MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 24, 16 June 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) MARVIN THE MARTIAN AND DAFFY DUCK AS DUCK DODGERS PREPARE FOR UPCOMING NASA MISSIONS TO MARS Warner Bros. release 2) GLOBAL GARDEN GETS GREENER By Rebecca Lindsey 3) LOCKHEED MARTIN TEAM RECEIVES $6 MILLION DESIGN STUDY CONTRACT FOR NASA'S JUPITER ICY MOONS ORBITER PROGRAM Lockheed Martin release 4) RESEARCHERS PLAN REGULAR VISITS TO RUSSIA By Marc Ransford 5) FIRST SOYBEANS GROWN IN SPACE SIMILAR TO EARTH-GROWN CROPS DuPont release 6) EVIDENCE FOR METEOR IN EARLY MASS EXTINCTION FOUND Lousiana State University release 7) SHINING LIGHT ON LIFE'S ORIGIN By Leslie Mullen 8) PREPARING FOR CONTACT: LESSONS FROM THE PAST By Douglas Vakoch 9) CHARLES TOWNES: THE NOBEL LAUREATE WHO "FATHERED" OPTICAL SETI By Diane Richards 10) PREPARING A HUMAN MISSION TO MARS VIA ANTARCTICA AND TOULOUSE ESA release 11) MARS: HISTORY OF ANTACIDS From Astrobiology Magazine 12) CAVE SLIME By Stephen Hart 13) NASA SPACE VETERAN LEADS UNDERSEA CREW NASA release 03-198 14) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 15) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 16) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 17) INTERNATIONAL CREW TO MAN FLASHLINE MARS ARCTIC STATION FOR 2003 SEASON Mars Society release 18) NASA'S "SPIRIT" RISES ON ITS WAY TO MARS NASA release 2003-084 19) WHERE'S SPIRIT RIGHT NOW? By Ron Baalke 20) MARS EXPLORATION ROVER SPIRIT MISSION STATUS NASA release 2003-085 21) SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller 22) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 23) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 24) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release ________________________________________________________________________ MARVIN THE MARTIAN AND DAFFY DUCK AS DUCK DODGERS PREPARE FOR UPCOMING NASA MISSIONS TO MARS Warner Bros. release 2 June 2003 [I realize that this isn't exactly astrobiology, but like many scientists, I'm a big fan of Marvin the Martian and Duck Dodgers. DJT]. Marvin the Martian and Daffy Duck (as the fearless Duck Dodgers) will be showcased on official 1st Space Launch Squadron patches for two NASA Mars Exploration Rover Missions this summer. The special patches will act as the defining logo and will be worn by Team Delta crews, comprising members from NASA, the United States Air Force, and Boeing. Additionally, they will be found in the mission control booth and at the Air Force 1SLS launch pad, and will be carried on mission control and launch pad crew suits, jackets and mugs. The Delta rockets will send the Mission Exploration Rover (MER) on special research operations to study the Red Planet, which the delightfully droll Marvin calls home. "Daffy Duck and Marvin the Martian struck us as such a perfect fit, capturing the fun and adventurous spirit of these important explorations, that we were delighted to be able to include them as honorary members of the team," said Captain David Krambeck of Team Delta. "Well said," added Daffy Duck, who plays the courageously cowardly Duck Dodgers on Cartoon Network's new original series from Warner Bros. Animation, debuting this summer. "And check out the spiffy outfits." Representatives from the Air Force working with Warner Bros. Consumer Products created the official patch designs for both the Mars-A and Mars-B missions, one patch featuring Marvin the Martian saluting the Mars Rover and the other, Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers posed proudly with the American flag. The first launch is scheduled for June 8th, and the second launch will be slated for June 25th. "It is exciting that our characters, which for so many years have been associated with space adventures in the animated world, should now have a chance to become part of a real and important space exploration," said Jordan Sollitto, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products. "We are thrilled about teaming up with NASA on these exciting missions and are looking forward to giving our characters the opportunity to touch down upon the Red Planet." "More accurately, the planet is an understated fiery umber," Marvin interjected. "I know." About Warner Bros. Consumer Products Warner Bros. Consumer Products, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, is one of the leading licensing and retail merchandising organizations in the world. Looney Tunes, characters, names and all related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Contact: Erin Snider Warner Bros. Consumer Products Phone: 818-954-3821 E-mail: erin.snider@warnerbros.com Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.marstoday.com/viewpr.html?pid=11681 http://store.yahoo.com/spacestore/mars1.html ________________________________________________________________________ GLOBAL GARDEN GETS GREENER By Rebecca Lindsey From NASA Earth Observatory 5 June 2003 Leaving aside for a moment the deforestation and other land cover changes that continue to accompany an ever-growing human population, the last two decades of the twentieth century were a good time to be a plant on planet Earth. In many parts of the global garden, the climate grew warmer, wetter, and sunnier, and despite a few El Niño-related setbacks, plants flourished for the most part. Numerous small-scale studies over the past twenty years suggested that patches of the garden were getting greener, but that