MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 20, 20 May 2003. Editor/Publisher: David J. Thomas, Ph.D., Science Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu 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 editor, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. The editor does not condone "spamming" of subscribers. Readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing lists. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editor. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting the editor. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available from the Marsbugs web page at http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) A NEW WAY TO EXPLORE THE SURFACE OF MARS NASA/LARC release 03-029 2) ABOVE AND UNDER THE RED SEA NASA Earth Observatory release 3) PRIMORDIAL RECIPE: SPARK AND STIR From Astrobiology Magazine 4) SEARCHING FOR SIGNS: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS SCIENCE EXPLAINED By Leonard David 5) THE DEEP SECRETS OF DEEP SPACE MIGHT JUST BE ALIEN CHIT CHAT From Space.com 6) NAI EUROPA FOCUS GROUP VISITS ARCTIC ICE-FIELD By David Morrison 7) OTHER EVIDENCE FOR WATER ON EUROPA By Cynthia Phillips 8) EUROPA DIARY II: LIFE ON ICE By Matt Pruis 9) MARS EXPRESS--ESA SETS AMBITIOUS GOALS FOR THE FIRST EUROPEAN MISSION TO MARS ESA information note 11-2003 10) HOT DEAL! PLUTO, THE LAST OASIS FOR LIFE By Robert Roy Britt 11) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 12) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 13) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 14) MDRS CREW 18 FILES SUMMARY REPORT Mars Society release 15) SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller 16) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 17) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 18) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ A NEW WAY TO EXPLORE THE SURFACE OF MARS NASA/LARC release 03-029 13 May 2003 Students from North Carolina State University (NCSU) are helping NASA expand the exploration of the surface of Mars. The team of students and researchers has designed a wind-powered rover that can be blown, like tumbleweed, across the surface of the Red Planet collecting atmospheric and geological samples at multiple locations. In the Aerospace Design class at NCSU, the team of nine students and their faculty advisor researched concept and prototype development, studied wind tunnel testing, and performed actual field-testing with the tumbleweed rover. The idea to study a "Mars Tumbleweed" for the class project was initiated by team leader David Minton, while working as an intern at NASA Langley Research Center in the summer of 2002. "Interning at NASA was great. We got to do some really exciting research," says Minton. His summer experience paved the way for the student project topic. The students studied how the tumbleweed harnesses the wind for movement using its intricate lightweight branch structure. By imitating the way the prairie plant operates in nature, the team was able to apply their knowledge to designing the rover concept. The students constructed a prototype rover called the Tumbleweed Earth Demonstrator (TED), scaled for use on Earth and based on NASA Langley concepts. The student-built rover will aid the Mars exploration effort at Langley, by providing preliminary data that will influence future tumbleweed design concepts. Current Mars rover models are very complex and expensive, and their ability to traverse rough terrain is limited. Landing sites must be carefully chosen to ensure the safety of the vehicle and the ability to carry out the mission. Therefore, many scientifically interesting martian sites are now inaccessible. A future mission scenario could disperse multiple Tumbleweed rovers to roam the surface of Mars carrying instruments with unique sensors to search for water or investigate climate. For more information about the Mars Tumbleweed student project at NC State University, visit http://www.mars-tumbleweed.org. For more information about the Mars exploration efforts at NASA Langley, visit http://www.larc.nasa.gov. Contact: Kimberly W. Land NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA Phone: 757-864-9885 or 757-344-8611 E-mail: k.w.land@larc.nasa.gov An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/14tumbleweed/. ________________________________________________________________________ ABOVE AND UNDER THE RED SEA NASA Earth Observatory release 14 May 2003 [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/ISS006-E- 45935.jpg] This unique photograph of shallow Red Sea waters off the coast of Saudi Arabia gives us a glimpse of both the coral reefs under the surface, and the texture and movements of surface waters. On the left side of the image we see through the water column to the reefs below the surface. On the right side of the image, the sun reflects off of microscopic oily films formed by a combination of natural biological sources and human activities on the sea surface. The films are concentrated by surface water movements and variably dampen surface capillary waves, which effect how the sun's light is reflected. This creates patterns of brighter and darker reflections when viewed from orbit. These patterns trace the complex surface water dynamics along the coast. The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden include over 17,400 km2 of coral reefs, or 6% of the world's total. The World Resources Institute has estimated that 60% of the reefs in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf are threatened by coastal development, overfishing, and the threat of oil spills by the heavy tanker traffic. The stretch of reefs shown here is near Qutu Island, south of Al-Qunfudhah, and is relatively isolated compared to other reefs in the region. ISS006-E-45935 was provided by the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Read the original article at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=1 5280. ________________________________________________________________________ PRIMORDIAL RECIPE: SPARK AND STIR From Astrobiology Magazine 14 May 2003 Fifty years ago on May 15, 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student, Stanley Miller, published a landmark two-page paper in Science magazine. He considered if amino acids could be made from what was known about the early Earth's atmosphere. Could the building blocks of life be cooked up? Miller began his paper: "The idea that the organic compounds that serve as the basis of life were formed when the earth had an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen and water was suggested by Oparin and has been given emphasis by Urey and Bernal. In order to test this hypothesis..." When Miller first presented his experimental findings to a large seminar, it is reported that at one point, Enrico Fermi politely asked if it was known whether this kind of process could have actually taken place on the primitive Earth. Harold Urey, Stanley's research advisor, immediately replied, saying "If God did not do it this way, then he missed a good bet." The seminar ended amid the laughter and, as the attendees filed out, some congratulated Stanley on his results. Although Miller had submitted his paper in mid-December 1952, one reviewer did not believe the results and delayed its publication until May 15th. Later Carl Sagan would do many experiments varying the chemical percentages, but described the Miller-Urey experiments as "the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos." Early Earth: flash in a flask Even today, only a few definitive things are known about what the Earth might have been like four billion years ago. It is thought that the early sun radiated only 70 percent of its modern power. No free oxygen could be found in Earth's atmosphere. The rocky wasteland lacked life. Absent were viruses, bacteria, plants and animals. Even the temperature itself is uncertain, since three schools of thought today maintain that the Earth could have been alternatively frozen, temperate or steamy. Charles Darwin imagined life springing from a temperate world, with small ponds or runoff channels. Compared to diluted chemistry in a vast ocean, repeated evaporation and refilling have possible advantages, to find just the right concentrations somewhere so that biochemistry could begin. Glaciers, volcanoes, geysers and cometary debris potentially resupplied this primordial pond with both energy and more complex organic compounds. That is a scenario requiring relatively temperate starting conditions, and more extreme possibilities are also in the mix. If the early Earth was a cauldron of volcanic activity, then seepage of acidic gases and heating might have circulated vital compounds to the surface. These vents may have been underwater, and precursors to biochemistry like acetic acid may have become reactive in combination with carbon monoxide. Alternatively, if the early Earth lacked any greenhouse of blanketing carbon dioxide, life could still have begun in a ball of ice. When combined with water, even a thin atmosphere of organics (formaldehyde, cyanide and ammonia) can create some building blocks of life (such as the amino