MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 21, 26 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/. [http://www.planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/headlines/2001/Images /earthpbd.jpg] Earth as seen by the departing Voyager spacecraft: a tiny, pale blue dot. In this issue of Marsbugs, we see what Earth looks like from the Mars Observer spacecraft. Image credit: NASA. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) ASTRONAUTS' DIRTY LAUNDY From Liftoff and NASAexplores 2) VALLEY NETWORKS: CONNECTING THE DOTS By Henry Bortman 3) YOUR DESKTOP PRINTER COULD SOON BE PRODUCING LIVING TISSUE From NASA Tech Briefs Insider 4) QUANTUM COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE STARS? By Seth Shostak 5) DINNER WITH ORVILLE: THE VERTICAL PLANET From Astrobiology Magazine 6) EUROPA DIARY III: ON POLAR BEAR TIME By Mark Pruis 7) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 8) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 9) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS REPORT NASA/JPL release 10) SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller 11) MARS EXPLORATION ROVER SPACECRAFT UNDERGO BIOLOGICAL TESTING AND CLEANING PRIOR TO JUNE LAUNCHES NASA/KSC release 37-03 12) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 13) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 14) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ ASTRONAUTS' DIRTY LAUNDY From Liftoff and NASAexplores 20 May 2003 It's been a long day, and your clothes show it. After you change into something more comfortable (and clean), you realize the clothes you just took off could really use a good wash. Unfortunately, there's no washing machine within 250 miles. That's just a typical day of life onboard the International Space Station (ISS). While the Space Station does offer more amenities than did earlier spacecraft, such as the best free gym off the planet, one of the many things it still does not have is a way to wash clothes. So, what do you do with your dirty underwear when you're orbiting the Earth aboard a spacecraft with no washing machine? Here are four choices. Option one--wear it again This is the most common answer. When you're going on a long trip, it's hard to pack enough clothes, but when you're about to spend several months on the Space Station, it's literally impossible. Packing enough underwear for three members of an ISS Expedition crew to have a clean pair for every day of a 6-month stay would mean launching at least 540 pairs of underwear into orbit. Picture how big your dresser would have to be to hold all that. There's just no room for it on the Station. Plus, when it costs between $5,000 and $10,000 per pound to launch it into space that becomes some very expensive underwear. As a result, astronauts have to stretch out how long they wear the underwear that they can take with them in order to make it last for their whole stay. On the Russian Space Station Mir, that meant that cosmonauts generally had to wear their underwear for up to a week before it was time to put on a clean pair. On the International Space Station, things are a little bit better. In his series of "Space Chronicles," ISS Expedition Six Science Officer Don Pettit wrote that he changes his underwear once every 3 or 4 days. That's not quite as bad as it sounds, since clothes don't get dirty as quickly on the Space Station as they do on Earth. Astronauts on the Station are living in a controlled environment, so the temperature stays at a constant, comfortable level. And when everything around you is virtually weightless, you don't have to exert yourself physically the same way you do in the gravity on Earth's surface. However, astronauts do have to spend a substantial amount of time each day exercising so that their bodies don't atrophy in microgravity, so they do still get a workout. And, underwear isn't the only item of clothing that gets worn longer than usual. In an interview in February, Pettit said that he was still wearing the same pair of shorts he had been wearing since he first arrived on the Station--in November! Even though they have more shorts to change into, Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox also has a favorite pair he chooses to wear frequently. Even though there's no laundry facility on the Station, Bowersox even figured out a way to wash his shorts using a plastic bag. Option two--turn it into a shooting star When it's time for the Space Station crew to return to Earth at the end of their stay, the Space Shuttle usually serves as their moving van to carry them back home. In addition to the ISS crew and their personal effects they are bringing back with them, the Shuttle also has to carry home science experiments that have been completed at the Station so that new ones can be performed there. As a result, there's not a lot of free space on the Shuttle for the ride home, and so nobody wants to use that space to carry several months worth of dirty underwear. So, what happens to it, then? To make sure that the ISS crew has enough food, water, and other necessities for their stay in space, the Russian Space Agency launches unmanned Progress ships to carry supplies to the Station. The Progress is a nonreusable spacecraft, good for a one-way trip to the Space Station. Once it is there and the Station crew has unloaded the supplies, the Progress is then loaded up with trash, including dirty laundry. Since only a limited number of Progress crafts are sent to ISS each year, the dirty clothes can sit around on the Station for a while before they can be disposed of. The Progress is then undocked from the Station and "de-orbited," placed on a course that causes it to burn up in Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Option three--grow plants with it When Science Officer Pettit recently decided to try and grow some tomato and basil seeds he had aboard the Station, he had a problem. Since there's no soil, he had to figure out some other way to grow the plants. In his Space Chronicles, Pettit wrote, "To construct my planter, a spherical core is needed. An old pair of underwear worked well. We have supplies on Station sufficient to change our underwear perhaps once every 3 to 4 days, so I figured there might be a few nutrients in there as well. An old pair of underwear was folded into a sphere and held in place with a few well-placed stitches using needle and thread from our sewing kit." For the outside of the planter, he sewed some Russian space toilet paper to the outer surface of the underwear. "This toilet paper is not like what you normally think of as toilet paper," Pettit wrote. "It consisted of two layers of coarsely woven gauze, 4 by 6 inches in dimension, sewn together at the edges with a layer of brown tissue sandwiched in-between. It works very well for its intended purpose. It also makes a wonderful sprouter." After Pettit solved a problem that was causing the seeds to stay too cold to germinate, the seeds sprouted in the underwear-toilet paper planter within 2 days. Option four--feed it to bacteria This one isn't really an option right now, but it might be in the future. While the Mir station was still in orbit, Russian scientists were already working on a new solution to the problem of dirty underwear being stored on the Station for months at a time. The scientists began designing a system that would use bacteria to digest the astronaut's cotton and paper underpants. The researchers said that it was even possible that the methane gas given off when the bacteria ate the underwear could be used to help power the spacecraft. The system would even be able to be used to dispose of some other waste on the Station, as well. While the system was never completed for use on Mir (researchers said it could take up to a decade to find the right combination of bacteria), it may be an option for people living in space in the future. Astronauts have a well-deserved reputation for being smart, well- educated, hardworking, physically fit, sociable, and dedicated people. But now, you know their dirty little secret. Despite their mothers' advice, they don't always wear clean underwear. Read the original article at http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2003/news-laundry.asp?list17089-153. ________________________________________________________________________ VALLEY NETWORKS: CONNECTING THE DOTS By Henry Bortman From Astrobiology Magazine 21 May 2003 Was it ever warm enough for rain to fall on Mars? That is one of the most vexing questions for scientists who study the red planet. The question is of critical importance to astrobiology. An early warm, wet Mars could have provided an environment conducive to the development of life. If, on the other hand, Mars has never gotten much above the freezing point, life may have had a more difficult time taking hold. For many decades, scientists trying to puzzle out Mars's early climate had only one planet-wide set of data to work with: images taken by the Viking orbiters that visited there in the late 1970s. One of the most distinctive features of the martian landscape visible in the Viking images are networks of what appear to be water-carved valleys. These valley networks are present throughout the martian southern highlands, on heavily cratered terrain that is judged to be some of the oldest on the planet. But the Viking images are not highly detailed, and scientists found that their shortcomings made it difficult to determine just how extensive the valley networks were. Valley networks are common on Earth as well. They are the branching systems of tributaries that feed creeks, streams and rivers. The complexity of these terrestrial systems and their drainage density, or close spacing, is a strong indication that they were formed primarily by the surface runoff of rainwater. "The importance of drainage density is that that gives you inferences about climate. Higher drainage densities generally have more contribution from surface runoff and therefore by inference, precipitation," says Brian Hynek, who recently completed his Ph.D. at Washington University and is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder. But rainfall is never solely responsible for creating these landforms. Groundwater processes, which soften and undermine the soil, causing it to collapse, also make a contribution. On Earth, although runoff typically dominates, there are places where groundwater processes play the primary role. On Earth, it is usually easy to tell what combination of processes was involved in any given location. Groundwater-induced collapse, for example, begins at the lowest point in a valley network and works its way upward, while runoff begins cutting its characteristic channels at high elevations and moves downward. On Mars, however, where the valleys networks were formed billions of years ago, it can sometimes be difficult to read the telltale signs--or even to tell up from down-- particularly in the Viking images. Mike Carr, of the United States Geological Survey in Palo Alto, CA, has studied the Viking images extensively. His conclusion: a combination of groundwater and runoff processes is responsible for forming Mars's valley networks. Although precipitation was likely required, that precipitation may have been in the form of snow, not rain--so Mars may never have been warm like Earth. In the Viking images, says Carr, the martian valley networks don't appear as fully developed as Earth's. They are short, not heavily branched and not closely spaced. Their drainage density appears very low. If rainwater were involved, one would expect to see much higher drainage densities. But according to Hynek, data acquired by a more recent Mars mission, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), which began orbiting Mars in September 1997, makes it possible to fill in the gaps and to remove some of the ambiguity of the Viking images. These data, he says, reveal that the valley networks are more extensive than previously thought and bolster the argument for rainy days on a warm, wet early Mars. MGS contains an instrument known as the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). MOLA beamed laser pulses at millions of points on the planet's surface and then measured how long it took for the light to reflect back. Each time measurement was used to calculate the elevation at a specific location. These data let researchers create a highly accurate topographic map of Mars. MOLA was so precise that scientists now have more detailed global topographic information for Mars than they do for Earth. MOLA data don't exist as images, but rather as a database of numbers. Hynek used this database to create computerized 3D images of Mars that contain valley networks. Over these synthetic images, he superimposed semitransparent photographic images of the same regions, taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), onboard MGS. This enabled him to see some of the lights and darks of different geological formations in combination with the shaded relief of his original image. Finally, he added false color to his images, using different colors to represent different elevations, much like the color coding used on elevation maps of Earth. Because this work was done in software, Hynek was able to assign colors to highlight certain topographic features, specifically the valley networks. "That gives you an idea of the slopes and which direction water would flow if it were even there," says Hynek. "Previously people just had images... and had no way to manipulate them. But now we're able to bring out very subtle variations that haven't been seen before." The result was dramatic. What had appeared in the Viking images as poorly developed systems of valleys suddenly jumped out as fully developed networks. "With the new technique, using the exact same defining characteristics for valley networks, we find about a 10 or more times increase in the number of valleys in any given place in the highlands. And then measuring their length, you find again about an order of magnitude [10 times] increase in the total lengths of valleys. And then from valley lengths and area, you can calculate the drainage density, which is how closely spaced these are. "The biggest argument against surface runoff has been, 'Well, we don't see high drainage density. These are much lower than what we find on Earth, so how can you have precipitation?' Now we find much higher drainage densities than previously thought. And in light of the new data, we find that the drainage densities are comparable to what we find on Earth. So now the major argument against surface runoff and precipitation is, at least in this data, no longer valid." Carr isn't convinced. "I think Brian's doing great stuff," he says. But even the increased drainage densities Hynek has calculated, Carr points out "are lower than most places on Earth." Carr isn't saying that precipitation was completely absent. "You've gotta have precipitation of some kind," he says. Even if the valleys were created primarily by groundwater processes, there had to have been some means of recharging the groundwater reservoirs, or the valley- formation process would have shut off too quickly to create the valley networks. But, says Carr, "it could be snow; it doesn't have to be rain." And if it was snow, Mars may never have been all that warm. It's not that easy, says Carr, to imagine how Mars ever could have been warm enough for rain to fall and for runoff to carve the valley networks. "I'm