trying to paint a global picture would be a monumental project. A team of eight scientists from across the country worked for almost a year and half to pull together satellite data on vegetation and ground- and satellite- based climate observations. Their results show us not only how vegetation productivity has changed during two of the warmest decades in the record books, but they also reveal which of the many factors that influence plant productivity have been most important in those changes. When scientists talk about productivity they are specifically talking about how much carbon ends up stored in the living biomass--roots, trunks, and leaves of plants—after they tally up carbon gains through photosynthesis and carbon losses through respiration. This tally of gains minus losses is called "net primary production." Scientists estimate net primary production by observing how leafy vegetation is and how much sunlight it is absorbing, both of which can be measured by satellite. Combined with climate data on rainfall, temperature, and available radiation, the satellite observations reveal where carbon intake increased—and biomass grew—across the globe. "Between 1982 and 1999, 25 percent of the Earth's vegetated area experienced increasing plant productivity—a total increase of about 6 percent," says Ramakrishna Nemani, the study's lead scientist. "That increase occurred mainly in the tropics, and secondarily in high northern latitudes. What's interesting about our results is that they show how the increase in each of these regions is due to a different climate factor. "In the tropics, Nemani and his colleagues discovered that the increase in productivity was caused by lack of clouds and increased Sun exposure, while in the northern latitudes, it was mainly due to increased temperatures and to a lesser extent, water availability. Increases in productivity are important in a practical sense, since plant biomass is the food and fuel for all animals--including humans--on the planet. It's also important in the way that everything related to carbon has become important in recent years. Scientists and environmental policy decision makers across the world want to know what is happening to all the carbon in the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere through fossil fuel and biomass burning, such as forest fires or firewood used as fuel. If carbon dioxide is "food" for plants, maybe more of it in the atmosphere caused plants to grow better. "Experiments conducted in places like the U.S and Europe, where scientists pumped extra amounts of carbon dioxide gas into forests, did seem to show that such 'carbon dioxide fertilization,' caused plants to grow better--up to a point," says Nemani. "But this didn't go on year after year. Most people agree that a doubling of carbon dioxide could increase plant growth between 0 and 25 percent depending on resource limitations such as soil nutrition. With the 9 percent increase in carbon dioxide that occurred between 1980 and 2000, even the upper limit cannot explain the productivity increases in Amazon." Clearly, carbon dioxide fertilization couldn't be solely responsible for the change; climate change must be playing a role as well. To reach these conclusions, Nemani, and colleagues from Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of Montana, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Boston University used global climate data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction to determine the relative importance for various locations of the three key variables that influence plant growth: temperature, water availability, and sunlight. They indexed areas based on which of those factors most limited plant growth across the Earth. Lack of sufficient water limits the growth of 40 percent of Earth's vegetation, temperature limits 33 percent, and lack of sufficient sunlight limits the remaining 27 percent. Of course, these factors overlap in some cases; for example, both cold winters and dry summers limit plant growth in the western U.S. After identifying key regulators of plant growth across the globe, Nemani and his colleagues then looked at how those climate conditions changed over the past two decades. They compared these changes to satellite-based maps of vegetation collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's series of AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensors. The digital satellite observations were processed and refined into maps by NASA's Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies project headed by Compton Tucker at Goddard Space Flight Center. It was the comparison of satellite-based vegetation and climate data that allowed them to pinpoint decreased cloudiness in the tropics as the main driver of increased productivity, something that hadn't been seriously considered before. The group of scientists who did this study have been working together off and on for many years. Nemani worked with University of Montana colleague Steve Running in 2001 on a study of whether good vintages could be scientifically tied to climate variation, and found that they could—even suggesting that good vintages might be predicted by observing sea surface temperatures off California and winter climate. Since the late 1990s, Ranga Myneni of Boston University has published a series of papers in collaboration with some of the same researchers on the impact of the last two decade's climate