acid, glycine). Thawing this "snowball Earth" could then be triggered by a chance collision with large comets or meteors. To test whether a primordial pond or ocean could seed the stuff of life, some experiments were needed. Miller laid out an experimental plan. He filled a flask with methane (natural gas), hydrogen and ammonia. Another flask below provided a miniature pond of water, as the model for an early ocean. Discharging flashes of voltage to simulate lightning provided just the necessary spark for new chemistry to begin. When he left the pot to cook overnight, the odds seemed stacked against coming in the next morning to discover the simulated ocean had turned reddish- yellow. But he was surprised: given a simulated ocean, atmosphere and lightning, then an acidic world (hydrogen-rich) of methane and ammonia could be transformed to amino soup. Stanley Miller with his Nobel Laureate supervisor, Harold Urey, demonstrated that 13 of the 21 amino acids necessary for life could be made in a glass flask. Placing water in an acidic atmosphere, sparking a lightning discharge into simple organic molecules like ammonia surprised everyone by producing some of biology's essential building blocks. Indeed the formation of life had begun to take on a distinctly molecular character, as Charles Darwin had foreseen as his classical warm pond of organic soup: ("...some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc..."). Miller found that at least 10 percent of the carbon was converted into a small number of organic compounds and about two percent went into amino acids. Hydrogen, cyanide, and aldehydes were also produced. Glycine was the most abundant amino acid produced. Flash forward fifty years and many high schools chemistry labs routinely repeat Miller's classic result. Lasers are often substituted for high voltage discharges as an energy source, and this dramatically speeds up the signature yellowing of the primordial oceans. But as the Earth's early chemistry has become better understood, a catch has arisen. Ironically, while complex biochemistry can spring from simpler building blocks, one missing element--the simplest hydrogen--may have been in short supply four billion years ago. Without acidity, the reactions don't trigger the right organic chemistry. If the Earth more likely was rich in nitrogen and carbon dioxide--rather than hydrogen, methane and ammonia--then any amount of sparking delivers a mere drop of organic byproducts. The primordial soup is too dilute. Workarounds to get enough concentrated chemistry for self-assembly to arise have reverted to evaporation (such as tidal pools) or a large seeding event from a colliding comet. Both these could quicken the biochemistry enough for life. Interview with Professor Stanley Miller To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary for whom most consider the father of primordial chemistry, Professor Stanley Miller, of the University of California, San Diego, Astrobiology Magazine had the opportunity to get his perspective today. Astrobiology Magazine (AB): This is the fiftieth anniversary of your original University of Chicago work. Do you have any retrospective thoughts on what was going through your mind at the moment you starting flipping the electrode switch, and how successfully the experiment would carry forward as a classic at that time? Professor Stanley Miller (SM): I would say curiosity was probably the primary impetus. Upon observing the results for the first time, my focus was devoted more to the "how and why" than the ramifications. The actual long-term significance of the experiment has been an evolution in and of itself. I believed the results of the experiment would provide valuable insights into the origin of life, but at that time I hadn't really devoted much thought as to the extent of its influence. The scientific community's immediate response, as well as that of the public media, was a very big surprise. AB: What is your current opinion on the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere for pre-biotic life to take hold 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago? SM: I have not found an alternative to disprove the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere. AB: Do you believe that material transported on meteors or comets is insufficient to seed life, if such amino acids were successfully transported intact to the surface of the Earth? SM: Meteorite and other exogenous contributions become very important only if the earth had a neutral atmosphere. However, if the only sources of organic compounds under such conditions were the very small number of compounds produced with a CO2 rich atmosphere and delivered from outside, the amount may be too low for the origin of life. AB: Since many astrobiologists are currently examining hydrothermal vents, in search of extremophiles, does the prebiotic chemistry actually get decomposed rather than enhanced by the presence of such ocean venting? SM: Locating extremophiles is not relevant to the synthesis of organic compounds necessary for life, as the conditions of such ocean venting decomposes rather than enhances prebiotic chemistry. AB: It has been reported that you had your first results within a matter of weeks, while Urey thought the original electrode experiments might exceed the limits of a 3-year degree program. Was the initial success due to the hint of using a reducing atmosphere or were there other parts of the rapid progress that surprised you? SM: A reducing atmosphere was definitely the key, resulting first in the water turning red overnight, and after time continuing to change colors as synthesis of organic compounds proceeded. I never had any doubts about the outcome, but I was surprised at the efficiency of the synthesis. AB: Have you followed the methanogen research at all? It seems that the use of methane as a precursor was very important to the original experiments, and presumably the progress in methanogens provide some prospecting hints for astrobiologists. SM: Methanogens appear to be a very ancient form of life, but their biology tell[s] us nothing about the origin of the first biological system. I am sure once they evolved they begun contributing to the methane budget of the Archean atmosphere, however my concerns regarding the reducing atmosphere refer to the period before the origin of methanogens themselves. AB: Since this is also the fiftieth anniversary of the Watson-Crick publication, how would you characterize the 13 of 20 amino acids that can be synthesized prebiotically with the complexity of living cells manufacturing proteins from DNA? Is there a bridge that time has clarified there? SM: Different researchers have different opinions about what is a prebiotic synthesis, but I do not think that there is yet a good prebiotic synthesis of arginine, lysine, and histidine, and of other biochemical compounds. It is possible of course, that not all them were available in the primitive soup, and that some were synthesized by cells once they evolved. This would require the appearance of biosynthetic pathways, and the more complex they are, the more clear it becomes that they could have not appeared until the genome was sufficiently complex to encode for the proper catalysts. John Oró showed that one could synthesize adenine, one of the nucleobases, with remarkable ease. Of course, we do not know how synthesis of proteins originated, but it is possible that once a catalytic apparatus was in place, some of the more complex amino acids like histidine resulted not from prebiotic synthesis, but from ancient metabolic pathways. What's next? There are other hurdles in the progression from simple molecules to complex life that are large research topics. Producing amino acids and nucleotides, and getting them to polymerize into proteins and nucleic acids (typically, RNA), are parts of a vast and ongoing "origins" discussion. But RNA is a relatively fragile component (compared to DNA, or other biomolecules), and thus again its first appearance remains subject to the particular local conditions of the early Earth. To stabilize or catalyze the first biomolecules, clay crystals and vesicle reactions may have helped. No one has been able to synthesize RNA without the help of protein catalysts or nucleic acid templates. Most scientists now believe that microbes can survive interplanetary journeys ensconced in meteors produced by asteroid impacts on planetary bodies containing life, and this observation has changed a number of the statistical assumptions about where and when biomolecules might first be seeded. Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first proposed the notion of interplanetary transport in 1903. However, for life to appear elsewhere, by some similar carbon-based pathway, and then arrive later on Earth means some similar primordial soup needed to be sparked someplace else--perhaps in a reducing atmosphere as Miller first showed fifty years ago. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article461.html. ________________________________________________________________________ SEARCHING FOR SIGNS: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS SCIENCE EXPLAINED By Leonard David From Space.com 14 May 2003 Two of NASA's finest are being readied for far-off duties on Mars. Dispatched to different regions of the red planet, the pair of wheeled robots are expected to explore and analyze the world like never before. Last month, after an exhaustive appraisal of some 185 potential landing sites, Mars officials whittled away at candidate locales. They finally came down to two spots of prime, equatorial martian real estate. The target zones selected fulfill two crucial requirements: they will allow for high-quality science and assuage engineers "not too" worries. That is, the sites are not too dangerous. Not too steep. Not too rocky. Not too hot or cold. And not too dusty. If all goes well early next year, dual Mars Exploration Rovers will settle in for science at Meridiani Planum and Gusev crater. Both places show intriguing evidence for past liquid water and may reveal telltale signs of ancient, perhaps even present-day life on Mars. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mer_science_030514.html. ________________________________________________________________________ THE DEEP SECRETS OF DEEP SPACE MIGHT JUST BE ALIEN CHIT CHAT From Space.com 14 May 2003 "If we are not alone in the universe, why have we never picked up signals from an extraterrestrial civilization?" asks New Scientist in this week's issue. Known as the Fermi paradox after physicist Enrico Fermi, who first posed the question, this long-standing puzzle remains one of the strongest arguments against the existence of intelligent aliens. But two physicists say they have come up with a solution. They suggest a way in which aliens could send messages to each other across space that not only disguises their locations but also makes it impossible for a casual observer to even distinguish the messages from background noise. Messages sent by this method could be criss-crossing our Galaxy without us ever knowing. Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/seti-03c.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NAI EUROPA FOCUS GROUP VISITS ARCTIC ICE-FIELD By David Morrison NASA Astrobiology Institute release 15 May 2003 In this special Feature, NAI Senior Scientist David Morrison recounts a recent trip to Barrow, Alaska with the Europa Focus Group. In early May, the NAI Europa Focus group took a field trip to the Arctic Ocean ice cap at Barrow, Alaska. The trip was planned and led by Professors Ron Greeley of Arizona State University, the Chair of the Europa Focus Group, and Hajo Eicken of the University of Alaska, an expert on ocean ice and on the Barrow region. The conference's objective was to gain direct experience with sea ice and to look for possible analogues with Jupiter's moon Europa and other icy moons in the outer solar system. Twenty scientists interested in Europa attended the Ice-Field Conference, covering disciplines primarily in geology, planetary science and microbiology. Three students were provided special funds from NAI to attend, and I went representing NAI Central. During our three days in Barrow, we spent two mornings in science sessions, made two trips onto the ice (one for a full day), chartered small planes to view ice features from above, and met with elders of the local Inupiat Eskimo culture. At 72 degrees north latitude on Alaska's North Slope, Barrow is a very isolated community, reachable only by air except during the short summer when the ice breaks free. Barrow is the northern-most point in the U.S. There is no harbor. A Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar and some modest research facilities are all that are left from a once substantial U.S. military presence during the cold war. In mid-May, the sun sets for only a couple of hours and the temperature rarely rises above freezing; indeed, the ocean ice is still forming. The Inupiat maintain some of their traditional lifestyle, but with the substitution of snow machines for dogs as a means of crossing the ice. At this season they are hunting the large bowhead whale, still using small skin boats, fur-lined sealskin parkas, and hand-thrown harpoons, in combination with GPS receivers and cell phones. The ice fields themselves are awesome--a grand wilderness. I can best compare them (psychologically) to the Sahara desert, a windswept, trackless and constantly shifting landscape that seems to go on forever. We were all impressed by the variety of ice and the complex morphology on the ice flows. We traveled on the ice with snow machines (snowmobiles) and sledges--I spent much of my time standing on the back of a sledge holding tight as we negotiated smooth snow and rough ice. The newest ice is flat (and thin), but with age it fractures and builds up pressure ridges and hills several meters high, made of upended slabs of ice. In addition to traveling across the ice, we drilled several ice cores, of interest primarily to the biologists in our group. Even in this harsh environment, the bottoms of the cores were green with photosynthetic microbes. We were accompanied by local guides, who also carried guns to protect us from polar bears. We saw lots of bear tracks, but no actual bears (unfortunately). For someone acclimated to the Mediterranean climate of California, dealing with cold itself was an interesting experience. When the wind blew, the chill factor was well below zero degrees Fahrenheit, and a facemask was necessary to keep skin protected. This is a polar desert with low precipitation rates, but the wind is continually redistributing the light, dry snow to make fantastic drifts and dunes. Our flights gave us a complementary perspective. The two small planes swooped to within 100 meters of the surface and performed figure eights so we could see the interesting ice features in the Beaufort Sea northeast of Barrow. We also were lucky to be addressed by two of the local elders, both of whom grew up in the traditional culture before World War II. One had been a reindeer herder, the other a hunter and trapper--spending months alone in the wilderness. Today they are a valuable resource on changing conditions, where global warming is having major effects on the behavior of the Arctic sea ice. They told us that the ice is both thinner and less predictable than it was in previous decades. While we learned a great deal about our own planet, we must be careful in applying this knowledge to icy moons such as Europa. There are superficial similarities, but the ice on Europa is thousands of times thicker and probably millions of years older than the sea ice near Barrow. Trip leader Ron Greeley noted that one purpose of this field trip was for us to see and experience the great complexity of Arctic sea ice, and thus to be more wary of making assumptions about other worlds based on gross appearances alone. Perhaps one thing we learned was humility. You can get more information (and read a similar diary by Matt Pruis) at the Astrobiology Magazine's Europa Diary 1, Landing on Alien Terrain (http://www.astrobio.net/news/article459.html). More information on NAI's Focus Groups, including the Europa Focus Group, is available at http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/institute/focus_groups.cfm. Read the original article at http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/news_stories/news_detail.cfm?ID=257. ________________________________________________________________________ OTHER EVIDENCE FOR WATER ON EUROPA By Cynthia Phillips From Space.com 15 May 2003 In three previous articles, we considered the Galilean satellites and the fact that tidal flexing, due to their resonant orbits, provides heat for volcanism on Io and could result in the presence of liquid water beneath Europa's icy surface. We also summarized the evidence for liquid water at Europa based on geological evidence from images of Europa taken by the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft. The geological evidence is tantalizing, but incomplete--it suggests that liquid water could be present, but also allows for the possibility that the strange features we see on Europa's surface could all have formed through the motion of soft ice, without any liquid water at all. Fortunately, there are other methods available, in addition to geological techniques, which can provide information about the presence, or absence, of water at Europa. Thermal models of Europa's subsurface are one theoretical way to study what lies beneath Europa's surface, and we will consider them in this article. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_phillips_europa_030315.html. ________________________________________________________________________ EUROPA DIARY II: LIFE ON ICE By Matt Pruis From Astrobiology Magazine 19 May 2003 The Europa Focus Group is a collaboration of scientists who study Jupiter's moon, Europa. This ice-covered world may be one of the few places in our solar system other than Earth that has a water ocean, and liquid water is believed to be one of the key factors in the development of life. Astrobiologists and other scientists eager to learn more about Europa recently headed to Alaska's North Slope. The scientists studied the region's unique terrain, providing insight for future missions to the icy landscape of Europa. Flying in small aircraft to study geographical features, driving snowmobiles over glacial terrain, digging bore holes to get a glimpse of ice history--all the activities pursued by these hardy adventurers may someday be duplicated on the surface of Europa by robotic spacecraft. Matt Pruis, a support scientist with NorthWest Research Associates in Seattle, Washington, attended the North Slope conference and kept a journal of the events. Thursday, 24 April 2003 This morning I arose to the continual twilight of the Arctic north. Although the sky had dimmed during the night, it never really got what I would call dark. After a breakfast fit for a polar explorer at the cafeteria, I headed for our first meeting. I grabbed an extra cup of coffee on the way, hoping to counteract the excess quantity of food I'd just consumed. We gathered this morning to discuss research conducted since our last workshop. One of the goals of the Europa Focus Group is to share new information among all the scientists, engineers and mission planners. Either because the Starbucks coffee I was drinking was having sufficient effect or, more likely, because of my fascination with the discussed topics, I was captivated by the presentations. The talks covered the gamut of developing technologies, on-going research and future mission planning--all with an emphasis on understanding the astrobiological potential of icy worlds. Current plans call for a mission launch to Jupiter's ice-covered moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa in the year 2011. Paul Holland led a discussion about new technologies we can use to collect and process subsurface samples. By determining the elemental chemistry and volatile content of fluids and ice, we could gather clues about the potential for life. For instance, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing a "cryobot" vehicle that could drill through the icy shell of Europa and sample the ice along its descent. This would allow scientists to examine the evolution of Europan volcanic activity since the formation of its icy surface. Volcanoes beneath Europa's proposed ocean could provide both a birthplace and a heated abode for life. The cryobot also would be able to detect if there are any nutrients available for microbes. With the tone set by the presentations, we geared up for an afternoon excursion to near-shore ice. Although there was only a gentle breeze, the temperature was in the low teens--cold enough to test our heavy parkas and boots. We had more people than snowmobiles, so we used a loose rope tether to attach sleds to the machines. Each snowmobile carried one passenger, while two people rode behind, standing up in the dog sleds. It was not long before we had arrived at a site worthy of study. Hajo Eicken led a demonstration on ice coring. A sea ice drill is, in essence, a chain saw engine that has been adapted to drive a rotary shaft instead of a blade. The drill drives a 4-inch diameter core barrel that has a metal-tipped PVC corkscrew glued to its outer edge. This pseudo-drill bit both drills the ice and removes excess ice fragments from the core barrel. Two people are needed to keep the drill vertical, and they can get a 1-meter-long ice core sample in only two or three minutes. Examination of our sample core showed that it was full of small channels. These channels allow brine (salty water) to escape from the ice. Normal seawater is composed of about 35 parts per thousand of salt, but when sea ice first forms it is only about 16 parts per thousand. That means a lot of salt is rejected into the seawater during ice formation. For every cubic meter of ice formed, roughly 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of salt are essentially poured into the upper ocean! So as 1.5-meter-thick ice forms over the Arctic Basin each year, 300 billion tons of salt pours into the upper Arctic Ocean and significantly affects the ocean's density. Even salt that is initially trapped within newly formed sea ice eventually drains out of the channels that we could see in our ice core. After a couple of summers, the salt content of the ice is only around 1 or 2 parts per thousand. I was in for a surprise when we looked at the bottom of the ice core sample. I grew up in Michigan and spent my winters boring fishing holes into Lake Huron, so I was familiar with freshwater ice. But unlike that ice, the bottom surface of sea ice is not smooth. It has a very rough surface and is distinctly greenish-brown in color. The color is caused by a large increase in biological material--mostly algae such as diatoms. The color also comes from dissolved organic material that supports the growth of bacteria. There is a surprisingly high diversity of viruses and fungi as well. Crustaceans feed on the several hundred different species of algae that live in this bottom-most layer of ice, and fish feed on the crustaceans. It's a complex food web. Yet standing here on the icy surface, you'd never know this ecosystem was there. You have to penetrate down through the ice to have any chance of discovering it. The Arctic ice provides us with important lessons for when we start looking for life on Europa. For instance, the concentration of cell biology in the bottom of the Arctic ice is 10 to 100 times that of the seawater only a few centimeters away. Such information could be useful in designing future missions to sample Europa's ice. It would be tragic to send a probe all the way to Europa and not find any evidence of life, when life is just a centimeter away! After analyzing some local ice structures, we drove back to prepare for an evening flight over the pack ice. Everyone in the group decided to skip dinner. The flight was going to involve steep banking and tight turns to give the best views of the ice, and nobody wanted to do it on a full stomach. We had to split our group between two airplanes, but the pilots from Cape Smythe Air flew in formation so that everyone would see the same ice features. I was in the second ("chase") airplane and wore a headset to communicate with the pilots. The flight reminded me of scenes from "Top Gun" as we continually dove and weaved to keep in visual contact with the lead plane. Several people had to use their airsickness bags. When I was able to pull my eyes away from the dance of the airplanes, I realized there was incredible complexity in the pack ice below. Ice floes ranging from 20 to several 100 meters in size appeared to be constantly bumping into one another. Ice ridges had formed and collapsed, leaving behind vast fields of "brash" ice. Young "nilas" less than 10 centimeters thick formed interesting structures, where regions had interwoven and rafted upon one another. All the ice we saw had formed during this past winter. The summer of 2002 was unusually warm, and by the end of the summer there was less ice covering the region than since they began collecting satellite imagery of the Arctic about 25 years ago. We could see that there wasn't any older ice located within 50 kilometers of the coastline. After our bird's eye view of the Earth's sea ice cover, I have a gnawing fear that deciphering the dynamics of Europa's icy shell will be an extraordinary challenge. The structures we saw today were the sum of a complex history of repeated cycles of ice deformation and growth. Using only a snapshot image, it would not be possible to unravel the entire ice history of a planet. Perhaps our hope for Europa lies in our ability to recognize the most important processes, without over-emphasizing insignificant features that are unique, unusual or eye-catching. Geologists in the past misinterpreted the history of our planet and the importance of different processes, simply because they tended to pick up the most interesting and unusual rocks, ignoring the boring rocks that were everywhere in the field. Yet in times of doubt, I take great comfort from these scientists and philosophers of earlier ages. They, too, faced challenges of the unknown. Despite frequent mistakes, they were confident that someday these challenges would be overcome: "There shall come a time when the bands of ocean shall be loosened, and the vast earth shall be laid open; another Tiphys shall disclose new worlds, and Thule shall no longer be the extreme point among the lands." --Seneca, from his play "Medea" Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article467.html. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPRESS--ESA SETS AMBITIOUS GOALS FOR THE FIRST EUROPEAN MISSION TO MARS ESA information note 11-2003 19 May 2003 On 2 June 2003, the first European mission to Mars will be launched. It will also be the first European mission to any planet. Mars Express has been designed to perform the most thorough exploration ever of the Red Planet. It has the ambitious aim of not only searching for water, but also understanding the "behavior" of the planet as a whole. But maybe the most ambitious aim of all--Mars Express is the only mission in more than 25 years that dares to search for life. Mars has always fascinated human beings. No other planet has been visited so many times by spacecraft. And still, it has not been easy to unveil its secrets. Martian mysteries seem to have increased in quantity and complexity with every mission. When the first spacecraft were sent - the Mariner series in 1960s - the public was expecting an Earth 'twin', a green, inhabited planet full of oceans. Mariner shattered this dream by showing a barren surface. This was followed by the Viking probes which searched for life unsuccessfully in 1976. Mars appeared dry, cold and uninhabited: the Earth's opposite. Now, two decades later, modern spacecraft have changed that view, but they have also returned more questions. Current data show that Mars was probably much warmer in the past. Scientists now think that Mars had oceans, so it could have been a suitable place for life in the past. "We do not know what happened to the planet in the past. Which process turned Mars into the dry, cold world we see today?" says Agustin Chicarro, ESA's Mars Express project scientist. "With Mars Express, we will find out. Above all, we aim to obtain a complete global view of the planet--its history, its geology, how it has evolved. Real planetology!" Mars Express will reach the Red Planet by the end of December 2003, after a trip of just over six months. Six days before injection into its final orbit, Mars Express will eject the lander, Beagle 2, named after the ship on which Charles Darwin found inspiration to formulate his theory of evolution. The Mars Express orbiter will observe the planet and its atmosphere from a near-polar orbit, and will remain in operation for at least a whole martian year (687 Earth days). Beagle 2 will land in an equatorial region that was probably flooded in the past, and where traces of life may have been preserved. The Mars Express orbiter carries seven advanced experiments, in addition to the Beagle 2 lander. The orbiter's instruments have been built by group of scientific institutes from all over Europe, plus Russia, the United States, Japan and China. These instruments include: subsurface sounding radar, a high-resolution camera, several surface and atmospheric spectrometers, a plasma analyzer and a radio science experiment. The high-resolution camera will image the entire planet in full color, in 3D, at a resolution of up to 2 meters in selected areas. One of the spectrometers will map the mineral composition of the surface with great accuracy. The missing water Data from some of the instruments will be key to finding out what happened with the water which was apparently so abundant in the past. For instance, the radar altimeter will search for subsurface water and ice, down to a depth of a few kilometers. Scientists expect to find a layer of ice or permafrost, and to measure its thickness. Other observations with the spectrometers will determine the amount of water remaining in the atmosphere. They will also tell whether there is a still a full 'water cycle' on Mars, for example how water is deposited in the poles and how it evaporates, depending on the seasons. "These data will determine how much water there is left. We have clear evidence for the presence of water in the past, we have seen dry river beds and sedimentary layers, and there is also evidence for water on present-day Mars. But we do not know how much water there is. Mars Express will tell us," says Chicarro. The search for life The instruments on board Beagle 2 will investigate the geology and the climate of the landing site. But, above all, it will look for signs of life. Contrary to the Viking missions, Mars Express will search for evidence for both present and past life. Scientists are now more aware that a few biological experiments are not enough to search for life--they will combine many different types of tests to help discard contradictory results. To "sniff" out direct evidence of past or present biological activity, Beagle 2's 'nose' is a gas analysis package. This will determine whether carbonate minerals, if they exist on Mars, have been involved in biological processes. Beagle's nose will also detect gases such as methane, which scientists believe can only be produced by living organisms. Beagle 2 will also be able to collect samples from below the surface, whether under large boulders or within the interiors of rocks - places that the life-killing ultraviolet radiation from the Sun cannot reach. These samples will be collected with a probe called the "mole", which is able to crawl short distances across the surface, at about 1 centimeter every six seconds, and to dig down to 2 meters deep. Mars Express will add substantial information to the international effort to explore Mars. "Mars Express is crucial for providing the framework within which all further Mars observations will be understood," says Chicarro. The Mars Express spacecraft is now in Bajkonour, Kazakhstan, being prepared for its launch in early June 2003. For further information please contact: ESA - Communication Department Media Relations Office Phone: +33(0)1.53.69.7155 Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690 Rudolf Schmidt, ESA - Mars Express Project Manager ESA/ESTEC - Noordwijk, The Netherlands Phone: +31 71 565 3603 E-mail: Rudolf.Schmidt@esa.int Agustin Chicarro, ESA - Mars Express Project Scientist ESA/ESTEC - Noordwijk, The Netherlands Phone: +31 71 565 3613 E-mail: Agustin.Chicarro@esa.int For more information about the Mars Express mission and launch campaign visit http://www.esa.int/marsexpresslaunch. Live images of the Mars Express spacecraft are available at http://sci2.esa.int/spacecam/marsexpress.htm. For more information about ESA and the ESA Science Program, visit http://sci.esa.int. Read the original news release at http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=9&cid=32&oid=32351. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mars_express_030514.h tml. ________________________________________________________________________ HOT DEAL! PLUTO, THE LAST OASIS FOR LIFE By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 20 May 2003 It might be a few billion years before an ad like this appears in your local paper, but it could show up for good reason. According to a new computer model designed to understand how the conditions for life might arise in unlikely places, humble Pluto and its surroundings will have warmed to downright pleasant temperatures long after the Earth has been consumed by an expanding, dying Sun. "It's Miami Beach for millions of years, potentially longer," Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, says of Pluto's future. Stern used existing data on the outer solar system, added in the latest theoretical expectations for the Sun's evolution, and analyzed it all from a biological perspective. His results will be published in the journal Astrobiology. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_habitable_030520.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 20 May 2003 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles1. html R. R. Britt, 2003. Hot deal! Pluto, the last oasis for life. Space.com. L. David, 2003. All systems go: the Mars Exploration Rovers are ready for launch. Space.com. L. David, 2003. Searching for signs: Mars Exploration Rovers science explained. Space.com. T. Malik, 2003. Riding on Mars Express: Europe's fast track to the red planet. Space.com. C. Phillips, 2002. Crucibles for life? Jupiter and the Galilean Moons. Space.com. C. Phillips, 2003. Other evidence for water on Europa. Space.com. New Scientist, 2003. The deep secrets of deep space might just be alien chit chat. Space.com. Terrestrial extreme environments articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles2. html M. Pruis, 2003. Europa diary II: life on ice. Astrobiology Magazine. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles5. html Astrobiology Magazine, 2003. Primordial recipe: spark and stir. Astrobiology Magazine. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 20 May 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/05/09/sprj.colu.shuttle.successor.reu t/index.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts_boss_030509.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts_congress_030509.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030513.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_senate_030514.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030517.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03s.html ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 8-14 May 2003 The Cassini Spacecraft executed a system safing response Sunday evening at about 21:30 PDT. The safing response was initiated by the attitude control system, and was due to a call to an invalid pointing vector in the C37 background sequence. All spacecraft fault protection responses including the high gain antenna recovery algorithm were as expected and the spacecraft is currently in its nominal safing state communicating at a downlink rate of 1896 bps. All subsystem telemetry is nominal. 