just relying on the good judgment of the atmospheric physicists who do this kind of thing, the modeling people, you know, very solid atmospheric physicists who say it's just incredibly difficult to warm Mars up." Perhaps, counters Hynek. But "the drainage networks we are looking at are 3.7 billion years old. Something that sits on a surface for billions of years, like on Mars, will undergo extensive modification from erosion and deposition." Furthermore, "frequent bombardment from small impacts... pulverize and mix the upper meters to tens of meters of the [martian] surface and thus erase small valleys." The possibility that it snowed, rather than rained, on Mars, Hynek says, "cannot be ruled out... If valley networks were still forming when Mars 'turned cold,' the final imprint would possibly be from melting under a snowpack." Nevertheless, says Hynek, "There is a lot of evidence for 'contribution' by runoff and, by inference, precipitation." It's unlikely that the debate will be resolved any time soon. Mars does not yield the secrets of its past easily. "I've been puzzling about this for so long," says Carr. But no one has yet developed a self- consistent picture of what took place on early Mars that is embraced by the scientific community as a whole. The differing interpretations of the available data, he says, are "just not converging." Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article470.html. ________________________________________________________________________ YOUR DESKTOP PRINTER COULD SOON BE PRODUCING LIVING TISSUE From NASA Tech Briefs Insider 22 May 2003 Maybe you think printer technology has come a long way now that you can produce high-quality color printouts from your desktop. Think again. In a project funded by NASA and the South Carolina Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), scientists at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina are using desktop printers to produce three-dimensional living tissue. And it doesn't end there. The next step is to produce entire organs. Really. Here's how Thomas Boland, a Clemson assistant bioengineering professor, explains the process. "Instead of ink, we're substituting components such as a growth medium and cells, which, just like ink, can be directed through the nozzle onto the 'paper' material." The material would be plastic or glass that can be placed in a Petri dish for study. The printers were adapted by washing out the ink cartridges and refilling them with cells or supporting gels. Boland's group altered the printers' feed systems and reprogrammed the software that controls the viscosity, electrical resistances, and temperature of the printing fluids. Placing different types of cells in ink cartridges should enable the team to create structures consisting of multiple cells, such as organs. But before that happens, Boland warns that scientists will have to create circulatory networks. "Building the blood supply is the $50 million question," he said. "This could be a great contribution to personalized medical care," Boland added. "Every hospital would have a printer with the components to make a fully functioning organ." That, he explained, could take up to 15 years. "As exciting as this is, it's still in the very earliest stages," he said. Read the original Clemson University release at http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20030522A6. ________________________________________________________________________ QUANTUM COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE STARS? By Seth Shostak From Space.com 22 May 2003 Earthlings haven't made many deliberate broadcasts to extraterrestrials, but in 1974, as part of a ceremony at the economy-sized Arecibo radio telescope, the observatory staff arranged to beam a three-minute message to a few hundred thousand stars in the constellation of Hercules. The message consisted of a simple picture showing the structure of our solar system and the structure of ourselves--DNA and its chemical building blocks--innocuous enough. What was not so innocuous was the reaction. England's Astronomer Royal was aghast at the thought of our freelance pinging of unknown galactic inhabitants. Despite the fact that the message was short and directed to a globular cluster 21,000 light-years distant, he felt that we might be endangering ourselves by "shouting in the jungle." Given the brevity and remote target of this broadcast, such concerns were surely overwrought. But the point is worth considering: Would anyone deliberately beam high-powered signals into space? Can we assume that extraterrestrial societies would broadcast in ways that would mark their location as plainly as a flag on a golf green? Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/shostak_quantum_030522.html. ________________________________________________________________________ PICTURES OF EARTH FROM MARS From NASA Science News 22 May 2003 Have you ever wondered what you would see if you were on Mars looking at the Earth through a small telescope? A new picture from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars, reveals the answer. This first-ever image of its kind not only shows Mother Earth as a tiny alien world in the vast darkness of space, but also includes Earth's moon and a view of the giant planet Jupiter with some of its larger moons, too. The camera aboard Mars Global Surveyor photographed Earth and Jupiter in an alignment, as seen in the evening sky of Mars, at 9:00 AM EDT, May 8, 2003. [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/images/alienearth/earthmoon.jpg ] Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars on May 8, 2003. Some special processing was applied to make both Earth and the much darker Moon visible in the same image. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems. "We've spent the last six-and-a-half years staring at Mars right in front of us," says Michael Malin, president and chief scientist of Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), of San Diego, who operates the camera aboard Mars Global Surveyor. "Taking this picture allowed us to look up from the work of exploring Mars... and gain a new perspective on the neighborhood, one in which we can see our own planet as one among many." The image of Earth shows our home as a planetary disk, in a "half-Earth" phase. The bright area at the top of the image of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern North America. Below that, a darker area includes Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. Another bright feature is caused by clouds over South America. [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/images/alienearth/earth_america s250_strip.jpg] The half-Earth as seen by Mars Global Surveyor. An overlay shows the continents North and South America at the time of the exposure. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems. Mars Global Surveyor also photographed Jupiter and three of its four Galilean satellites: Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa. At the time, Jupiter's giant red spot had rotated out of view, and, the other so- called Galilean satellite, Io, was behind Jupiter as seen from Mars. This image has been specially processed to show both Jupiter and its satellites, because Jupiter was much brighter than its moons. Mars Global Surveyor, one of the most successful missions to Mars ever undertaken, has been orbiting the red planet since September 1997. The mission has examined the entire martian surface and provided a wealth of information, including some stunning high-resolution imagery, about the planet's atmosphere and interior. [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/images/alienearth/jupiter_med.j pg] Mars Global Surveyor also photographed Jupiter and three of its moons on May 8, 2003. Only Europa is pictured here; you can see Ganymede and Callisto, too, in a larger version of this image [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/images/alienearth/jupiter_a200. jpeg]. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems. Evaluation of landing sites for NASA's two Mars Exploration Rover missions and the British Beagle 2 lander mission has relied heavily on mineral mapping, detailed imagery and topographic measurements by MGS. NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers and the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, which carries the Beagle 2 mission, are due to launch this summer and arrive at Mars starting late December 2003 through January 2004. Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/22may_alienearth.htm?list52260. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article472.html http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/05/22/earth.mars.ap/index.html http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earth_from_mars_030522.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/22earthmgs/ ________________________________________________________________________ DINNER WITH ORVILLE: THE VERTICAL PLANET From Astrobiology Magazine 25 May 2003 This featured "Dinner with..." series builds on the classic thought experiment: "Which 5 historical figures would you invite to dinner, and how would you seat them?" While the field of astrobiology historically rests on many "shoulders of giants"--too many for one dinner party, the Astrobiology Magazine has selected some initial candidates for our dinner party, and then asks them to introduce their area of expertise in a brief question and answer format. The answers are their own, as gleaned from some of their most famous, controversial, or seminal contributions to science and technology. In many cases, the selection of commentary is driven by the curiosity to understand these great historical figures as one might imagine them as more modern characters, perhaps joining in on table talk or an informal interview. Tonight's dinner introduces Orville Wright, whom with his brother, Wilbur, began the legacy of humans as powered flyers. Before them, there was no real aeronautics nor ultimately aerospace. A flight around the Statue of Liberty by a look-alike Wright brothers' plane is planned for Sunday, May 25th to help mark the 100th anniversary of powered flight. We interview Orville the night after the brothers' historic first flight, one-hundred years ago. This century mark commemorates what ultimately started the space age, when in 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright first achieved manned flight on the dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Remarkably, an average human lifetime separates the first mechanically-powered human flight by the Wright Brothers from the launch of the first spacecraft to the outer planets. Only 66 years elapsed between the first flight and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon. The brothers tested over two hundred different wings and airfoil sections in different combinations to improve the performance of their gliders. A replica of the 1903 Wright Brothers' Flyer was tested in NASA Ames' 40 x 80-foot wind tunnel in March 1999. The aircraft was built by the Los Angeles Section of the American Institute on Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and was on display for a while in the blimp hangar at Moffett Field, California. Their first powered aircraft under pilot control flew four times in 1903, covering a distance of 852 feet (or about one football field) and staying aloft just shy of a minute (59 seconds). That distance roughly equals the length of today's space shuttles. Their engine (12 horsepower) would be just double what a modern lawnmower might require. On the last flight, hard contact with the ground broke the front elevator support and ended the season's flying. This achievement was truly one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. Centuries before, Leonardo da Vinci had filled 160 pages with sketches and notes on possible flying machines--contraptions that would have used human arms to flap wings. "Attempting to quit the confines of the Earth," said Ivan, the 16th century Russian czar, "was a gross and unnatural act." In 1926, only 6,000 Americans flew--a number escalating to more than a half-billion a year today. Wilbur died suddenly at age 45 of typhoid fever, but electrified both Europe and America during his day, particularly circling around the Statue of Liberty before one million New Yorkers, then flying up the Hudson River to Grant's Tomb. He was called the "Man-Bird", when he set speed records at Le Mans, France. Orville went on to the age of 76, where he was a founding member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which became NASA in 1958, when space was added both to the acronym and the collective imagination. Astrobiology Magazine [AM]: How did you first get hooked by the idea of flying? Orville Wright [OW]: Though the subject of aerial navigation is generally considered new, it has occupied the minds of men more or less from the earliest ages. Our personal interest in it dates from our childhood days. Late in the autumn of 1878, our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air. Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy, known to scientists as a "hélicoptère," but which we, with sublime disregard for science, at once dubbed a "bat." It was a light frame of cork and bamboo, covered with paper, which formed two screws, driven in opposite directions by rubber bands under torsion. A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding. AM: So from an early age, this was your hobby? OW: As we became older, we had to give up this fascinating sport as unbecoming to boys of our ages. It was not till the news of the sad death of Lilienthal reached America in the summer of 1896 that we again gave more than passing attention to the subject of flying. AM: There were many in Europe particularly who experimented either with powered flight or soaring. What was different about the Kitty Hawk experiments? OW: We resolved to try a fundamentally different principle. We would arrange the machine so that it would not tend to right itself. We would make it as inert as possible to the effects of change of direction or speed, and thus reduce the effects of wind-gusts to a minimum. We would do this... by giving the aëroplanes a peculiar shape; and in the lateral balance, by arching the surfaces from tip to tip, just the reverse of what our predecessors had done. AM: So how did you manage changing wind conditions? OW: Lilienthal and Chanute had guided and balanced their machines by shifting the weight of the operator's body. But this method seemed to us incapable of expansion to meet large conditions, because the weight to be moved and the distance of possible motion were limited, while the disturbing forces steadily increased, both with wing area and with wind velocity. In order to meet the needs of large machines, we wished to employ some system whereby the operator could vary at will the inclination of different parts of the wings, and thus obtain from the wind forces to restore the balance which the wind itself had disturbed. This could easily be done by using wings capable of being warped AM: At that time, what was most challenging about human's flying? OW: The period from 1885 to 1900 was one of unexampled activity in aëronautics, and for a time there was high hope that the age of flying was at hand. But Maxim, after spending $100,000, abandoned the work; the Ader machine, built at the expense of the French Government, was a