changes on Northern Hemisphere vegetation, describing how lack of snow cover and warmer temperatures are lengthening the Northern Hemisphere growing season by almost two weeks and increasing productivity. After all these years of working together, it was natural for them to pool their expertise and interests to "go global" with the study of climate and vegetation. Nemani says it would be nice if the next decade were as favorable for plants as the past two seem to have been. "Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing yet whether climate changes will continue to have a positive effect on vegetation productivity," he cautions. "India, for example, got a blessing from nature during the 1990s. For 100 years, there has been a strong relationship between El Niño and the monsoon season that brings rain to India and Southeast Asia; El Niñoo events interrupt the monsoon and create drought. In the 1990s, that relationship broke down, and the monsoon rains came despite a severe and persistent El Niño." As a result, while much of the globe saw a decrease in productivity during El Niño events, India was one of the places where productivity increased. Whether the region can count on such a lucky break this decade can't be predicted. That unpredictability means that in all likelihood, we shouldn't be dismissing our worries about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or congratulating ourselves on our green thumb just yet. "Humans claim about half of all the net primary production on Earth," says Myneni. "Productivity may have increased 6 percent in the last 18 years, but human population has increased by over 35 percent over that same time. One half of a 6 percent increase in the net productivity compared to a 35 percent increase in population means that these net primary productivity changes have not improved global habitability in any significant way." "This global study is a good foundation," concludes Nemani. "It helps us decide where on the globe we should look more closely at what is happening with Earth's vegetation. But as far as the whole carbon cycle goes, this is only part of the picture. We didn't look at how climate changes might have influenced other ecosystem processes that release carbon dioxide back into the global system." Warmer temperatures could increase the rate at which soil microbes decompose organic matter and release carbon dioxide. In the tropics, lack of cloud cover might temporarily increase productivity until the increased evaporation caused by all that extra sunlight makes water availability more important. Productivity could drop just as easily as it has risen. What this study does tell is that, so far, climate change is making the Earth's vegetation more productive, but the impact is small compared to how quickly the human population is growing. This knowledge could be a key piece of information for societies around the world as they cultivate the global garden through agriculture, natural resource management and environmental policy. Read the original article at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/GlobalGarden/. ________________________________________________________________________ LOCKHEED MARTIN TEAM RECEIVES $6 MILLION DESIGN STUDY CONTRACT FOR NASA'S JUPITER ICY MOONS ORBITER PROGRAM Lockheed Martin release 10 June 2003 NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded a Lockheed Martin team one of three $6 million concept design study contracts for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). JIMO would be the first outer planets mission to fly under NASA's Project Prometheus Program. Project Prometheus was established in 2003 as part of NASA's Nuclear Systems Initiative to develop technology and conduct advanced studies for space nuclear power and electric propulsion, for the peaceful exploration of the solar system. NASA's Office of Space Science's Nuclear Systems Initiative is planning to develop radioisotope space electric power sources for use where solar energy is too weak, as well as the new fission reactor power sources for much higher power requirements. Project Prometheus would demonstrate that a reactor could be operated safely and reliably in space for use by propulsion and other spacecraft systems to explore the solar system and return science that is otherwise unachievable. "We're extremely pleased to be participating in the JIMO program," said Jim Crocker, Lockheed Martin Space Systems vice president of civil space. "We believe that our long heritage implementing NASA deep space missions, and our leadership in the technologies that make them possible, will serve us well in moving this very exciting mission from the drawing board into space." The Lockheed Martin team brings decades of experience from across the country to the JIMO program, including its leading role in NASA's deep space science missions, leading the SP-100 space reactor development program, and being the only supplier of space radioisotope power conversion systems to NASA for more than 25 years. The design studies will evaluate many different technologies for the reactor, power conversion, electric propulsion, and other aspects of the JIMO spacecraft and follow-on missions. Once the technologies are selected, the studies will prepare conceptual design and development planning for the JIMO mission. NASA is planning to select an industry prime contractor in the August 2004 timeframe to develop, launch and operate the