MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 11, 17 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) GLOBAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL HUNT TO REVISIT OLD SIGNALS By Tariq Malik 2) ALIENS MAY GAIN STATE HONORS From Reuters and CNN 3) THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MARS POLAR SCIENCE AND EXPLORATION Conference announcement 4) RED ROVERS: RETURNING TO MARS By Henry Bortman 5) EXPLORING EVERYTHING: AN ASTROBIOLOGIST'S LIFE By Rocco Mancinelli 6) PLANTS IN SPACE! From NASA Explorers 7) NASA'S MARS ODYSSEY CHANGES VIEWS ABOUT RED PLANET NASA release 2003-034 8) MARS ODYSSEY SHOWS INTENSE, BUT MANAGABLE RADIATION RISK FOR ASTRONAUTS By Robert Roy Britt 9) AP FALSELY REPORTS MARS RADIATION DATA Mars Society release 10) CHINA WORKS TO PUT ASTRONAUTS IN ORBIT By Joseph Kahn 11) PREACHING SETTLEMENT By John Carter McKnight 12) STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT, ANY OXYGEN TONIGHT? By Leslie Mullen 13) WORRIED ABOUT ASTEROID-OCEAN IMPACTS? DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF By Lori Stiles 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 EXPLORATION ROVERS (MER-1/MER-2) UPDATE: SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT By George H. Diller 18) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 19) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ GLOBAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL HUNT TO REVISIT OLD SIGNALS By Tariq Malik From Space.com 10 March 2003 Researchers spearheading a worldwide effort to find ET, or anyone else out in space besides us humans, plan to revisit a group of their most likely candidate radio signals using the world's largest radio telescope. The SETI@home program, a distributed computing effort that uses the personal computers of millions of volunteers to examine radio signal data, is planning a stellar countdown to check the extraterrestrial-potential of up to 150 radio signals detected with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The signal batch is cream of a candidate crop of five billion radio observations pulled from the SETI@home network, which program organizers will recheck to see if they are strong enough to be an extraterrestrial communiqué, repeating and emanating from portions of sky bearing sun-like stars and planets. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/setiathome_030310.html. ________________________________________________________________________ ALIENS MAY GAIN STATE HONORS From Reuters and CNN 10 March 2003 [I hesitate to include this article, but it's amusing if nothing else. DJT] E.T.: Phone New Mexico. They may have a little something special for you. A New Mexico legislator proposed Monday having the state honor all extraterrestrial beings with a special day that will "celebrate and honor all past, present and future extraterrestrial visitors" to New Mexico, the measure reads. Representative Dan Foley, a Republican from Roswell, the spot where some say aliens crash-landed more than 50 years ago, said he introduced the legislation to "enhance relationships among all the citizens of the cosmos, known and unknown." Read the full article at http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/03/10/offbeat.roswell.aliens.reut/ind ex.html. ________________________________________________________________________ THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MARS POLAR SCIENCE AND EXPLORATION Conference announcement 10 March 2003 October 13-17, 2003 Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada Sponsors: Lunar and Planetary Institute National Aeronautics and Space Administration Canadian Space Agency Geological Survey of Canada International Glaciological Society Conveners: Stephen Clifford, Lunar and Planetary Institute Peter Doran, University of Illinois at Chicago David Fisher, Geological Survey of Canada Christopher Herd, University of Alberta Science Organizing Committee Terrestrial Members: Walter Ammann, Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, University of Copenhagen Sigfus Johnsen, University of Copenhagen Shawn Marshall, University of Calgary John Nye, University of Bristol Wayne Pollard, McGill University Todd Sowers, Pennsylvania State University Lonnie Thompson, Byrd Polar Research Center Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, National Energy Authority and University of Iceland Eske Willerslev, University of Copenhagen Planetary Members: William Boynton, University of Arizona Mike Carr, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park Frank Carsey, Jet Propulsion Laboratory William Durham, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Jack Farmer, Arizona State University James Garvin, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center Rejean Grard, European Space Agency/ESTEC Robert Haberle, NASA Ames Research Center Ken Herkenhoff, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff Hugh Kieffer, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff Pascal Lee, NASA Ames Research Center Daniel McCleese, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Christopher McKay, NASA Ames Research Center Jeffrey Plaut, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory James Rice Jr., University of Arizona David Smith, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center Ken Tanaka, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff Peter Thomas, Cornell University Maria Zuber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Purpose and Scope The Third International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration is the latest in a continuing series of meetings that are intended to promote the exchange of knowledge and ideas between planetary and terrestrial scientists interested in Mars polar and climate research. In recognition of the broad scope, interdisciplinary nature, and strong international interest in this topic, the participation of any interested scientist with relevant theoretical, experimental, or polar field experience is strongly encouraged. The purpose of the conference is to assess the current state of Mars polar and climate research; discuss what might be learned from investigations of terrestrial analogs and the data returned from upcoming missions; and identify the potential science objectives, platform options, and instrument suites for robotic missions to the martian poles within the next decade. This meeting is intended to advance such missions and to serve as an important resource for those scientists wishing to develop instruments, propose spacecraft, or participate as a member of a science team in response to any future Announcement of Opportunity. Science Background In the last four years, our understanding of the martian polar regions has been greatly advanced by the analysis of data acquired by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. This data has yielded the first high- resolution topographic maps of the north and south polar ice caps, meter-scale images of the polar layered stratigraphy, and year-round coverage of the thermophysical, radiative, and compositional properties of the polar atmosphere and surface. This influx of new data has recently been augmented by the arrival of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, whose Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) and Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) are providing dramatic new insights into the nature of the poles. Within the next three years, a variety of additional investigations will be conducted by the upcoming Mars Express (2003) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005) missions-- including our first look at the internal structure and basal topography of the polar deposits (obtained from the orbital radar sounders that will be flown on both spacecraft). Some of the specific issues and questions that will be addressed at the meeting include: * How did the martian polar ice caps and layered deposits originate? How old are they? And what is the chronology of events recorded in their strata? * How do the compositional, physical, thermal, and