failure; Lilienthal and Pilcher were killed in experiments; and Chanute and many others, from one cause or another, had relaxed their efforts, though it subsequently became known that Professor Langley was still secretly at work on a machine for the United States Government. The public, discouraged by the failures and tragedies just witnessed, considered flight beyond the reach of man, and classed its adherents with the inventors of perpetual motion. AM: So you went to North Carolina then? OW: We began our active experiments at the close of this period, in October, 1900, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Our machine was designed to be flown as a kite, with a man on board, in winds of from fifteen to twenty miles an hour. But, upon trial, it was found that much stronger winds were required to lift it. AW: Was there any particular danger to you or your brother? OW: To make doubly sure that it would have sufficient lifting capacity when flown as a kite in fifteen- or twenty-mile winds, we increased the area from 165 square feet, used in 1900, to 308 square feet--a size much larger than Lilienthal, Pilcher, or Chanute had deemed safe. Upon trial, however, the lifting capacity again fell very far short of calculation, so that the idea of securing practice while flying as a kite, had to be abandoned. Mr. Chanute, who witnessed the experiments, told us that the trouble was not due to poor construction of the machine. We saw only one other explanation--that the tables of air- pressures in general use were incorrect. AW: So did you have to rewrite standard textbooks of tabular data? OW: The experiments of 1901 were far from encouraging. We saw that the calculations upon which all flying-machines had been based were unreliable, and that all were simply groping in the dark. Having set out with absolute faith in the existing scientific data, we were driven to doubt one thing after another, till finally, after two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations. AW: Did you try to emulate nature? Things like bird-wings? OW: In the field of aviation there were two schools. The first, represented by such men as Professor Langley and Sir Hiram Maxim, gave chief attention to power flight; the second, represented by Lilienthal, Mouillard, and Chanute, to soaring flight. Our sympathies were with the latter school, partly from impatience at the wasteful extravagance of mounting delicate and costly machinery on wings which no one knew how to manage, and partly, no doubt, from the extraordinary charm and enthusiasm with which the apostles of soaring flight set forth the beauties of sailing through the air on fixed wings, deriving the motive power from the wind itself. [But] to work intelligently, one needs to know the effects of a multitude of variations that could be incorporated in the surfaces of flying-machines. The pressures on squares are different from those on rectangles, circles, triangles, or ellipses; arched surfaces differ from planes, and vary among themselves according to the depth of curvature; true arcs differ from parabolas, and the latter differ among themselves; thick surfaces differ from thin, and surfaces thicker in one place than another vary in pressure when the positions of maximum thickness are different; some surfaces are most efficient at one angle, others at other angles. The shape of the edge also makes a difference, so that thousands of combinations are possible in so simple a thing as a wing. We had taken up aëronautics merely as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it. AM: So you put your energy into getting good air-pressure tables then? OW: Further corroboration of the tables was obtained in experiments with a new glider at Kill Devil Hill the next season. In September and October, 1902, nearly one thousand gliding flights were made, several of which covered distances of over 600 feet. Some, made against a wind of thirty-six miles an hour, gave proof of the effectiveness of the devices for control. With this machine, in the autumn of 1903, we made a number of flights in which we remained in the air for over a minute, often soaring for a considerable time in one spot, without any descent at all. Little wonder that our unscientific assistant should think the only thing needed to keep it indefinitely in the air would be a coat of feathers to make it light! AM: So it was time to make a powered flyer, once you had estimates of wind effects? OW: With accurate data for making calculations, and a system of balance effective in winds as well as in calms, we were now in a position, we thought, to build a successful power-flyer. The first designs provided for a total weight of 600 pounds, including the operator and an eight horsepower motor. Our tables made the designing of the wings an easy matter. AM: So you left the soaring school for powered flight then? OW: What at first seemed a simple problem became more complex the longer we studied it. With the machine moving forward, the air flying backward, the propellers turning sidewise, and nothing standing still, it seemed impossible to find a starting-point from which to trace the various simultaneous reactions. Contemplation of it was confusing. After long arguments, we often found ourselves in the ludicrous position of each having been converted to the other's side, with no more agreement than when the discussion began. High efficiency in a screw-propeller is not dependent upon any particular or peculiar shape, and there is no such thing as a "best" screw. A propeller giving a high dynamic efficiency when used upon one machine may be almost worthless when used upon another. The propeller should in every case be designed to meet the particular conditions of the machine to which it is to be applied. AM: Who was with you during that season? OW: Only five persons besides ourselves were present. Although a general invitation had been extended to the people living within five or six miles, not many were willing to face the rigors of a cold December wind in order to see, as they no doubt thought, another flying-machine not fly. AM: What was it like in 1903, on the day of that first flight? OW: We got the machine out early... After running the engine and propellers a few minutes to get them in working order, I got on the machine at 10:35 for the first trial. On slipping the rope the machine started off increasing in speed to probably 7 or 8 miles [per hour]. The machine lifted from the truck just as it was entering on the fourth rail. Mr. Daniels took a picture just as it left the tracks. I found the control of the front rudder quite difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center and thus had a tendency to turn itself when stated so that the rudder was turned too far on one side and then too far on the other. As a result the machine would rise suddenly to about 10 feet and then as suddenly, on turning the rudder, dart for the ground. A sudden dart when out about 100 feet from the end of the tracks ended the flight. Time about 12 seconds (not know exactly as watch was not promptly stopped). The lever for throwing off the engine was broken, and the skid under the rudder cracked. AM: That was the first time? OW: The first flight lasted only twelve seconds, a flight very modest compared with that of birds, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked. AM: You traveled what kind of distances finally that day at Kitty Hawk? OW: The distance over the ground was 852 feet in 59 seconds. AM: So how did you celebrate? OW: After removing the front rudder, we carried the machine back to camp. We set the machine down a few feet west of the building and while standing about discussing the last flight, a sudden gust of wind struck the machine and started to turn it over. All