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. The C37 background sequence was automatically cancelled as part of the safing response. The period of the sequence affected contained a series of instrument calibrations performed on reaction wheels, star observations, and imaging of Saturn. The instruments involved were the Composite InfraRed Spectrometer, Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph, Imaging Science Subsystem, RADAR, and the Radio Science Subsystem (RSS). RSS periodic instrument maintenance was recovered by sending real-time commands to power on/off the necessary hardware. The spacecraft and sequencing teams have developed a recovery plan for instrument power on, flight software loads, and Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) loads. The background sequence will be restarted on Saturday. Prior to safing, activities performed included clearing of the ACS high water marks, uplink of the RADAR IEB trigger, execution of the VIMS IEB load, Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibration, and transition to Reaction Wheel Assembly control. A kick off meeting was held this week for the subsequence generation phase of C38. Stripped sequence files have been provided to the participating instrument teams. A wrap up review was held for the S14 Science Operations Plan (SOP) Update Verification and Validation (V&V) activity. The meeting presented a summary of the entire SOP U/D V&V in preparation for Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP) V&V. Due to the conflicts of resources for C37, C38, S07/S08, and the Project Science Group (PSG) meeting to be held next week, it has been decided to slip the SSUP V&V kick-off to Tuesday, May 27th. The Spacecraft Operations Office held a risk review on the upcoming Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI) demonstration. The board, which consisted of independent reviewers familiar with the Cassini spacecraft and software, was chartered with examining the upcoming activity to determine if the program was taking any untoward risks. The board concluded that the demonstration design achieved an appropriate balance between risk, and the goals of validating portions of the SOI activity. A delivery coordination meeting (DCM) was held for Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) version D9.0.2. This patch fixes a problem with how Pointing Design Tool users are able to see the graphics display. MSS software testing has been revised to catch future occurrences of this type of problem. An additional DCM was held for a Telemetry, Tracking, Command & Data Management patch "QPF" for real-time telemetry (TLM) servers to keep Science Operations and Planning Computer TLM queries from timing out. RSS completed an analysis resulting in a greatly improved program for the X- & Ka-Band Boresight Vector Determination Software Suite. Modifications include a new graphical user interface, newly created estimates of the boresight vector error variance, and a new automated ability to remove a newly discovered source of systematic error. Outreach gave presentations on Galileo and Cassini to 3rd through 8th grade students at Union Mesa School in Somis, California. The talks were part of the school's "Space Exploration" day. The one-day series of talks was attended by 392 students and teachers. Cassini Outreach is in the midst of their annual invitation to project members to join the Cassini Speakers Group. Interested project members should contact the Outreach Office. 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 CREW 18 FILES SUMMARY REPORT Mars Society release 15 May 2003 The eighteenth crew of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS)has just completed its rotation and filed its summary report. The report is given below. Crew 18 concludes the spring 2003 MDRS field season for mission simulations. An activity at MDRS led by Professor David Allred and Brigham Young University devoted to using the MDRS observatory for astronomy is currently ongoing. With the completion of MDRS Crew 18, the Mars Society's analog mission program has now completed over 1800 crew-person-days of active simulation time. Roughly 150 people have now served as members of the crew of either the MDRS or the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island. Some 20 papers have been written or presented at various conferences, and more are in progress. The Mars Society will hold a special session on MDRS and FMARS crew experiences at the 6th International Mars Society convention, which will be held in Eugene OR, August 14-17th. All people who have served as crew members are encouraged to submit abstracts and present. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to msabstracts@aol.com. The deadline for abstracts is June 30, 2003. Registration for the convention is now open at the Mars Society web site at www.marssociety.org. MDRS crew 18 Brent Bos - Commander Petra - Chief Biologist and Executive Officer Joan Roch - Chief Habitat Engineer and Musk Observatory Coordinator Dave Scott - Crew Geologist and Health and Safety Officer Elia Husiatynski - Crew Biologist and GreenHab Coordinator Simone Kosol - Crew Biologist and Water Officer Mark Moran - Habitat Engineer Introduction Crew 18, in its entirety, arrived at MDRS from Salt Lake City on Saturday evening, April 26, 2003 and brought the Habitat back to life over the next 2.5 days from a two week hiatus due to the cancellation of Crew 17. This crew had well-rounded and ambitious research goals. 6 out of the 7 crewmembers brought personal research topics to pursue during the manned Mars mission simulation. Our simulation guidelines came mainly from two NASA publications: "The Mars Project: Avoiding Decompression Sickness on a Distant Planet" by Conkin and "The Mars Surface Reference Mission: A Description of Human and Robotic Surface Activities," edited by Stephen Hoffman. We entered the full simulation mode on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 at noon and ended on Saturday, May 10, 2003 at noon. The most important simulation rules were: 1) Only go outside in a spacesuit and include a 30 minute pre-breathe in the airlock. 2) Perform one hour of exercise per day when not on EVA. 3) When on EVA, you must be within walking distance of the Habitat with the remaining suit consumables. 4) Take one day off every six days. 5) Take a navy shower every other day at the maximum to conserve water. Other aspects of the simulation worth noting included: no direct contact with the outside world, a delayed interaction with mission support based on the Mars to Earth distance, required reports to be communicated daily to mission support. Research summary Brent Bos: the two research topics I brought to MDRS were a dust contamination study and a human factors study. The motivation for initiating the dust study is the potential hazard martian dust poses to a human Mars crew. Next to the high radiation environment and the low gravity field on Mars, dust is probably the next biggest danger a manned mission might face. The seriousness depends on the specific nature of martian dust and soil, which we are still trying to understand through robotic missions. But at a minimum the dust will cause premature failures in mechanical, electrical and thermal systems. And at its most serious, it could cause debilitating illness and jeopardize the health of the crew. Most mission planners believe the dust threat can be mitigated with proper spacecraft and system hardware engineering. The goal of the study at MDRS was to help us understand how big of an engineering problem we might be facing. The analogue dust study measured and characterized the amount of soil and dust contamination brought into the Habitat through EVA activity. The amount of dust, in terms of mass, and the sizes and shape of the contaminating dust particles were measured for 12 out of the 14 EVA's. EVA's #3 and #12 were not studied due to the EVA team's significant contact with water. EVA characteristics such as type (pedestrian, ATV or pressurized rover), distance traveled, work engaged and number of members were recorded to study their affect on the amount of contamination. The human factors study quantified the performance of the crew throughout the simulation. There were several areas of interest for this research. But one of the key questions being investigated was the effect EVA frequency has on a crewmember's well-being. Each morning crewmembers were asked to fill out a one page questionnaire describing their mood, level of alertness, stress level, crew compatibility, amount of sleep, etc. And each evening the crew completed a computer based test to measure their alertness and visual- tactile coordination. A large amount of data was collected but none has yet been analyzed. The crew was very cooperative in completing this study. Petra Rettberg: biological UV dosimetry. On Mars the UV climate is quite different than on Earth, because the thin atmosphere of Mars consisting mainly of carbon dioxide is not able to absorb the short wavelengths of UV radiation as the terrestrial atmosphere does. Therefore energy-rich UV radiation (wavelengths down to 200 nm) can reach the surface of Mars. The exact measurements of the biological effectiveness of that UV radiation on biological processes in terrestrial organisms is of importance for bioregenerative life support systems and for the future development of agricultural plants for Mars. The assessment of the influence of environmental