spacecraft. The abundant power available from the reactor would drive an electric propulsion system on JIMO, which is required to achieve the mission science objectives of orbiting the three icy moons of Jupiter -- Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa. NASA's previous mission designs to Jupiter's moons required gravity assists from planets, severe constraints of spacecraft and instrument power, and limited exploration of the moons during flybys. JIMO would maintain maximum flexibility in its launch opportunities, would observe each of the moons for long periods then move to the next, and would make unprecedented electrical power available to its instrument suite. To explore the universe and search for life is central to the mission of NASA. Jupiter's large icy moons appear to have three ingredients considered essential for life: water, energy, and the necessary chemical elements. As such, the JIMO mission has three top-level science goals: 1. Evaluate the potential for sustaining life on these moons. This would include determining whether the moons do indeed have subsurface oceans; mapping where organic compounds and other chemicals of biological interest lie on the surface; and determining the thicknesses of ice layers, with emphasis on locating potential future landing sites. 2. Investigate the origin and evolution of these moons. This would include determining their interior structures, surface features and surface compositions in order to interpret their evolutionary histories (geology, geochemistry, geophysics) and how this illuminates the understanding of the origin and evolution of the Earth. 3. Determine the radiation environments around these moons and the rates at which the moons are weathered by material hitting their surfaces. Callisto, Ganymede and Europa all orbit within the powerful magnetic environment that surrounds Jupiter. They display varying effects from the natural radiation, charged particles and dust within this environment. Understanding this environment has implications for understanding whether life could have arisen on these distant moons. NASA will choose the final suite of scientific instruments that would carry out the JIMO mission objectives through a competitive process open to proposals from scientists worldwide. Two highly probable ones are a radar instrument for mapping the thickness of surface ice and a laser instrument for mapping surface elevations. Others would likely include a camera, an infrared imager, a magnetometer, and instruments to study charged particles, atoms and dust that the spacecraft encounters near each moon. A generous electrical power supply available from the onboard nuclear system could run higher-powered instruments than have flown on other spacecraft and would boost the data-transmission rate back to Earth. To allow sufficient development and ground-testing time, the JIMO mission is not proposed for launch before the year 2011. A heavy lift expendable launch vehicle would lift the spacecraft into high Earth orbit. The ion-propulsion thrusters would spiral the spacecraft away from Earth and then on its trip to Jupiter. After entering orbit around Jupiter, the spacecraft would then orbit Callisto, then Ganymede, and finally Europa. The intensity of the radiation belts at Europa limits how long a spacecraft's electronics are able to operate in orbit around Europa, even with advances in radiation-resistant electronics that would be used on this mission. The instruments onboard the spacecraft would take uniform measurements, using the same complement of instruments, of all three moons. Special attention would be paid to identifying high- potential future landing sites. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company is one of the major operating units of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Space Systems designs, develops, tests, manufactures, and operates a variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil and commercial customers. Chief products include a full-range of space launch systems, including heavy-lift capability, ground systems, remote sensing and communications satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space observatories and interplanetary spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles and missile defense systems. Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin is a global enterprise principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, and integration of advanced-technology systems, products, and services. The Corporation's core businesses are systems integration, space, aeronautics, and technology services. Contact: Buddy Nelson Phone: 510-797-0349 E-mail: buddynelson@mac.com Read the original news release at http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/articles/061003_2.html. ________________________________________________________________________ RESEARCHERS PLAN REGULAR VISITS TO RUSSIA By Marc Ransford Ball State University release 10 June 2003 Until NASA can get its shuttle program flying again, Ball State University researchers will be making trips to Russia to continue studying the effects long space missions have on muscle tissue. With the halt of America's space shuttle program due to the Columbia explosion earlier this year, the only way to the International Space Station is on a Russian-launched Soyuz vehicle. So, Ball State's research team must now go to the Star City space flight complex