rushed to stop it. Will, who was near one end, ran to the front, but too late to do any good. Mr. Daniels and myself seized spars at the rear, but to no purpose. The machine gradually turned over on us. Mr. Daniels, having no experience in handling a machine of this kind, hung on to it from the inside, and as a result was knocked down and turned over and over with it was it went. His escape was miraculous, as he was in with the engine and chains. The engine legs were all broken off, the chain guides badly bent, a number of uprights, and nearly all the rear ends of the ribs were broken. One spar only was broken. After dinner, we went to Kitty Hawk to send off telegram. AM: You always flew against the wind--figuratively and literally. Can you put us in the passenger seat, as you saw it? OW: Let us fancy ourselves ready for the start. The machine is placed upon a single rail track facing the wind, and is securely fastened with a cable. The engine is put in motion, and the propellers in the rear whir. You take your seat at the center of the machine beside the operator. He slips the cable, and you shoot forward. An assistant who has been holding the machine in balance on the rail, starts forward with you, but before you have gone fifty feet the speed is too great for him, and he lets go. Before reaching the end of the track the operator moves the front rudder, and the machine lifts from the rail like a kite supported by the pressure of the air underneath it. The ground under you is at first a perfect blur, but as you rise the objects become clearer. At a height of one hundred feet you feel hardly any motion at all, except for the wind which strikes your face. If you did not take the precaution to fasten your hat before starting, you have probably lost it by this time. The operator moves a lever: the right wing rises, and the machine swings about to the left. You make a very short turn, yet you do not feel the sensation of being thrown from your seat, so often experienced in automobile and railway travel. You find yourself facing toward the point from which you started. The objects on the ground now seem to be moving at much higher speed, though you perceive no change in the pressure of the wind on your face. You know then that you are traveling with the wind. When you near the starting point, the operator stops the motor while still high in the air. The machine coasts down at an oblique angle to the ground, and after sliding fifty or a hundred feet comes to rest. Although the machine often lands when traveling at a speed of a mile a minute, you feel no shock whatever, and cannot, in fact, tell the exact moment at which it first touched the ground. The motor close beside you kept up an almost deafening roar during the whole flight, yet in your excitement, you did not notice it till it stopped. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article475.html. ________________________________________________________________________ EUROPA DIARY III: ON POLAR BEAR TIME By Mark Pruis From Astrobiology Magazine 26 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. Friday, 25 April 2003 What a day! I arose to a brilliant morning sun still low on the horizon. The brightness of the morning made me appreciate my glacier glasses--they protect my eyes from the intense light reflecting off the Arctic tundra. After a quick breakfast, we prepared the snowmobiles for a daylong excursion onto the ice. Since we planned to travel greater distances today, we used nine snowmobiles, with sleds trailing behind to carry passengers and equipment. We paused briefly before heading out onto the ice so that we could discuss some of the ice features we had seen during yesterday's overflight. We also were waiting for an honored guest. An elder of the community, Arnold Brower, Sr., had agreed to accompany us onto the ice. Arnold has an extraordinary personal history. He is the son of Charles Brower, one of the first Westerners to settle in Barrow back in the 1880s. As a young boy of 14 or 15, Arnold's father told him to choose between schooling in San Francisco or reindeer herding with his older brother, Tom. It was a difficult decision; he could earn a dog sled team if he went herding, but he would have more opportunities if he went to school. He chose to go reindeer herding. Reindeer herding turned out to be an education in itself. Arnold listened to the stories of the elders, and they taught him about the region's natural resources. He spent years herding reindeer around the country, and this gave him an intimate knowledge of the land. Following this traditional lifestyle, he lived with his wife and young children in a small sod house away from the village. He left to serve in World War II, and when he returned he came to work in Barrow. He has been working with visiting scientists ever since. Arnold also was president of the Barrow Whaling Captains Association for many years, and he has held several important positions in Alaska's government. Arnold knows the science of sea ice better than many "schooled" scientists ever will. I am amazed how a man with such incredible intelligence and wisdom can remain so humble and well-grounded. After Arnold arrived we stayed around the camp for longer than we'd planned, because a polar bear had been spotted moving through the compound. In such cases we were advised to go onto "polar bear time" and wait until it decided to move on. Although we were all eager to get to work, I recalled what Fridtjof Nansen had said in his book, Farthest North: "Patience [is] a medicament of which every polar expedition ought to lay in a large supply." Once the polar bear moved a safe distance away, we boarded our snowmobiles and headed out onto the ice. I was probably not the only person who was comforted by having Matt Irinaga accompany us to keep an eye out for polar bears. Matt is a logistics coordinator for the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC). That basically means he helps us get everything done. He arranged for our use of BASC facilities, supplying us with everything from snowmobiles to arctic gear. Matt accompanied us on today's daylong excursion to ensure that all us "new-bee" arctic explorers didn't injure ourselves, do excessive damage to the BASC equipment, or accidentally surprise a polar bear! At our first stop, we examined some pressure ridges that formed when two ice floes collided. Arnold Brower, Sr., described the process of their formation for us, and pointed out a small crack in the ice about 15 to 20 meters from the ridge. He said this crack forms because the ridge is too heavy for the ice to support. The cracks remain open because they do not extend all the way down to the seawater; they are just surface cracks caused by bending of the ice sheet. The amazing thing is, Max Coon and I had proposed that some of the features on Europa may be similar to the cracks Arnold described. As I looked up at the nearby ridge, with its multitude of broken ice blocks, I saw Matt Irinaga perched on the top, scanning the horizon for polar bears. Polar bears obtain a yellowish tint to their fur coats as they age, making them easier to see against the white ice, but they can still be difficult to spot. The bear is so much better suited to this terrain than we are. A polar bear merely needs to stand up to peak over 2 or 3-meter high pressure ridges, but we have to climb all the way to the top to look over. In the afternoon, we drove over to the Beaufort Sea, and saw incredible ice deformation occurring there. Easterly winds along this coast grind the pack ice against the near-shore grounded ice, forming spectacular shear ridges in the winter. In the spring, ice blocks move freely in the open water, rotating when they collide with the pack ice or