UV radiation on critical biological processes requires monitoring systems that weight the spectral irradiance according to the biological responses under consideration. The need for a biological weighting of solar UV irradiance derives from the highly wavelength-dependent sensitivity, expressed as the so-called action spectrum, of biological systems in the UV range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Biological UV dosimeters, that weight directly the incident UV components of sunlight in relation to the effectiveness of the different wavelengths and the interactions between them, can complement weighted physical UV measurements. Here at the MDRS we have used a well- characterized biological UV dosimeter, the DLR-Biofilm. It consists of spores of the ubiquitous non-pathogenic bacterium Bacillus subtilis as UV sensor. We have performed different biological UV dosimetry experiments: * Personal UV dosimetry of crew members during EVAs compared to parallel stationary biological measurements of ambient UV radiation, to get information about the influence of movements and the type of activities on the individual UV doses. These measurements have been performed during each EVA up to now. All in all we have exposed a total of 50 UV dosimeters for personal UV dosimetry and for the parallel ambient measurements. * Measurement of the biological effective UV doses beneath layers of natural soil of different thickness compared to parallel samples with the martian soil analogue JSC Mars-1 to get information about the shielding capacity of soil and dust, e.g. on Mars. We finished one short exposure (2 days) and one long exposure (9 days). * Measurement of diurnal UV profiles with larger DLR-Biofilms than those used for personal UV dosimetry that have 20 measurement areas on each film to see changes in the solar irradiance during the day. We measured a total of 3 diurnal UV profiles, with small interruptions in two of them due to a short period of raining. * In addition the erythemally weighted UV radiation was measured in the first week with an electronic UV dosimeter (X20001, Gigahertz-Optik, Germany) for a direct comparison with the biological UV data. The time-resolved data have been down-loaded every evening. The analysis of the biological UV dosimeters will be done in our laboratory. Previously unirradiated areas on each DLR-Biofilm will be exposed to different doses of a standard UV calibration source (mercury low pressure lamp,main emission line at 254 nm). Then each biofilm will be incubated in nutrient medium at a suitable temperature for about 5 hours. During this incubation the bacterial spores that are not or only slightly damaged by the applied UV radiation will germinate and the vegetative bacteria will multiply in the biofilm. The amount of biomass formed during this process will be stained after a fixation step. The analysis of the calibrated and processed biofilms, where the different measurement, calibration and dark control areas show a different degree of staining, will be done by computer-aided image analysis. From the individual calibration curve of each film the biologically effective UV doses will be calculated for each measurement field on the dosimeter film. The results of this UV measurement campaign with the biological UV dosimeter DLR-Biofilm will be available in the next weeks. Dave Scott: my scientific goals were largely to support, augment, aid and back up other people's work. As a last minute addition to the crew, I had little time to create my own research goals and so asked to see where I could be helpful. I wrapped up a stratigraphy section up in Salt Wash, done by Rocky Persaud from Crew 14. I made arrangements for collaboration with the USGS for some dust research--if I put up USGS standard dust traps and send them the dust, then they do what they can to analyze what we collect. Hopefully this will help Brent's work with dust studies, which I did some research for, mainly to predict the general composition of the dust contamination. My geology experience was also useful for Mark's research (see below), where I provided 3 models for methane production and scouted for the most suitable sites. I also helped Elia and Simone find some of their sites for halophile organisms. Elia Husiatynski and Simone Kosol: we came to MDRS to work with halophile (salt loving) archeae. We want to work with halophiles because they have a better chance than non-halotolerant organisms to survive on Mars, due to the broader temperature range high salt concentrations offer for liquid water. We decided to do two different experiments. The first is exposure studies with three different strains of halophiles dried in salt crystals together with one of these strains in liquid culture. The second experiment is to take some samples from interesting sites. "Interesting" means with salt in the soil or water to see if these samples contain halophiles. The salt crystals containing archeae (Halococcus salifodinae, Halococcus dombrowskii and Halobacterium sp. NRC-1) have been exposed from 28.4.2003 to 10.5.2003 on five different sites. We will process the samples at the University of Salzburg to get any data of changes or differences in the survival rate of these archeae. The liquid cultures (Halobacterium sp. NRC-1) were also exposed on five different sites but for a different exposure length. The duration of the exposure varies between one day and 12 days. These samples will also be analyzed at the University of Salzburg. We took 30 samples from different locations in this area. Our crew geologist Dave was very helpful at finding sites with salt deposits (thank you, Dave, and thank you Shannon Rupert for support with selection of sample sites). We will probably not analyze all of these samples, because we have only the resources to study the most promising ones. The samples were taken between 28.4. and 10.5.2003. These samples are taken from the surface (maximum 10 cm depth) and have obviously different salt concentrations. There is also one liquid sample taken from Muddy Creek, a river with a lot of salt deposits on the river banks. At the University of Salzburg we will try to find halophiles in these samples, when solving the soil samples and trying to cultivate any halophiles in and on different media. We expect to find halophiles in some of the soil samples and we think we will have some interesting results of our exposure studies. Mark Moran: I had two main research topics. 1) a sample of methane gas vapor extractions from simulated Mars regolith for the purpose of detecting indigenous anaerobic life; and 2) an organic water contaminant detection instrument getting its first calibration as a tool for preventing contamination, or recognizing contamination when it occurs. As of this writing, I have one last EVA attempt to carry out drillings with gas vapor extractions. I also expect to carry out some final water calibrations today. In both cases I have made substantial progress toward the respective scientific goals, and in both cases there have been challenges. Brent Bos of NASA has helped me to stay on task and progressing toward my goals. In the case of gas vapor drilling, we experienced a rain shower during our second to last EVA after our first hole and some of the crew thought that further drilling should be discontinued. Preferring the good will of the crew,I consented to abort the EVA. Had I, as a last- minute transfer from crew 17 to crew 18, felt greater clout under the circumstances, I certainly would have insisted we do one more drilling given that the one drilling we did accomplish on that day was superior to any previous attempt. When scouting on ATV for sites, one should bear in mind that there are issues of experience, on the one hand, and independently there are also issues of risk-taking versus risk-aversion. Throughout several EVAs the level-headedness of Brent Bos and the able assistance of our geologist Dave Scott were indispensable to me and a factor that greatly contributed to the successes that we enjoyed. For the water organics detection experiments using Dr. Starikov's device, a single sample was sufficient to bring out inadequacies for in sim (i.e., EVA) conditions. Variations in sunlight would ruin the readings, by contrast with indoor (IVA) readings which were consistent and worked well. Dr. Petra Rettberg has been quite helpful during these measurements. Both the contamination detection experiment and the drilling experiments will require laboratory analysis. Professor Timothy Kral will analyze the gas contents of the Tedlar bags, and Professor David Starikov will analyze the water contamination. Overall, I would say that the drilling/vapors objectives have been 80% met, and the water organics detection objectives have also been 80% met. Engineering summary By Joan Roch and Simone Kosol Generator/electricity: The generator suffered from a bad oil leak during the entire rotation. The generator needed to be checked daily for oil, and it has been estimated that it has consumed 45 quarts of oil during of 15 days here. On the last day, Don Foutz came to change a valve, so we may have time to notice an improvement just before leaving the station. Besides that