radiative properties of the deposits vary, both geographically and with depth? * What does their stratigraphy tell us about the annual cycles of carbon dioxide, water, and dust? And how have these cycles changed with time? * Is there evidence of past or present glacial flow? How did the spiral pattern of scarps and troughs develop and how do they evolve with time? * Is the base of either cap at the melting point? Do basal lakes or other environments exist that are suitable for the survival and growth of indigenous life? * How can the knowledge and experience gained from investigations of the Earth's polar ice sheets (e.g., radio echo sounding, core sampling and stratigraphic analysis, ice margin studies, exploration of Lake Vostok and the Dry Valleys, etc.) benefit Mars polar exploration? Time and Location This five-day meeting will be held from October 13-17, 2003, at the Fairmount Chateau at Lake Louise, near Banff National Park, in Alberta, Canada. This location was chosen as the site for the third conference because of Canada's active programs in permafrost, glacial, and polar research, as well as its growing interest in Mars exploration. The Lake Louise/Banff area also offers an ideal venue for the meeting because of its scenic location, its close proximity to many excellent destinations for field trips (including alpine glaciers and other examples of cold climate features and terrains), and its ready accessibility to international travelers. To take full advantage of the opportunities the Lake Louise/Banff area provides, the conference technical sessions will be held Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with optional field trips to local sites of geologic and glacial interest on Wednesday and Saturday (additional details about the field trips will be included in the second announcement). Participants are encouraged to take advantage of the availability of conference-rate lodging (for the weekends before and after the meeting) to explore this extraordinarily scenic area with their spouse or family. Conference Format The conference program will consist of invited and contributed talks, panel discussions, and poster presentations, and will be supplemented by several special sessions and social events that will be held throughout the meeting. Any scientist with relevant theoretical, experimental, or polar field experience is strongly encouraged to participate and to submit an abstract. Contingent upon review and acceptance by the Program Committee, abstracts will be published as part of an LPI abstract volume that will be distributed to conference participants at the meeting. The abstracts and preliminary program will also be available in electronic format and accessible via the conference web page by August 22, 2003. Abstracts may address any relevant aspect of terrestrial or martian polar research, including, but not limited to: * Polar Geology, Glaciology, and Hydrology * Compositional, Thermophysical, and Spectral Properties * Climate and Meteorology * Biology (including life in endolithic, subglacial, and hypersaline environments) * Geophysical and Remote Sensing Investigations * Instrument Design and Exploration Strategies Graduate Student Travel Awards To encourage the participation of student researchers, some travel assistance (covering as much as ~20-50% of anticipated total expenses) will be provided on a competitive and as-available basis. Further details regarding this assistance will be included in the second announcement. Contacts For further information regarding the format and scientific objectives of the meeting, please contact: Stephen Clifford Lunar and Planetary Institute Phone: 281-486-2146 E-mail: clifford@lpi.usra.edu For further information regarding meeting logistics, please contact: Kimberly Taylor Lunar and Planetary Institute Phone: 281-486-2151 E-mail: taylor@lpi.usra.edu Future Announcements Further details regarding the program, topics for discussion, opportunities for participation, as well as guidelines for abstract and poster preparation, will be included in the second announcement that will be posted on this LPI Web site by May 9, 2003. Indication of Interest To subscribe to a mailing list to receive electronic reminders and special announcements relating to the meeting via e-mail, please submit an electronic Indication of Interest form by April 11, 2003 [see the web site at the end of this announcement]. Please submit the Indication of Interest even if you do not care about electronic notification of future announcements. The number of e-mails tallied will also serve to facilitate meeting planning. Schedule April 11, 2003: Indication of Interest due at LPI May 9, 2003: Second announcement posted on the LPI Web site July 16, 2003: Abstract submission deadline August 22, 2003: Final announcement, preliminary program, and abstracts posted on the LPI Web site October 13-17, 2003: Third International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration For additional information, go to http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/polar2003. ________________________________________________________________________ RED ROVERS: RETURNING TO MARS By Henry Bortman From Astrobiology Magazine 11 March 2003 "Follow the water" is the mantra for NASA's Mars exploration program. But present-day Mars is so cold, and its atmosphere so thin, that liquid water cannot exist on the planet's surface. What NASA can look for, though, is evidence that water was present and active on Mars in the distant past. There are strong indications, in images taken by cameras aboard orbiting spacecraft, that features of the martian landscape have been carved by water. But some scientists argue that these features could have been caused by short-lived torrents of water--flash floods. More interesting, because the ultimate goal of Mars exploration is to look for signs of life, would be to find areas where water flowed over long periods of time, either continuously or episodically; or where water ponded for long periods of time, such as in a lake. Convincing evidence for long-term water activity is difficult to nail down with photographs taken from orbit, however. That's the job of landers and rovers, like the rovers NASA plans to send to Mars later this year. The upcoming missions are referred to as MER-A and MER-B-- MER stands for Mars Exploration Rover--and, yes, it's missions, plural. MER-A will launch in late May or June, MER-B in June or July. Both rovers will touch down on Mars in January 2004. The MERs are equipped with a host of instruments designed to investigate the mineral compositions of rocks nearby the landing sites. By studying mineral compositions, scientists will be able to learn a great deal about how the rocks were formed, particularly what role water played in their formation. Only once before has NASA sent a spacecraft to Mars capable of roaming about on the surface. Pathfinder, which arrived on July 4, 1997, carried within it a small rover, Sojourner. For all the excitement Sojourner generated, it traveled a grand total of about 100 meters (about 330 feet) before its mission was terminated. The MERs are larger than Sojourner, contain more advanced scientific instruments and can travel farther--up to half a kilometer (just under one-third of a mile). But just where on Mars is the best place to "follow the water"? Although Mars's diameter is only about half that of our home planet, it has as much surface land mass as Earth--because it's all land mass. That's a lot of real estate to choose from. Two landing sites, very different from each other, are the leading candidates. One, in Meridiani Planum, is notable because it contains a large deposit of gray hematite, an iron-rich mineral that on Earth is usually formed by the long-term action of water. The other, Gusev Crater, is intriguing because it appears to be the site of an ancient lakebed, where layers of sediment were deposited by a long-term flow of water into the basin formed by the crater. This article will focus on the Meridiani Planum site; a subsequent article will discuss Gusev Crater. On contemporary