outside of Moscow instead of NASA facilities in Houston. "It was a great opportunity to travel to Russia even though it took us flying nearly 24 hours just to get there," said Scott Trappe, director of Ball State's Human Performance Laboratory. "It was a pretty big event with a lot of people there, but we were among the first people to see the crew after they landed." Joining Trappe on the initial visit to Star City in early May were David Costill, the former HPL director who worked with NASA astronauts in 1996 on a similar project, and Philip Gallagher, an HPL researcher. They examined two Russian cosmonauts and American astronaut Ken Bowersox after a six-month stay on the space station. "All three were in good shape," Trappe said. "However, being up there for that long was very stressful on their bodies. One of the guys had to be carried into the examination room." Trappe's team is looking at how lengthy space flights erode muscle strength. For the past year, they have been testing astronauts and cosmonauts before and after four- to six-month stays aboard the space station. As part of the study, the researchers test muscle strength and take muscle biopsies to examine cellular changes in muscle function following long-term exposure to weightlessness. The information will allow researchers to learn how muscle adapts to space flight and to develop effective exercise programs to maintain muscle performance in space. The Ball State group will return to Moscow in late October when the current occupants of the International Space Station return via a Soyuz spacecraft. Astronaut Ed Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were launched into orbit April 25 instead of a three-man American crew delivered by a NASA space shuttle. The station will remain occupied by rotating two-man crews on Soyuz spacecraft until American shuttle flights resume. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iss-03s.html. ________________________________________________________________________ FIRST SOYBEANS GROWN IN SPACE SIMILAR TO EARTH-GROWN CROPS DuPont release 10 June 2003 In unprecedented space research, DuPont scientists have discovered that soybeans grown in space are similar to earth-grown crops--unleashing the ability to sustainably grow vegetation to support long-term human presence in space. Soybeans are one of the most consumed crops in the world today. During a DuPont research mission that concluded with the return of Space Shuttle Atlantis in October, soybean seeds planted and nurtured by DuPont scientists germinated, developed into plants, flowered, and produced new seedpods in space aboard the International Space Station. The 97-day growth research initiative was the first ever to complete a major crop growth cycle in space--from planting seeds to growing new seeds. With 83 space-grown soybean seeds on earth since October, DuPont conducted several analytical studies on the harvested seeds. The space- grown seeds were manually split--with one part of the seed sowed to grow and the other half grounded to examine its biological characteristics. The space-grown seeds and their subsequent plants were compared to a variety of independent earth-grown soybean seeds and plants. After several months of analysis, DuPont researchers discovered that the space-grown soybeans--when compared to earth-grown soybeans--were similar in physical and biological characteristics, developmental rate, morphology, and seed yields. Scientists, who will continue to monitor the initiative, noted the space-grown seeds were higher in sugar content, but lower in oil and amino acid content, presumably due to the higher carbon dioxide levels on the International Space Station. "This clearly demonstrates soybeans can be grown as a crop in space to provide both food and serve as an atmospheric scrubber for long-term space travel," said Dr. Tom Corbin, DuPont lead researcher on the initiative. "This project was a great success. When we started, we were unsure if the seeds would even remain planted in space without any gravity, let alone grow. As it turned out, the project was the first- ever to complete a major crop growth cycle in space--from planting seeds to growing new seeds. It was also the first major crop grown on the International Space Station. Studying the effects of soybean plants grown in space has expanded our knowledge of soybeans and facilitated continued improvement of soybean seeds for farmers." The soybeans returned to earth in October aboard the Atlantis. The prior June, DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., with the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR)--a NASA Commercial Space Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison--launched the soybean seed experiment on Space Shuttle Endeavour. As part of the research mission, Pioneer® brand soybean seeds grew in a specialized enclosed and environmentally controlled growth chamber developed by WCSAR. Pioneer and WCSAR scientists monitored the soybeans' growth daily and provided adjustments to facilitate growth. Through video monitoring and data telemetry sent from the International Space Station, scientists also examined the effects of zero-gravity and other elements in space regarding plant growth. According to the United Soybean Board, soybeans are the largest single source of protein meal and vegetable oil in the human diet. Domestically, soybeans provide 80 percent of the edible consumption of fats