leak, the generator worked perfectly. Computers/networking: The network has been working fine, except for a fried power supply near the end of our rotation. Apparently this problem is recurrent and could be prevented if a UPS were being used to protect the desktop computer called "HabCom". Also, the current Internet sharing protocol is installed on Win98, on the IBM ThinkPad laptop, and this is no good. Win98 has to go and should be replaced by the much more stable and user friendly WinXP. Without a UPS, running the internet sharing from the laptop doesn't really make any sense since the satellite modem will be down as well is the power is down. Water: Here are some statistics about our water consumption. Total Avg / day All day 455 35.0 gal Before noon 154 11.5 After noon 177 13.5 Night 125 9.5 Showers 112 8.5 Showers: avg. 3 showers / day Everyone 3 gal / shower Females 2.5 gal / shower Males 3.0 gal / shower GreenHab: The GreenHab was dead when we arrived. We actually tried to revive it, but it was pointless. We eventually drained the tanks and left it unused. Spacesuits: Most of the spacesuits are badly damaged at the end of this season, especially in the crotch area. Two backpack boxes have been broken due to some rough ATV riding. The switches that control the fans are not dust-proof and some of them had to be shorted in order to start the ventilation. The switches could be replaced by waterproof switches. The suits are really large, and it would help to have at least some belt loops, and preferably a belt as well. This may also prevent the suits from falling while on EVA,and therefore minimizing the damage to the crotch area. We have changed one previously damaged dome, and broken another one. The rest of the domes have been polished regularly to keep them usable. Those domes could be quite dangerous in the event of an ATV accident, because the plastic shatters in small pieces with sharp edges. EVA summary Crew 18 completed 14 separate EVA's from April 28 to May 10, 2003. There were 4 pedestrian only EVA's, 8 ATV EVA's and 2 pressurized rover EVA's. The longest EVA was a pressurized rover sortie which lasted over 8 hours. The shortest was a pedestrian EVA to retrieve biology experiments around the Habitat that lasted only 1 hour and 33 minutes. That time included the 30 minute pre-breathe and 5 minute re- pressurization in the airlock. Our proudest EVA moment was finding a quick and easy path on ATV's to Factory Butte on May 7, 2003, which complied with our simulation protocols. This EVA was the culmination of work from two previous EVA's and was a realistic model for how real Mars exploration might be conducted. To find out more about the Mars Society, visit our web site at www.marssociety.org. ________________________________________________________________________ SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller NASA/KSC release 14 May 2003 Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-1) Launch Vehicles: Delta II/Delta II Heavy Launch Pads: 17-A Launch Dates: June 5, 2003 Launch Times: 2:16 PM / 2:55 PM EDT Mating of the MER-1 entry vehicle to the cruise stage was completed on May 7. The spacecraft has completed its weight and center of gravity determination and underwent its initial spin balance testing. On May 11 the spacecraft was fueled. Tomorrow night, May 15, will be second spin test now that the spacecraft is fueled. During routine testing of the cruise stage and the MER-2 rover over the weekend, an unexpected measurement in the rover's power system was observed. Troubleshooting is under way but it is not expected to delay the schedule of planned pre-launch spacecraft preparations at this time. The mission will have two launch opportunities each day during the launch period, which is scheduled to close on June 19. Arrival at Mars is set for January 4, 2003, regardless of the launch date within that period. On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the solid rocket booster erection begins today with the first three set of motors being attached to the first stage, the second set of three will be erected on Thursday, May 15, and the final set will be hoisted into position on Friday, May 16. The first stage was erected on Pad 17-A on Wednesday, April 23. The second stage erection was completed on Monday, April 28 and the fairing was hoisted into the white room on April 30. The Simulated Flight test of the first stage was successfully completed May 9. The spacecraft is scheduled to be mated to the third stage in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) on May 23. MER-1 will be transported to the launch pad on May 27. Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-2) Launch Vehicle: Delta II Heavy Launch Pad: 17-B Launch Date: June 25, 2003 Launch Time: 12:38:16 AM / 1:19:19 AM EDT On MER-2, rover installation onto the base petal and lander air bag installation were completed on May 9. The operation to install the backshell over the lander begins tonight and is scheduled to be complete on Friday. Full integration of the MER-2 entry vehicle (back shell, heat shield, lander and rover) is to be completed by May 21 and followed by mating the entry vehicle to the cruise stage. The MER-B vehicle's first stage is on Pad 17-B and the solid rocket boosters will be erected May 19-24. The second stage will be hoisted atop the first stage on May 28. Contact: George H. Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center Phone: 321-867-2468 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mer_ready_030513.html . ________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 10-16 May 2003 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available: Dust Mantle near Pavonis Mons (Released 10 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/10/index.html Polygons on Crater Floor (Released 11 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/11/index.html Wind Streak Changes (Released 12 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/12/index.html Yardangs and Exhumation (Released 13 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/13/index.html Distributary Channel (Released 14 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/14/index.html "Happy Face" Crater (Released 15 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/15/index.html Martian Moon, Phobos (Released 16 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/16/index.html All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html. Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 12-16 May 2003 Layers upon layers (Released 12 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030512a.html Ground patterns (Released 13 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030513a.html Nili Patera (Released 14 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030514a.html Unusual Crater (Released 15 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030515a.html Streamlined Hills of Maja Vallis (Released 16 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030516a.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 16May 2003 The Stardust team had one period of communication with the spacecraft in the past week. Telemetry relayed from the spacecraft indicates it is healthy and all subsystems continue to operate normally. Information on the relative positions 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. The in-flight testing required for Earth Return has been finalized. The mission's "1 Astronomical Unit Earth Return Testing Design" consists of three small trajectory correction maneuvers and numerous pitches and rolls of the Stardust spacecraft. These in-flight activities will be performed to calibrate the solar pressure and small forces acting on the spacecraft during its Earth-return cruise phase in 2006. This testing will validate the spacecraft ability to meet the earth entry accuracy requirements more than 2 years before Earth return. The testing will be performed this summer as it is the only time the spacecraft will be at 1 Astronomical Unit (or about 150 million kilometers) prior to Earth return. Stardust's Cometary and Interplanetary Dust Analyzer was featured at a data management and archive meeting at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. A draft of the Cometary and Interplanetary Dust Analyzer's data archive will be provided to the Planetary Data System this summer for peer review. Formal delivery of the actual data is to be made shortly after Stardust's encounter with Comet Wild 2. A space exploration documentary produced by Film Oasis highlighting Stardust and several other NASA missions has been distributed internationally in France, Australia, Asia, Portugal and Spain and will be shown in the United States late this year. The Stardust Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) team, including its Educator Ambassadors and partner planetariums, participated in several Space Day activities throughout the United States. JPL Ambassador Bonnie Walters, from the Mesa Union Elementary School in Camarillo, California, organized speakers from JPL and other industry partners to speak to over 600 students on space exploration. 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 20.