maps of Mars, Terra Meridiani is in dead center. What makes it an exciting spot is that it is the site of a vast deposit of gray hematite. Hematite is iron oxide. It comes in two forms: red and gray. The red kind you're probably familiar with. It's rust, and it's everywhere on Mars. It forms readily whenever iron is exposed to air. It gives the planet its red color. Gray hematite has a dark gray metallic luster. You've probably seen it in curio shops and jewelry stores. Unlike red hematite, gray hematite usually forms over long periods of time, in the presence of liquid water, often standing bodies of liquid water. Gray hematite has been found on Mars in only three places, Meridiani Planum being one of them. The other two locations, Aram Chaos and Valles Marineris, although even more interesting than Meridiani Planum in some respects, are too hazardous for a MER spacecraft to land in. The gray hematite was identified by TES, the Thermal Emission Spectrometer, aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars for nearly four years. TES is an infrared spectrometer, an instrument that measures infrared light reflected by the martian surface. The data it gathers enable scientists to draw maps of the mineral composition of that surface. But the maps are rather crude. That's why researchers are anxious to send instruments to the surface, so that they can study martian minerology in more detail. Phil Christensen, of Arizona State University, is the principal investigator for TES. He has come up with five possible scenarios for how the hematite in Meridiani Planum formed. Four of these involve liquid water; the fifth is a volcanic process that Christensen considers unlikely. Although each of these scenarios could account for the hematite seen from orbit by TES, each would appear very differently to the instruments onboard MER. Christensen explains the various possibilities this way. "If you get there and you picked up a rock and it had some banding layers of hematite in it, that's a smoking gun for a lake deposit. "Another possibility is that, say, I have a sediment formed in a lake-- or however it formed--and hot water flowed through that. Then I would think you would see that as almost like a hematite cement, filling in the pores of this pre-existing rock. "If it's a volcanic ash that got oxidized without water, then the hematite should be really fine-grained, dispersed through the whole rock, and it looks like an ash that oxidized to hematite. "Another possibility is leaching. On the Earth, massive amounts of rainfall basically dissolve away most things and leave behind the hematite. And what happens there is the hematite, the iron will dissolve out of the near surface stuff, leach down, and re-precipitate. So you sort of get this glob coating of hematite coating everything else." And what is Christensen's favorite scenario? "I have come to think that it's probably a hydrothermal process" that formed the hematite. He imagines a frozen lake covering layers of iron- bearing sediment. Some underground heat source melts the ice, causing water to flow through the sediments. As it flows through, it dissolves iron from the sediments. Downstream it re-precipitates the iron as hematite. It is not the hematite, however, but the water in the hematite-formation process that has Christensen intrigued. "The hematite itself is not particularly interesting. We know it's there; we've mapped it. So what? I argue that it's a beacon that says, water was here, okay? And so now if you're looking for the most interesting places to go land, there's a beacon that says, hey, there was mineral evidence of water here, go there. And you look in detail and see what else is there." Recently, Wendy Calvin, of the University of Nevada, Reno, uncovered evidence for a second aqueous mineral, in both Meridiani Planum and Aram Chaos. Ironically, it comes not from NASA's most recent missions to Mars, but from two of the oldest: Mariner 6 and 7. These two spacecraft, which flew past Mars in the summer of 1969, also contained infrared spectrometers and, by co-incidence, recorded data for Meridiani Planum and Aram Chaos. Wendy Calvin, of the University of Nevada, Reno, recently re-examined the Mariner data, which contained information about a different portion of the infrared spectrum than that collected by TES. She discovered the signature of a second aqueous mineral, the location of which correlates closely with that of the hematite found by TES. This finding adds significant weight to the argument that the hematite was, indeed, formed by water. Just what that second mineral is, though, Calvin can't say. The data collected by the Mariner spacecraft contain enough information to determine three important facts about the mystery mineral: * First, it contains a lot of water. The Mariner data show a very strong water signal in the locations where the unidentified mineral appears. * Second, it is something other than hematite. Hematite doesn't have a detectable signature in the part of the spectrum where this second mineral is detected. * Third, it isn't a typical silicate or a carbonate. Typical silicates- -quartz, for example--are among the most common rocks on Earth. Carbonates, such as limestone, are also very common on Earth, especially where minerals have precipitated out of water. If the unknown mineral were a typical silicate or a carbonate, TES would have been able to detect it. That doesn't leave many options. The mineral that Calvin believes best fits these constraints is a type of clay, black or dark green in color, known as a ferrous silicate. "They're clays that were formed on Earth before there was a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere," says Calvin. "They've got lots and lots of iron in them." This is consistent with what is known about Mars's atmosphere. "Mars doesn't have a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere - never did. Early earth didn't," either, says Calvin. According to Christensen, the instruments aboard the MER will be able not only to identify Calvin's mystery mineral, but also to reveal the process that formed the hematite detected by TES. "If you learn fifteen minerals," he says, "you can know 99 percent of what forms in rock. But which four or five happen to be in that rock tell me the temperature, the pressure, the pH, the oxygen. So these five will form under these conditions, and these five will form under those conditions. "I want to get on the ground and see, what are the minor minerals that we can't detect in orbit that are there, that are associated with hematite?" Christensen says. "And then we'll be able to say, ah-hah, look, these little trace minerals only form under these conditions. Or these trace minerals form under a different set of conditions. That's what I'm hoping." Will Meridiani Planum turn out to be a good place to look for life on Mars? Perhaps not, says Christensen. "It may turn out that [the hematite] formed in a hydrothermal system that had a pH of 1 [highly acidic], that was the most inhospitable place you can imagine, okay? And all it had going for it was water. And the biologists, if we land there and look, they may say, Geez, you know, life couldn't have possibly started there. We don't want to go there [to look for further evidence of life]." But, he argues--and his arguments appear to have convinced the scientific community that studies Mars--"You look at Mars. And there's so few places where someone can stand up and say, Hey, here's mineral evidence for water." What's next? Although Meridiani Planum and Gusev Crater are the favorite sites among scientists, rigorous analysis of whether they are safe enough to land in remains to be completed. Once the safety analysis of these two sites, along with two alternates, is complete, it will be up to NASA Headquarters to make a final decision. That decision is expected in April. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article398.html. ________________________________________________________________________ EXPLORING EVERYTHING: AN ASTROBIOLOGIST'S LIFE By Rocco Mancinelli From Space.com 13 March 2003 "You don't have to go far to see extremeophiles here in northern California," Rocco Mancinelli, once told a crowd of astronomy lovers in a Bay Area lecture hall. People giggled. But Mancinelli wasn't talking extreme life styles or fashion; he was talking about microbes. Specifically, salt-loving halophiles that thrive in the crimson patchwork of evaporation pools--those commercial salt extraction ponds clustered along southern portions of the San Francisco Bay. Tiny creatures that thrive in harsh conditions on Earth are of great fascination to astrobiologists. Astrobiology is an enormous field with ambitious goals. It seeks to understand the origin and evolution of life on Earth, to determine if life exists elsewhere, and to predict the future of life on our planet and in the rest of the universe. My own work within this field is also cross-disciplinary, and touches upon several elements of this big picture. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_astrobiologist_030313.html. ________________________________________________________________________ PLANTS IN SPACE! From NASA Explorers 13 March 2003 It would be hard to imagine life without plants. Not only are plants an almost unavoidable sight in our everyday lives, life on Earth as we know it would be impossible without plants. Plants are a vital source of the food we eat and the air we breathe. Just like plants are an important part of life here on Earth, NASA believes that plants could someday be an important part of life in space as well. As astronauts spend longer amounts of time in space, thanks to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA is looking into whether plants could be used to make their stays easier. Growing plants onboard the ISS could provide crew members with a continuous supply of fresh food. Plants would even be used to help improve the air supply onboard a spacecraft by producing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide. And when man eventually journeys to other worlds, plants could make it easier to establish a foothold elsewhere in the solar system. In order to find out how to accomplish these things, NASA has been performing research on how plants respond to spaceflight. Water is a valuable commodity in spaceflight, and is vital to the growth of plants. But, plants can be used to recycle and purify water for use by the crew. And while space is infinite outside a spacecraft, it's pretty limited inside, meaning that plants will not be able to take up much space. For that reason, NASA is investigating dwarf varieties of crop plants, such as wheat and rice, which only grow to be a foot or so tall. NASA is also doing research in growing plants in hydroponics, which means that no soil is needed. Gravity is even an important part of plant growth on Earth. Plants use gravity to direct which way their roots should grow and which way their shoots should grow. For plants to become a practical part of spaceflight, NASA has to learn how these limitations can be overcome. Towards that end, the space agency has been conducting research on plants for years, and has flown plants onboard the Space Shuttle and Space Station to learn more about how they grow in space. While animals have been space travelers even longer than humans (beginning with the 1957 launch of the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), plants have also long been a part of spaceflight. One of the most famous early examples is the "Moon trees" from Apollo 14. One of the astronauts on that lunar mission in 1971 was Stuart Roosa, a former "smokejumper," a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service. Astronauts were allowed to carry a small kit of personal items with them during spaceflight, and Roosa chose to take something connected to his former occupation--a collection of several species of tree seeds. After the seeds were brought back from their trip around the Moon, the Forest Service planted them to see if they would still grow properly after being exposed to microgravity. They did, and the Forest Service ended up with hundreds of little "Moon trees." With nowhere to grow them all, the service began giving them away to organizations across the country. Many of the trees are still around today, and new second-generation Moon trees are still being planted. Experiments involving space plants have been a favorite of astronauts, especially those making long-duration stays onboard the International Space Station. ISS crew members have commented on how much they liked having an experiment onboard in which soybean plants were grown from seeds. After months in the metal and plastic environment of the Space Station, the astronauts said they missed seeing the plant life so common on Earth, and would sometimes open up the soybean growth experiment just as a reminder of what plants looked and smelled like--a little bit of home in a box. "It was surprising to me how great soybean plants looked," ISS Science Officer Peggy Whitson wrote in one of her "Letters Home." "I guess seeing something green for the first time in a month and a half had a real effect. I think it's interesting that the reaction was as dramatic as it was." Researchers said that plants grown on the Station that were brought back to Earth for study returned in excellent condition. NASA hopes that eventually astronauts will be able to grow some of their own food onboard their spacecraft. In addition, researchers hope that the data gained from these experiments will also lead to ways to improve crops grown on Earth. Millions of school children have even been involved in some of NASA's space-based research on plants. In 1984, 12.5 million tomato seeds were left in space onboard a special satellite. After 6 years, astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia recovered the satellite and brought the tomato seeds back to Earth. The seeds were distributed to school children all over the United States and in dozens of foreign countries, so that the students could help NASA research the effects of spaceflight on the plants. Students were asked to grow and compare the space- exposed tomato seeds and their Earth-bound cousins. The students found that the space tomatoes were just as healthy as the Earth tomatoes, and in some cases were even "tastier, juicier, and sweeter!" As a result of the students' research, NASA now knows that seeds can survive in space for long periods of time with little or no change in the resulting plant. Not that all of the school-based research was without any problems. One report from a child in Ontario said: "Dear NASA: Hi, my name is Matt. I am in grade 2. I really enjoy growing my plants. Here are my results. My Earth seed did not grow. My space seed grew, but it fell off my desk. It died." One student even reported that his resilient space tomatoes even survived being severely damaged by a rebounding basketball from his sister's three-point shot. NASA's spaceflight-related research on plants even has down-to-Earth benefits that people can take advantage of in their own homes. Information that NASA discovered on how plants could be used to remove pollution from the air in spacecrafts can be used to help make the air in people's houses cleaner as well. As mankind continues to explore space and prepares to journey out into the solar system, plants could be important partners in that exploration. Maybe the "Moon trees" growing on Earth today will be able to grow alongside "Mars trees" someday. Read the original article at http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2003/news-plants.asp?list17117-141. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA'S MARS ODYSSEY CHANGES VIEWS ABOUT RED PLANET NASA release 2003-034 13 March 2003 "In just one year, Mars Odyssey has fundamentally changed our understanding of the nature of the materials on and below the surface of Mars," said Dr. Jeffrey Plaut, Odyssey's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. During its first year of surveying the martian surface, Odyssey's camera system provided detailed maps of minerals in rocks and soils. "A wonderful surprise has been the discovery of a layer of olivine-rich rock exposed in the walls of Ganges Chasm. Olivine is easily destroyed by liquid water, so its presence in these ancient rocks suggests that this region of Mars has been very dry for a very long time," said Dr. Philip Christensen, principal investigator for Odyssey's thermal emission imaging system at Arizona State University, Tempe. "Infrared images have provided a remarkable new tool for mapping the martian surface. The temperature differences we see in the day and night images have revealed complex patterns of rocks and soils that show the effects of lava flows, impact craters, wind and possibly water throughout the history of Mars," Christensen said. Odyssey has measured radiation levels at Mars that are substantially higher than in low-Earth orbit. "The martian radiation environment experiment has confirmed expectations that future human explorers of Mars will face significant long-term health risks from space radiation," said Dr. Cary Zeitlin, principal investigator for the martian radiation environment experiment, National Space Biomedical Research Institute, Houston. "We've also observed solar particle events not seen by near- Earth radiation detectors." The gamma ray spectrometer suite, which early in the mission discovered vast amounts of hydrogen in the form of water ice trapped beneath the martian surface, has also begun to map the elemental composition of the surface. "We are just now getting our first look at global elemental composition maps, and we are seeing Mars in a whole new light, gamma ray 'light,' and that's showing us aspects of the surface composition never seen before," said Dr. William Boynton, team leader for the gamma ray spectrometer suite at the University of Arizona, Tucson. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, DC. Investigators at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, built and operate the science instruments. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, the prime contractor for the project, developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL. Additional information about the 2001 Mars Odyssey is available on the Internet at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/. Contacts: Mary Hardin NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-5011 Nancy Neal NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY SHOWS INTENSE, BUT MANAGABLE RADIATION RISK FOR ASTRONAUTS By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 13 March 2003 Preliminary measurements of space radiation at Mars suggest that astronauts who travel there could face exposure to doses that over the course of a three-year mission would approach the lifetime safety limits set by NASA. While the radiation appears to be manageable, an official said a network of radiation sensors in the inner solar system will be needed to warn Mars astronauts of impending space storms so that they can take cover. Radiation levels were monitored over the past year by NASA's Odyssey spacecraft and projected to a three-year period, roughly how long a crewed mission to the Red Planet might last. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/odyssey_radiation_030313.html. ________________________________________________________________________ AP FALSELY REPORTS MARS RADIATION DATA Mars Society release 14 March 2003 The Associated Press yesterday issued a wire article claiming that "the radiation on the surface of Mars is so intense that it could endanger astronauts sent to explore the Red Planet." The AP claimed that these were the findings of the MARIE instrument currently operating on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, and ascribed the view that such radiation doses were too high to allow human explorers to Dr. Cary Zeitlin of the National Space Biomedical Institute in Houston. Dr. Zeitlin is the Principal Investigator for the MARIE radiation detection instrument. In fact, however, the MARIE data, which is publicly available at the MARIE web site at marie.jsc.nasa.gov/Results.html, show exactly the opposite. Currently posted data for January 2003 show radiation levels in low Mars orbit of 25 millirads/day, or 9 rads/year. While this level is slightly less than twice the regulatory dose for persons employed in the nuclear industry, it represents no significant threat. According the conservative "linear hypothesis" for dealing with low doses accepted in the radiation health physics community, a dose of 13 rads delivered over a 1.5 year Mars mission surface stay would represent a statistical increase in likelihood of cancer (at some point later in life) of about one quarter of one percent. In contrast, the average American smoker receives a 20 percent increase in cancer risk. The Mars radiation risk is thus only about 1/100th as dangerous as smoking. The MARIE radiation measurements were taken in Mars orbit. Doses on the surface would be even lower. Thus far from proving that radiation is a showstopper for human Mars missions, the MARIE data show that radiation is not a major obstacle to human exploration. The AP misreportage of the MARIE results is particularly disturbing because it directly contradicts the points that Dr. Zeitlin made at the Mars Odyssey press conference. Subsequent to the publication of the AP article, Dr. Zeitlin sent the following email to Mars Society president Robert Zubrin to set the record straight: Bob, Saw your quote in a version of the AP article that's making the rounds tonight about radiation risks on a Mars mission. Unfortunately your quote is set up as if it were in opposition to my statements, when in fact we are in agreement: the radiation is not a show-stopper. I said this quite explicitly in the press conference and in fact you can see in another (more soberly- written) article that I called the risk "manageable." I am not sure whether Mr. Bridges didn't understand what I was saying or chose to sensationalize it; I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he misunderstood. However, not everyone did, as you can see in this article: www.space.com/missionlaunches/odyssey_radiation_030313.html [previous article of this issue of Marsbugs]. The AP misreporting of the MARIE results is a major disservice to the American public and space program. The Mars Society calls on the Associated Press to issue a retraction and correction of its erroneous article. Full and accurate discussion of the Mars Odyssey results will be presented at the Sixth International Mars Society convention, which will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Eugene Oregon, August 14-17, 2003. Registration is now open at www.marssociety.org. To find out more about the Mars Society, visit our web site at www.marssociety.org or contact info@marssociety org. ________________________________________________________________________ CHINA WORKS TO PUT ASTRONAUTS IN ORBIT By Joseph Kahn From The New York Times 14 March 2003 Even as Americans question the purpose of manned space flight after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, the world's newest space power, China, is recreating the glory days of Apollo. In October China plans to send its first astronauts into orbit on its Shenzhou spacecraft. When their re-entry capsule parachutes back to the grassy steppes of Inner Mongolia, the Chinese hope to have exceeded American and Soviet records for the number of men, length of time in orbit and complexity of operations on a maiden manned voyage in space. China plans to have two or three astronauts aboard for the first flight, while American and Russia put one man in orbit on their first tries. But China's aims go far beyond low-earth orbit. Beijing is pursuing multibillion-dollar programs to construct a space station and explore the moon. Its scientists are energetically, if still dreamily, planning a colony on Mars. Read the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/science/14ASTR.html?th. ________________________________________________________________________ PREACHING SETTLEMENT By John Carter McKnight From SpaceDaily 17 March 2003 There is a way to change the space agenda now, while we hold the world's attention in the wake of Columbia's loss. The lever for that change is not a new hardware program, legislative package or business plan. Rather, it is a clear, comprehensible goal explained in simple and compelling language at every opportunity. That goal is the opening of space to human habitation and settlement. Of all the possible reasons for going to space, why should settlement be the key? Most generally, settlement is an enabler of other reasons: curiosity, adventure and construction are better pursued from permanent beachheads than by starting afresh from the ground each time. But beyond that, settlement offers unique benefits that can be readily explained in the sort of simple, direct language best suited to changing minds. Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03n.html. ________________________________________________________________________ STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT, ANY OXYGEN TONIGHT? By Leslie Mullen From Astrobiology Magazine 17 March 2003 Breathe deeply, and thank the nearest tree, bush, or blade of grass. The Earth receives most of its oxygen from photosynthetic activity. Before the development of photosynthesis and the subsequent rise of oxygen, life on Earth remained single-celled. Oxygen is largely seen as necessary for the development of multi-cellular complex life--in other words, higher plants and animals (including humans). The question of complex life on other worlds, therefore, is tied to the possibility of photosynthesis development. But could photosynthesis develop on worlds orbiting stars different from our sun? Look at the night sky, and you may notice that stars of different colors blaze out from the darkness. The color of a main sequence star is determined by its temperature: the hotter O, B, and A stars are shades of blue. The cooler K and M stars run from orange to red. Mid- temperature F and G stars are white or yellow. Our yellow sun, for instance, is a G star. Despite the principal color of a star, the visible light it emits contains the full rainbow of the color spectrum. Photosynthetic plants on Earth rely on such visible light from our sun to produce food and oxygen. The photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll absorbs every color wavelength to varying degrees. The most efficient photosynthetic wavelengths are blue wavelengths measuring about 450 nanometers. Photons, or packets of light energy, contain different amounts of energy based on their wavelengths, and shorter wavelengths contain more energy than longer wavelengths. Thus, the shorter blue wavelengths pack more of an energetic punch. [Although blue photons contain more energy than red photons, chlorophyll dissipates the additional energy as heat. Thus, blue light really isn't much more efficient for photosynthesis. However, blue light is required for proper growth and development of higher plants. DJT] According to Ray Wolstencroft of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, and John Raven of the University of Dundee, Scotland, plants prefer blue light not only for the efficiency of the wavelengths, but also because blue light played an integral role in the origin of photosynthesis. Before photosynthesis developed, the early Earth had little oxygen. That meant the Earth also did not have an ozone (O3) layer to protect life from the damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation of the sun. In lieu of an ozone layer, early life on Earth lived underwater, relying on the ocean for UV protection. However, the ocean also filtered out the longer wavelengths of visible light. Thus, the only wavelengths available for the earliest photosynthetic pigments were the shorter wavelengths of blue light. Because blue light is preferred by photosynthetic life on Earth, it would seem that planets orbiting hot blue stars would have the greatest amount of photosynthesis. But the hotter the star, the more UV radiation it emits. On Earth, one of the main impacts of UV exposure on plants is a reduction in the rate of photosynthesis. According to Wolstencroft and Raven, the amount of UV radiation produced by a star is a major limiting factor to photosynthesis development. So while the hot blue stars emit a lot of the blue visible light that photosynthesis on Earth prefers, the higher UV output of these stars makes the development of photosynthesis less likely. The shorter lifetimes of such hot stars also act as a barrier to photosynthesis development. Hot blue stars burn out quickly, in 10 or 20 million years. Compare that to G stars like our sun, which have a lifetime of about 10 billion years (the sun is middle-aged, being about 4.7 billion years old). On Earth, photosynthesis probably didn't appear until our planet had been around for at least a billion years. Due to other planetary processes that determine how much oxygen stays in the atmosphere, photosynthesis didn't produce atmospheric oxygen approaching modern levels until about 500 million years ago. If the evolution of photosynthesis is the same everywhere, then the lifetime of blue stars is just not long enough. (In addition, O and B stars tend to stay near the stellar birthplace, so planets might have a difficult time forming and surviving amid the intense gravitational interference of such star clusters.) On the opposite side of the spectrum, the cooler M and K stars emit much less UV radiation. They also have very long lifetimes--M stars, for instance, are thought to last for a hundred billion years or longer (well beyond the present age of the universe!). These factors would work in favor of photosynthesis development. However, these stars emit mostly longer wavelength radiation approaching the infrared. Photosynthesis on Earth requires eight photons of visible light to produce one molecule of oxygen, whereas twelve to sixteen photons of light beyond the visible range would be needed to carry out the same task in a modified version of photosynthesis. Such a high light requirement might result in reduced rates of photosynthesis on terrestrial planets orbiting a cool red star. Of course, the development of photosynthesis on Earth did not just rely on the sun's wavelengths. It also was dependent on various factors specific to our planet, such as cloud cover, atmospheric composition, amount of land, and the depth of the ocean. Since so many factors played a role in the evolution of photosynthesis on Earth, perhaps photosynthesis could evolve on other worlds orbiting less-than-ideal stars. In addition, other planetary factors perhaps could speed up the rate of photosynthesis development. There does not seem to be a particular reason why photosynthesis must develop at the same pace as it did on Earth. Targeting the zone As long as planets have enough liquid water oceans and cloud cover to protect against UV radiation, say Wolstencroft and Raven, planets orbiting most stars should be able to develop photosynthesis. One key to finding such planets is to look in the star's habitable zone. The habitable zone--or the orbital region around a star where water can remain in a liquid state--is seen as the most promising target in the search for life in the universe. Habitable zones for hotter stars will be further away than the habitable zone in our own solar system (which lies roughly between the orbits of Venus and Mars). Red stars, meanwhile, are so much cooler than our sun that their habitable zones would have to be much closer. This could result in a tidally locked orbit where one side of the planet is always facing the star, much like our moon does with the Earth. Unless such a planet had an atmosphere capable of transferring heat effectively, one side of the planet would be fiery hot while the other would remain ice cold. In a search for planets around stars within 30 light years, the most common stars to be found are cool red dwarfs. Yet planet hunters mainly confine themselves to searching for extrasolar planets orbiting F and G stars similar to the sun, and sometimes K dwarf stars. The habitable zone around such stars should be similar to our own. Wolstencroft