize spacecraft to either discover near-Earth objects or study their compositions and structures. None of these proposals would actually try to use the very low thrust of ion propulsion engines to attempt an asteroid deflection. One of these proposals, called SIMONE, would use five low-cost spacecraft to fly by, or rendezvous with, a number of near-Earth objects to gain an understanding of their physical nature. This information would be invaluable should we one day have to deflect an Earth-threatening object. The method employed in a future asteroid deflection attempt would depend upon a detailed knowledge of the composition, mass, rotation, and structure of the threatening near-Earth object. Although probably not appropriate for deflecting a near-Earth object, low-thrust, ion-drive spacecraft are very efficient in terms of propulsion. They are also very reliable. The Deep Space 1 ion-drive spacecraft has been operating successfully in space since October of 1998. Reader: Could you describe what the public reaction to the 1908 Tunguska impact was like at the time? Do you think the public today would respond differently? Benny Peiser: The atmospheric impact over the Tunguska region in Siberia was witnessed by many thousands of people and felt over an area of more than 1,000 miles in radius. Many native Tungus hunters were fairly close to ground zero, and some of them witnessed the large-scale slaughter of their deer herds as a result of the blast. Apparently, one or two hunters were killed by the explosion. Reminiscent of religious leaders who blame natural disasters on a vengeful deity, Tungus shamans told their people that disobedience had brought divine calamity upon themselves. Further away from the epicenter, the disaster also was witnessed with trepidation. Just days after the impact, many Russian newspapers reported the huge explosion. A newspaper from Irkutsk, for example, described how peasants in the village of Nizhne-Karelinsk (200 miles from ground zero) "saw a body shining very brightly with a bluish white light. When the shining body approached the ground it seemed to be pulverized, and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and a loud crash--not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones or from gunfire--was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time, a forked tongue of flame broke through the cloud. Everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching." Despite many similar reports and eyewitness accounts, newspapers and scientists discarded the whole incident, claiming that such bizarre stories were unsound and unreliable. As a result of this general disbelief, it took some 20 years before the first scientific excursion reached ground zero to investigate the causes of the catastrophe. And what about today? It is unlikely that we will encounter another Tunguska event in the near future. Impacts in the 10-megaton range probably happen only once every 500 to 1,000 years. But for argument's sake, let us contemplate how the public might respond if another Tunguska-type impact happened tomorrow. For a start, the reaction of the public fundamentally will depend on the location, extent, and destruction of the impact. In all likelihood, another Tunguska event would occur over an unpopulated or scarcely inhabited region of the world. However, in the unlikely event of fatalities, the global uproar could be substantial. In such a case, 9/11 would look like an insignificant security failure. The blame game would be brutal, and I would certainly not like to be in the shoes of those who had advised the government that small impacts were negligible. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article396.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 10 March 2003 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles1. html R. R. Britt, 2003. Mars core squishy, goes with the tidal flow. Space.com. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2003. Mars may still have liquid iron core. SpaceDaily. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles3. html L. David, 2003. China outlines its lunar ambitions. Space.com. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles5. html Reuters, 2003. In a first, real stardust identified. CNN. D. Tenenbaum, 2003. Nanodiamonds are forever? Maybe not. Astrobiology Magazine. Planetary protection articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles6. html R. R. Britt, 2003. Alleged NASA cover-up of menacing 'NEAT' comet threat is pure bunk, experts say. Space.com. D. Yeomans, 2003. The great impact debate, part V: encore. Astrobiology Magazine. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 10 March 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://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/03/05/sprj.colu.investigation/index.h tml http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/national/09SHUT.html?th http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/national/nationalspecial/10SHUT.html?t h http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_video_030228.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_moduleemail_030228.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_month_030301.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_reassigncaib_030301.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_debate_030302.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/sts107_weather_030303 .html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_foam_030303.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_board_030304.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_reconsider_030304.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_reconstruct_030304.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030305.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_newcaib_030306.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/caib_hearing_030306.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/shuttle_tps_030307.ht ml http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_search_030308.