shore- fast ice. Hajo Eicken drilled an ice core, and showed us the sediment that had been caught up in the ice as it formed. This sediment provides a habitat for organisms. Hajo and his colleges recently discovered that bacteria growing on these sediments remain active down to -20 degrees C (-4°F)! The ice in this region is only rarely that cold, so the bacteria can remain active throughout most of the dark polar winter. This insight is of obvious interest to scientists who study icy worlds like Europa, since it demonstrates how life can function in extreme cold. It also shows that we might not have approached the true temperature limits for life yet, even here on our own planet. Even though bacteria can function at extremely cold temperatures, that doesn't mean humans should. Throughout the day we received a mixture of cloud and sun and steadily rising temperatures, and by the end of the day we were removing layers of clothing instead of adding more on. Still, we decided we would make only one more stop, so we headed for Point Barrow, the northern-most point in the United States. There is no good reason to be within one-eighth of a mile of a geographic curiosity and not stop to take a group picture! Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article476.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 26 May 2003 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles1. html H. Bortman, 2003. Valley networks: connecting the dots. Astrobiology Magazine. M. Pruis, 2003. Europa diary III: on polar bear time. Astrobiology Magazine. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles3. html NASAexplores, 2003. Astronauts' dirty laundry. Liftoff. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles4. html S. Shostak, 2003. Quantum communication between the stars? Space.com. Planetary protection articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles6. html NASA Kennedy Space Center, 2003. Mars 2003 rovers get bio scrub ahead of June launch. SpaceDaily. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 26 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/05/22/shuttle.okeefe.ap/index.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/osp_debate_030521.htm l http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030520.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_ap_030522.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_covey_030522.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030520210658.4qa6wcam.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030524184753.9jn7gdy2.html http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030520slag/ ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS REPORT NASA/JPL release 23 May 2003 The Cassini flight team successfully restarted the C37 background sequence on Saturday, May 17 after last week's safing event. Normal sequencing resumed with Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) star calibrations. The spacecraft engineering subsystems and instruments are performing nominally. The instrument calibrations that did not occur due to spacecraft safing will be rescheduled for a subsequent sequence. Information on the spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present- position.cfm. Additional activities performed this week included Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver Calibrations, a Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) raster observation, a reaction wheel assembly friction test, an attitude control high water mark clear, and the successful uplink of the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument flight software (FSW) version 2.0.1, and an CIRS FSW checkout mini-sequence. The checkout mini-sequence will execute next week. Due to concerns over the performance of reaction wheel three, the project has decided not to perform the thirty day solar conjunction experiment under reaction wheel control. The solar corona portions of the experiment using K-band will continue over the Goldstone tracking station as planned using the thrusters for attitude control. ISS acquired 24 images during a point and stare calibration image activity with VIMS riding along. ISS also acquired 232 images, including dark frames and two by two mosaics, during a photometric calibration of the star Vega. The CIRS instrument team has provided the Planetary Data System atmospheres node with a sample volume containing Jupiter data. The volume is under peer review, and is also being reviewed by members of the Cassini/Huygens Project Science Group. The review should be completed within four weeks. CIRS is the second instrument team, following the Radio Science Subsystem to produce a volume for peer review. The first preliminary delivery port for Science Operations Plan Integration products for tour sequences S07 / S08 occurred this week, with the first official input port scheduled for next week. Program members from various teams and offices are attending the thirty-first Project Science Group meeting in Venice, Italy this week. Uplink Operations personnel gave a demonstration of the Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) to the Section 314 technologist. The intent of the demonstration was to initiate exploration of CIMS potential for future use in the Multi-Mission Software set. Approximately 25,000 people attended the JPL Open house last weekend. Cassini personnel staffed a booth where they could answer questions regarding the program. In addition, members of the Outreach Team debuted a beta-test version of "Ring World", the project's planetarium show. Response from the public was extremely enthusiastic. Additional information about Cassini-Huygens is online at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Cassini will begin orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004, and release its piggybacked Huygens probe about six months later for descent through the thick atmosphere of the moon Titan. Cassini-Huygens is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. ________________________________________________________________________ SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller NASA/KSC release 21 May 2003 Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-A vehicle/MER-2 rover) Launch Vehicles: Delta II Launch Pads: 17-A Launch Date: June 5, 2003 Launch Times: 2:16 PM - 2:55:29 PM EDT Three days of spin balance testing of MER-2 is scheduled to conclude today. The spacecraft was fueled on May 11. The Delta third stage, the upper stage that will propel the spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory, arrived at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) yesterday, Tuesday, May 20. MER-2 will be mated to the third stage on Friday, May 23. On Saturday, work will begin to install the spacecraft into the transportation canister in preparation for going to the launch pad next Tuesday, May 27. MER-2 aboard the MER-A Delta II launch vehicle will have two launch opportunities each day during the launch period that closes on June 19. Arrival at Mars is set for January 4, 2004, regardless of the launch date within that period. On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Simulated Flight Test (SimFlight) that includes a checkout of the launch vehicle's avionics system and electrical system is under way today. The Delta first stage for MER-A was erected on Pad 17-A on April 23. The second stage erection was completed on April 28, and the fairing was installed in the white room on April 30. The solid rocket booster erection began on May 13 with the first set of three motors being attached to the first stage. The second set of three was erected on May 14, and the final set was hoisted into position on May 15. Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B vehicle/MER-1 rover) 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 The MER-1 lander was mated to the cruise stage yesterday, May 20. Fueling of MER-1 is scheduled for May 27-28, spin balance testing on May 29, mating to the Delta third stage on June 14, and transportation to the launch pad for mating to the Delta on June 15. The MER-B vehicle's first stage is on Pad 17-B. Erecting the nine solid rocket boosters in sets of three a day began yesterday, May 20. The second set of three is being erected today and the final set will be installed tomorrow, May 22. The second stage will be hoisted atop the first stage on May 28. The MER-B launch period closes July 15. Contact: George H. Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center Phone: 321-867-2468 Read the original news release at http://www- pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/paylstat/2003/may/5-21-03p.htm. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVER SPACECRAFT UNDERGO BIOLOGICAL TESTING AND CLEANING PRIOR TO JUNE LAUNCHES NASA/KSC release 37-03 23 May 2003 What do NASA's soon-to-be-launched Mars Exploration Rover (MER-1 and MER-2) spacecraft have in common with the Viking and Voyager spacecraft launched decades ago? Besides being interplanetary explorers, they will be among the biologically cleanest spacecraft ever launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Making sure the spacecraft are as biologically clean and contamination- free as possible before they leave Earth is NASA's planetary protection (PP) policy. It protects other solar system bodies from Earth life and protects Earth from extraterrestrial life that may be brought back by returning space missions. NASA's policy is based on the most recent understanding of planetary conditions and biology, and regular recommendations from the U.S. National Academy of Science. "Keeping the spacecraft as clean as possible before, during and after launch is very important for any science instruments searching for organic compounds on the surface of other planets," said Laura Newlin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineer and Planetary Protection (PP) Lead for the MER missions. JPL's Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group seeks to advance spacecraft cleanliness, sterilization and validation technologies for NASA's solar system exploration missions. "Up to 300,000 spores are allowed on the exposed surfaces of the landed spacecraft," said Newlin. "That many spores would fit on the head of a large pin." A companion requirement to this is the average spore density on the surfaces must be less than 300 spores per square meter (28 spores per square foot). There are approximately 4500 square meters (approximately 48,000 square feet) of surface on each MER spacecraft, including the cruise stage. When the spacecraft arrived at KSC from JPL in February and March, they were transported to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility in KSC's Industrial Area. Prior to that, the highbay and ground support equipment were cleaned, sampled and re-cleaned to reduce further biological contamination when the spacecraft arrived. Both spacecraft have since undergone extensive alcohol-wipe cleaning and bio-testing processes. They were disassembled and cleaned to remove any contamination that may have occurred during the cross-country transport. During reassembly, JPL PP team members sampled surfaces of both spacecraft to check for microbial spores. Culturing of the samples was performed in several KSC life sciences labs using equipment from JPL or provided by KSC including media claves, sonicators, water baths, incubators, microscopes, bio-safety hoods, and a large magnified colony counter. "Currently our total spore count on the surface of both MER vehicles is comfortably under 200,000. So we are below the allowable level," Newlin said. Other PP strategies exist for MER surfaces that are inappropriate for the traditional cleaning method. These include dry heat microbial reduction of the hardware in a dry environment at 125 degrees Celsius (257 F.) for five hours. The process is performed piece by piece on large surface areas that can tolerate the temperature, such as thermal blankets, airbags, honeycomb structures and parachutes in their cans. A High Efficiency Particulate Arrestor (HEPA) filter is also used to filter out 99.97 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns or larger on MER's electronic boxes and the rover body. These permanent fixtures will also help filter out the martian dust when the MER spacecraft land on Mars. Spacecraft propellant lines were also precision-cleaned. According to Newlin, the PP team worked with the spacecraft design engineers to determine PP strategies, what hardware should be cleaned and what hardware would require other PP approaches, all of which were integrated into the design, fabrication, and assembly of the spacecraft. Contact: George Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center Phone: 321-867-2468 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars2003-03f.html. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 17-21 May 2003 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available: Argyre Dust Devil Tracks (Released 17 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/17/index.html Layers, Boulders, and Dust (Released 18 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/18/index.html Buried Craters of Utopia (Released 19 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/19/index.html Dust Storm in Syria (Released 20 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/20/index.html Two Mars Years of South Polar Change (Released 21 May 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/21/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 19-23 May 2003 Fine-scale textures (Released 19 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030519a.html Crater Deformation (Released 20 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030520a.html Kasei Valles (Released 21 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030521a.html Channel to Nowhere (Released 22 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030522a.html Isidis Planitia (Released 23 May 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030523a.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 23 May 2003 The Stardust team had one period of communications 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. A successful nominal Comet Wild 2 encounter test was performed in the Spacecraft Test Laboratory. During the next three weeks the Spacecraft Test Laboratory will run a series of test cases designed to stress the spacecraft's Attitude Control Subsystem. This will be accomplished by simulating dust particle hits (up to 1 centimeter in size) on different parts of Stardust's protective Whipple Shield. The Stardust project participated with other NASA Solar System missions in the 2003 JPL Open House last weekend. An estimated 24,000 people attended the Open House. At a recent National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration meeting Stardust's Principle Investigator, Don Brownlee, spoke to over 200 invited guests about the mission. The subject of Brownlee's address was the challenges a "class 5" solar flare placed on both the Stardust spacecraft and team two years ago. The Stardust Education and Public Outreach team gave a talk to Disneyland personnel and their families as part of a JPL tour. A cube of aerogel has been on display at Disneyland since 2000. Stardust Project Manager, Tom Duxbury, was interviewed by Discovery Channel about the Stardust mission and its use of aerogel for intact particle capture. 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 21