and Raven say that the greatest photosynthetic generation of oxygen will be on Earth-like planets orbiting F dwarf stars. But while F stars might be more photosynthetically productive than our sun, because they are hotter they have a much shorter life span. "F main sequence stars have a lifetime of 3.2 billion years, compared to our sun's 10 billion-year life span," says Wolstencroft. "While these stars may produce the most oxygen, they have a much shorter window of opportunity." So how would we find out if a distant planet has photosynthetic life? One way would be to find an oxygen (O2) signal as part of a planet's light spectrum. Oxygen is a highly reactive gas and cannot remain in the atmosphere in substantial quantities unless something is continually producing it. Since most of the oxygen on Earth is produced by photosynthetic organisms, the existence of oxygen on other worlds would be strong evidence for photosynthetic life. Unfortunately, oxygen has a weak infrared spectral signature, and would be very difficult for us to detect with present technology. But ozone (O3) has a very strong signal. Because ozone is produced by the interaction of UV light and oxygen, planets with an O3 signal will also have large amounts of O2 in the atmosphere. But not everyone agrees that an ozone signal would be proof of photosynthesis. James Kasting, a professor of geoscience at Pennsylvania State University, says there are at least two circumstances where substantial amounts of O2 and O3 might be produced abiotically. "The first is a runaway greenhouse planet like Venus," says Kasting. "The second is a frozen, Mars-like planet, outside the habitable zone. [This type of planet would have to be] slightly bigger than Mars so that it could hold onto its oxygen." However, Kasting says that we could distinguish between abiotic and biotic sources of oxygen with additional observational data. For example, a planet orbiting within the star's habitable zone would suggest a biotic source for the oxygen. Another factor pointing to life would be if the planet's spectrum showed gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Kasting believes that photosynthesis is equally likely on any terrestrial planet orbiting a star in its habitable zone. As far as Kasting is concerned, the type of star does not matter as much as the elements available on a planet. He says the only elements that are necessary for the development of photosynthesis are liquid water and carbon dioxide, and he believes they probably are available almost everywhere. "Photosynthesis on Earth is limited by nutrient availability--nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron--not by photons, except at very high latitudes," says Kasting. "I suspect the same would be true on planets around other stars." What's next? NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder will allow scientists to directly detect spectral signatures from extrasolar planets. By analyzing the colors of infrared radiation, astronomers will be able to search for carbon dioxide, water vapor, and ozone. The Terrestrial Planet Finder is scheduled for launch sometime between 2012 and 2015. The European Space Agency's Darwin telescope also shows promise for detecting the spectral signatures of life. Due to launch sometime around 2015, this telescope will survey thousands of star-planet systems looking for ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article404.html. ________________________________________________________________________ WORRIED ABOUT ASTEROID-OCEAN IMPACTS? DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF By Lori Stiles University of Arizona release 17 March 2003 The idea that even small asteroids can create hazardous tsunamis may at last be pretty well washed up. Small asteroids do not make great ocean waves that will devastate coastal areas for miles inland, according to both a recently released 1968 U.S. Naval Research report on explosion- generated tsunamis and terrestrial evidence. University of Arizona planetary scientist H. Jay Melosh is talking about it today at the 34th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas. His talk, "Impact-Generated Tsunamis: an Over-Rated Hazard," is part of the session, "Poking Holes: Terrestrial Impacts." Given all life's worries, new evidence that asteroids smaller than a kilometer in diameter won¹t generate catastrophic tsunamis is welcome news, and not only for coast dwellers. It will save taxpayers the cost of financing searches for small Earth-approaching asteroids, a savings of billions of dollars, Melosh said. (The current NASA-funded effort to search and map truly hazardous Earth-approaching asteroids those one kilometer or larger in diameter is now half done and on track to be finished by the end of the decade, Melosh noted. NASA funds NEAT, LINEAR and the UA Spacewatch programs in this effort.) The idea that asteroids as small as 100 meters across pose a serious threat to humanity because they create great, destructive ocean waves, or tsunamis, every few hundred years was suggested in 1993 at a UA- hosted asteroids hazards meeting in Tucson. At that meeting, a distinguished Leiden Observatory astrophysicist named J. Mayo Greenberg, who since has died, countered that people living below sea level in the Netherlands for the past millennium had not experienced such tsunamis every 250 years as the theory predicted, Melosh noted. But scientists at the time either didn¹t follow up or they didn't listen, Melosh added. While on sabbatical in Amsterdam in 1996, Melosh checked with Dutch geologists who had drilled to basement rock in the Rhine River delta, a geologic record of the past 10,000 years. That record shows only one large tsunami at 7,000 years ago, the Dutch scientists said, but it coincides perfectly in time to a giant landslide off the coast of Norway and is not the result of an asteroid-ocean impact. In addition, Melosh was highly skeptical of estimates that project small asteroids will generate waves that grow to a thousand meters or higher in a 4,000-meter deep ocean. Concerned that such doubtful information was--and is--being used to justify proposed science projects, Melosh has argued that the hazard of small asteroid-ocean impacts is greatly exaggerated. Melosh mentioned it at a seminar he gave at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography a few years ago, which is where he met tsunami expert William Van Dorn. Van Dorn, who lives in San Diego, had been commissioned in 1968 by the U.S. Office of Naval Research to summarize several decades of research into the hazard posed by waves generated by nuclear explosions. The research included 1965-66 experiments that measured wave run-up from blasts of up to 10,000 pounds of TNT in Mono Lake, CA. The experiments indeed proved that wave run-up from explosion waves produced either by bombs or bolides (meteors) is much smaller relative to run-up of tsunami waves, Van Dorn said in the report. "As most of the energy is dissipated before the waves reach the shoreline, it is evident that no catastrophe of damage by flooding can result from explosion waves as initially feared," he concluded. The discovery that explosion waves or large impact-generated waves will break on the outer continental shelf and produce little onshore damage is a phenomenon known in the defense community as the "Van Dorn effect." But Van Dorn was not authorized to release his 173-page report when he and Melosh met in 1995. Melosh, UA planetary sciences alumnus Bill Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute and others agreed at a science conference last September that they needed to find the report. Bottke found the title--"Handbook of Explosion-Generated Water Waves"-- in a Google search. Given a title, UA science librarian Lori Critz then discovered that the report had been published and added to the University California San Diego library collection in March 2002. Bottke also tracked it down, and had the report by the time Melosh requested it by interlibrary loan. Both made several photocopies. Melosh said, "I since found out it was actually read into