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_communication_030308.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_fleet_030308.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_data_030310.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_vision_030310.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030304231411.ouvncit3.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030306234435.62c9n8vl.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030306220825.bwkg9zqk.html http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030305board/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030306hearing/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030307plume/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030308scenarios/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030309autopilot/ ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 27 February - 5 March 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, March 5. 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. Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) Flight Software (FSW) checkout continued this week with the following activities uplinked and executed: calibration of inertial reference unit-A, a 7COAST demonstration with rates, star ID suspend demo with rates, checkout of sun sensor assembly- B, several high water mark clears, and fault protection log pointer resets. Playback data from off-track activities has been received. Everything looks normal, and detailed analysis continues. An inertial reference unit-B checkout and calibration activity was also uplinked for execution next week. The project held a final uplink approval meeting for the Command and Data Subsystem (CDS) flight software checkout activities. Procedures and files for the checkout were approved, with uplink and checkout activities to begin on March 24. Preliminary port three for Science Operations Plan implementation of tour sequences S15/S16 occurred this week. The third and final input port occurs next week. Additionally, all teams have been reviewing the first official merged sequence for S17/S18. The Science Planning Team process for C37 concluded this week with the delivery of the port two products and the handoff package to the Sequence team. Subsequence generation for C37 began with a kick-off meeting held on Tuesday. The March Instrument Operations working group meeting featured a SEQ_CONVERT tool tutorial by the Mission Sequence Subsystem development team. System Engineering has created a web page to assist with tour Verification and Validation activities. The site will contain links to various matrices, templates, and documentation in support of V&V. Also posted will be materials presented at last week's Cassini Design Team meeting including a detailed uplink system V&V schedule, and the uplink V&V kickoff agenda. Delivery coordination meetings (DCM) were held for Version 9 of the Mission Sequence Subsystem, and the Instrument Operations Science Operations and Planning Computer (SOPC) Broadcast Keep-Alive scripts. A number of the keep-alive utilities have been updated due to changes in the Deep Space Mission Services firewall. The Jupiter Magnetosphere Synchrotron Radiation experiment was noted in the February 2003 "APS News," a publication of the American Physics Society, as a significant Astrophysics event of 2002. Even though the Cassini RADAR is not mentioned by name, it was the radiometer instrument that collected the raw data for the experiment. The educators and youth section of the Saturn Observation Campaign (SOC) web site has been updated to include program details, links to appropriate activities, and supporting information for youth leaders and classroom educators. The site can be accessed at http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/educators.cfm. 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. ________________________________________________________________________ MDRS EXPEDITION ONE PHASES ONE AND TWO RESEARCH SUMMARY REPORT By Rocky Persaud Mars Society release 3 March 2003 The first phase of Expedition One was successfully launched on February 15th with the arrival of the crew at the Mars Desert Research Station. Two days of training ensued in the various systems of the habitat, the field equipment, and field science protocols. Despite not having the previous crew on hand to help familiarize my crew with current hab systems, training went well as we do have several experienced crewmembers who have been to MDRS before. On Monday, February 17th, the ExOne research program was initiated with studies in scouting strategies, tool use, geologist-biologist-engineer work relationships, comparative spacesuit studies, data logging and information management, investigations into alternative methods of interaction with mission support, and crew psychology research. On Saturday, February 22nd, phase one ended in the evening with a 3-hour debrief after dinner, and finally with the excitement of the arrival of one of the two rovers we intend to test during the remainder of ExOne. Expedition One is a carefully planned, but flexible, research program. For phases one and two, three biologists and three geologists comprised the Field Science Crew, while two human factors officers, two videographers, and four engineers comprised the Mission Systems Crew. Later phases will have a smaller complement as our research approaches a holistic mission science scenario. Despite having such a large crew, everyone found their time limited. The crew became very close quickly, which was probably the result of having spent 6 months over the internet working together to make our plans prior to arrival. Phase One had 24 EVAs planned for a six-day period, with 2 EVAs every morning, and 2 EVAs every afternoon. With a field crew of six scientists, this allowed each of them to have one EVA per day, except every third day on which one would have two EVAs. Before research began, the joint Commanders of Rocky Persaud (Phase One and Two) and Shannon Rupert (Phase Three) decided to switch to a schedule of just 3 EVAs per day, to account