and oils in the United States. In 2000, 54 percent of the world's soybean trade originated from the United States with soybean and product exports totaling more than $6.6 billion. The world's largest seed company, Pioneer is also the brand leader in soybeans with more than 100 product varieties on the market. "This was an incredible scientific opportunity for us and our partners," Corbin said. "As a science company, we know that future research opportunities may come from totally different venues and needs as we look ahead. The discovery process often requires exploring unprecedented avenues to unleash the next wave of innovation, discovering new and meaningful innovation wherever it is." DuPont has a rich tradition of space exploration initiatives, dating to NASA's origination 33 years ago. For example, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, his spacesuit included 25 separate layers-- 23 of those layers were DuPont materials. In 1984, Pioneer corn seeds were on board a Challenger shuttle launch. The seeds, which were not planted while in space, were used in science-based initiatives after returning to Earth. WCSAR makes space available to industry in the interest of development and commercialization of new products and processes. It provides controlled environment technologies and facilities, plant genetic transformation technologies, enhanced biosynthesis technologies, as well as robotic and automated technologies. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., a subsidiary of DuPont, is the world's leading source of customized solutions for farmers, livestock producers and grain and oilseed processors. With headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, Pioneer provides access to advanced plant genetics, crop protection solutions and quality crop systems to customers in nearly 70 countries. DuPont is a science company. Founded in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by solving problems and creating solutions that make people's lives better, safer and easier. Operating in more than 70 countries, the company offers a wide range of products and services to markets including agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and protection, home and construction, transportation and apparel. Read the original news release at http://www1.dupont.com/NASApp/dupontglobal/corp/index.jsp?pf=Y&page=/con tent/US/en_US/news/releases/2003/nr06_10_03a.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/food-03c.html. ________________________________________________________________________ EVIDENCE FOR METEOR IN EARLY MASS EXTINCTION FOUND Lousiana State University release 11 June 2003 It's the stuff of science fiction movies: Bruce Willis, by a mighty effort, saving the world from extinction by a huge meteor. But Bruce Willis won't do it, and in our current state of readiness, neither will anyone else. That is why LSU geophysicist Brooks Ellwood is plumbing the geologic record, trying to correlate known mass extinctions to meteor strikes. "When we think about the human race and life in general, what do we worry about? We worry about nuclear holocaust and major glaciation. Then we worry about the giant chunks of rock that fly past Earth all the time," Ellwood said. "We can't see them till they're here, we can't stop one, so the question is, how often do they hit the Earth and cause major mass extinctions? Are extinctions often caused by impacts? If so, we want to be sure we are prepared." Ellwood and four other researchers have just published an article in the journal Science in which they tie an early mass extinction to a meteor strike. This extinction happened 380 million years ago in what is called the middle Devonian. It was a time when only small plants, wingless insects and spiders inhabited the land and everything else lived in the sea. About 40 percent of all species disappeared from the fossil record at this time. The extinction has been known to geologists for a long time but this is the first time it has been tied to a meteor strike. This is also the oldest known impact that has been tied to a mass extinction. Ellwood is quick to point out that because the extinction and the meteor strike happened at the same time does not prove the impact caused the extinction -- but it certainly suggests it. One of the great difficulties in determining whether an extinction happened on a global scale, or was a local event caused by a volcano or some other terrestrial force, is identifying the same strata of rock at different locations on the globe. Finding a layer of earth in Colorado, for example, and finding that same layer in Australia is no simple task. "The same layer of earth is exposed to different conditions in different parts of the world," Ellwood said. "Weathering, upheavals, volcanos, earthquakes and flooding all confuse the geologic record, making it incomplete and open to interpretation." The layers can also be extremely thin, he said, showing a picture of the location of his latest research. The layer he was looking at--near the top of a barren plateau in the Anti Atlas desert near Rissani in Morocco--was about the thickness of a felt-tipped marker and only distinguishable from the soil around it by its reddish color. What is unique about Ellwood's work, however, is the means he uses to identify the different layers in the geologic record: induced magnetism. "Everything is magnetic," he said. "If I put your finger in a magnetic