the Congressional Record as part of the MX Missile controversy." Melosh, a professor in the UA planetary sciences department and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is well known for his work in theoretical geophysics and planetary surfaces. His principal research interests are impact cratering, planetary tectonics, and the physics of earthquakes and landslides. His recent research has focused on studies of the giant impact origin of the moon, the K/T boundary impact that extinguished the dinosaurs, the ejection of rocks from their parent bodies, and the breakup and collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. Melosh also is active in astrobiological studies that relate chiefly to the exchange of microorganisms between the terrestrial planets. Melosh earned his doctorate from Caltech in 1973 and joined the UA faculty in 1982. He is on the 12-member science team for Deep Impact, a $279 million robotic mission that will become the first to penetrate the surface of a comet when it smashes its camera-carrying copper probe into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. Contact: Lori Stiles UA News Services Phone: 520-621-1877 H. Jay Melosh Phone: 520-621-2806 E-mail: jmelosh@lpl.arizona.edu ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 17 March 2003 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles1. html H. Bortman, 2003. Red rovers: returning to Mars. Astrobiology Magazine. R. Mancinelli, 2003. Exploring everything: an astrobiologist's life. Space.com. L. Mullen, 2003. Star light, star bright, any oxygen tonight? Astrobiology Magazine. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles3. html R. R. Britt, 2003. Mars Odyssey shows intense, but manageable radiation risk for astronauts. Space.com. NASA Explorers, 2003. Plants in space! Liftoff to Space Exploration. J. C. McKnight, 2003. Preaching settlement. SpaceDaily. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles4. html T. Malik, 2003. Global extraterrestrial hunt to revisit old signals. Space.com. Planetary Society, 2003. Planetary Society selects 150 radio sources for Arecibo follow up. SpaceDaily. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 17 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/03/11/sprj.colu.wind.shear.ap/index.h tml http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/03/13/sprj.colu.astronaut.funeral.ap/ index.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/national/nationalspecial/11SHUT.html?t h http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/13/national/nationalspecial/13SHUT.html?t h http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/15/national/nationalspecial/15SHUT.html?t h http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_timeline_030310.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_daugherty_030310.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_clark_030310.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_slep_030310.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030311.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_tests_030313.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_husband_030313.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03i.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030314200129.4jlnq9vm.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030316183832.y59pjlph.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03n.html http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030310emails/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030311caib/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030311minutes/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030313impacts/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030314readdy/ http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/timeline/ ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 6-12 March 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Canberra tracking station on Wednesday, March 12. 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 checkout continued this week with the following activities performed: inertial reference unit B checkout, memory readouts of both the prime and backup ACS flight computer, a dynamic constraint monitor table checkout, a geometric constraint monitor table checkout, star ID suspend demonstration with quiescent reaction wheel assembly, several high water mark clears, and fault protection log pointer resets. At the conclusion of activities, ACS status was nominal. Data acquired from the various tests continues to be analyzed. Port three for Science Operations Plan (SOP) implementation for tour sequences S15/S16 occurred this week. Development for these sequences will conclude next week. A subsequence generation sequence change request approval meeting was held for the C37 sequence. The Navigation Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) released its version N0055 Spacecraft, Planet, Instruments, C-matrix, and Events kernels (SPICE) toolkit. The toolkit will be delivered to the Project Software Library within two weeks. Installation of the executables on workstations will follow. This version includes two new C-wrapped routines, and a corrected routine to support EKernel production. It also clarifies Cassini-specific RA, DEC, and Twist as well as yaw, pitch, roll functions in the NAIF/SPICE documentation. The Imaging Science Subsystem team has published an article in Science magazine entitled "Cassini Imaging of Jupiter's Atmosphere, Satellites, and Rings". The URL is http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/299/5612/1541. More information may be obtained at http://www.msnbc.com/news/880835.asp . QuickTime movies that illustrate Cassini's tour through the Saturnian system from the viewpoint of an observer sitting on the spacecraft are available at http://solarsystem.dlr.de/PG/cassini/mission/orbit.shtml . Cassini project members participated in a Family Reading Night event at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School in Glendale, California. Each reader gave two reading sessions. In addition, a tour of the solar system in slides was presented to the entire school. 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. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-03a.html. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS (MER-1/MER-2) UPDATE: SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT By George H. Diller NASA/KSC release 13 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 second of the two Mars Exploration Rovers, MER-1, arrived on Tuesday, March 11 and has begun its prelaunch testing in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF). Functional tests of the MER-2 rover systems were conducted on March 6 and March 9 and included deployment of the lander petals, the rover's solar arrays, camera mast and camera. The camera also took test images. A similar test for MER-1 is scheduled to occur late next week. 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 11-14 March 2003 Gordii Fossae (Released 11 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030311a.html Highland/Lowland contact (Released 12 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030312a.html Lycus Sulci (Released 13 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030313a.html Polar Dunes (Released 14 March 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030314a.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 14 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. 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. During the Deep Space Network pass, the Stardust spacecraft transmitted 5 of the 32 images stored in the spacecraft's memory of the Pleiades star cluster. These Pleiades images were taken by Stardust's navigation camera and are being used to evaluate performance of the spacecraft camera's periscope. The image quality and calibration data from these images is very good. The Stardust team will download the remaining 27 images during an upcoming Deep Space Network pass on March 22. 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 11.