for the learning period it took to become efficient at preparing for EVAs, as well as for the lack of the two Mars-analog rovers that were expected to arrive on the first weekend of the mission. It was foreseen that pre-planned EVAs could be made up during the more relaxed Phases 3 and 4. The modular nature of our EVAs allowed an easy adjustment to the new schedule, and the crew appreciated the extra time to process data after their EVAs and perform laboratory analysis. Of the 24 planned EVAs, the eight rover-dependent EVAs were cancelled or moved to later phases, leaving just 16 EVAs performed during the first week. All EVAs were video-recorded by the two videographers, and work analysis and tool use analysis was performed by the human factors officers to measure the frequency and time of certain tasks and procedures. All this data will be analyzed over the next several months. The human factors studies included the dexterity of the two types of spacesuits when pursuing different types of science goals; which types of data were recorded when specific science goals were pursued, and how often; and the mixing of personality types for efficient field work. The scouting strategies that we investigated included variables such as the geologist/biologist pairings, mobility options such as pedestrian, ATV and rover mobility, terrain types, spacesuit dexterity requirements, and data-logging requirements. It was found to be more effective to have a geologist and biologist paired together to scout for sites, as they can work together and share their expertise, but when settling on a site for detailed study, it is better to use a geologist-geologist pair, or a biologist-biologist pair, but not mix the two disciplines. Geologists and biologists have fundamentally different ways of collecting data. While biologists have fixed protocols, making operational studies on them straight-forward, the nature of geological field work did not allow for immediate conclusions to be made about geology operations. In the coming months, careful analysis of human factors data from the work measures studies, the EVA videos and the available datalogger records should reveal unanticipated insights. Several papers will result from analysis of the human factors and operational science data. Phase Two was intended to focus more on science operations rather than exploration operations or tools. About 10 of the 24 preplanned Phase Two EVAs were successfully accomplished, as well as several additional "EarthSkin" EVAs that had not been planned prior to the launch of the expedition. The weather was a major contributor to the lack of opportunity for EVAs, negatively impacting the progress of research into science operations. No immediate conclusions about science operations can be made until the operational data can be assessed. We are catching up with the studies on science operations during Phase 3 and Phase 4, focusing on just science operations in relation to use of the two rover vehicles. By the end of Expedition One, it is anticipated that we will have data for 38 of the 48 pre-planned operational EVAs. A shorter, two-week Expedition Two will likely be necessary in the future to obtain a more complete set of data. The handover of command from Rocky Persaud to Shannon Rupert was accomplished on Sunday, March 2nd for the beginning of Phase Three. Two more exciting weeks of research for Expedition One is ahead of us. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS (MER-1/MER-2): SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT NASA/KSC release 5 March 2003 MISSION: Mars Exploration Rovers (MER-1/MER-2) LAUNCH VEHICLES: Delta II/Delta II Heavy LAUNCH PADS: 17-A/17-B LAUNCH DATES: May 30/June 25 LAUNCH TIMES: 2:28 PM/12:34 AM EDT At Kennedy Space Center, the first of two Mars Exploration Rovers, MER-2 has begun its prelaunch testing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF). Processing of the MER-1 cruise stage, lander, aeroshell and heat shield is also underway. A functional test of the MER-2 rover systems will be conducted on March 6 and March 9. The MER- 1 rover is scheduled to arrive at KSC on March 11. Once functional testing and mission simulation of the flight elements is complete, they will be integrated together. Each spacecraft will be mated to a solid propellant upper stage booster that will propel the spacecraft out of Earth orbit. After mating to the upper stage, the stack will undergo spin balance testing. Approximately ten days before launch the payload will be transported to the launch pad for mating with their respective Boeing Delta II rockets. The Boeing Delta II vehicle for the first launch of the two launches scheduled on May 30 is planned for erection on Pad 17-A at Space Launch Complex 17 beginning April 18. The Delta for the second launch on June 25 will begin erection activities on May 1 on Pad 17-B. Contact: George H. Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center Phone: 321-867-2468 ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 3-7 March 2003 Memnonia Sulci (Released 3 March 2003 http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030303a.html Crater Chains (Released 4 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030304a.html Stop Sign Crater (Released 5 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030305a.html Textures in Arcadia Planitia (Released 6 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030306a.html Hrad Vallis (Released 7 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-2003-03-07.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 March 2003 This past week, the Stardust flight team used the antennas of JPL's Deep Space Network on one occasion. Data relayed from the spacecraft during that contact indicated Stardust is healthy and all subsystems continue to run normally. The Stardust Education and Public Outreach team participated in the Mars K-12 Education Workshop in Tempe, Arizona and demonstrated the importance of comet modeling. Approximately 125 educators were in attendance. 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 10.