coil and turn it on, your finger will be magnetized." Ellwood uses this phenomenon to take "magnetic signatures" of geologic samples. The magnetic signature of a layer of earth will be the same anywhere in the world, making it relatively easy to identify strata, if they can be found. These signatures also make it easy to identify meteor strikes. "The magnetic pattern associated with an impact layer is often distinctive, making it easier to find in a thick sequence of strata," he said. Working with LSU graduate students Steve Benoist and Chris Wheeler; structural geologist Ahmed El Hassani of the University of Rabat, Morocco; and Devonian biostratigrapher Rex Crick of the University of Texas at Arlington, Ellwood was able to find high concentrations of shocked quartz, microscopic spherules and microcrysts in this layer, sure signs of a meteor impact. Benoist is a paleontologist and Wheeler is an isotope geochemist; both have since moved on. The past 550 million years are divided up by geologists into about 90 "stages." Each stage is distinguished from another by a change in the fossil record. To date, only four of these stages show strong evidence of a meteor strike, Ellwood's discovery being the latest, as well as the oldest. The most recent, best known extinction is the K-T boundary at which the dinosaurs died out, about 65 million years ago. There have been five major mass extinctions and many smaller ones since then. "We know that meteors have struck the Earth hundreds of times," Ellwood said. "If I had to guess, I would say that once every 5 million years a meteor big enough to cause a mass extinction hits the Earth. "We could protect ourselves if we wanted. We went to the moon, we can figure out how to destroy or deflect a meteor. All it takes is the political will--and an awareness of the threat." The work of Ellwood and his team is a step in that direction. Contact: Ronald Brown LSU Media Relations Phone: 225-578-3867 Read the original press release at http://appl003.lsu.edu/unv002.nsf/9faf000d8eb58d4986256abe00720a51/fe4ed 1a5901f7ba086256d42006edcaf An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/science/13METE.html. ________________________________________________________________________ SHINING LIGHT ON LIFE'S ORIGIN By Leslie Mullen From Astrobiology Magazine 11 June 2003 Doctors urge us to wear sunscreen and try to stay out of the sun. The sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays damage our skin and are a leading cause of skin cancer. UV light has been just as shunned in theories on the origin of life. The early Earth did not have an ozone layer, so UV radiation would have been 100 times today's levels. It is generally believed that the delicate molecules of life's beginning would have deteriorated under this light intensity. Many scientists say that life's origin most likely occurred in places sheltered from UV light, such as the hydrothermal vents deep under the sea. But a new study, published in BioMed Central journal Evolutionary Biology, says rather than hinder the origin of life, UV rays helped and may even have been a necessary ingredient for life's formation. Armen Mulkidjanian, with his colleagues from Osnabrück University, Germany and the National Institutes of Health, USA, used computer models to test RNA's ability to form from sugar, phosphates, and nitrogenous bases in the presence of high levels of UV light. While the researchers acknowledge that UV can be damaging to RNA, they discovered that some parts of the molecule act as a protective shield for other parts. The nitrogenous bases absorb and disperse UV radiation, protecting the RNA's pentose-phosphate backbone. "Apparently, the backbones of DNA and RNA can be rescued by the partial "victimization" of the nitrogenous bases," the scientists write. "One can assume that these bases had been selected to perform the UV- protecting function before they became involved in the maintenance and transfer of genetic information." Since double strands provide more UV protection to the RNA backbone than single-strands, the scientists suggest that base-pairing may have originated as a trait to provide greater UV protection. Only later did these bases evolve to perform their current functions. In the computer simulation, the stability of RNA under UV radiation gave the molecules a selective advantage, allowing the number of RNA molecules to increase under natural selection. "In the UV-illuminated primordial world, the probability of a UV- breakage was more than real for any compound," the scientists write. "Those that succeeded to bind a UV-quencher got a selective advantage." RNA is thought to be one of the most important molecules in the origin of life on Earth. The discovery of ribozymes led to the "RNA world" theory, in which RNA both stored genetic information and catalyzed its own replication. This presumably led to the contemporary DNA and protein world, where DNA acts as genetic storage and proteins are needed to catalyze replication. "I believe that UV radiation has often gotten a "bad rap" in the origins community, which has led many researchers to dismiss its importance," says William Hagan, an associate scientist with the New York Center for Studies on the Origin of Life. Hagan says we should recognize ultraviolet light as not only an incinerator of the organic precursors of life, but also as a fuel for creating those same materials. UV's simultaneous destructive and creative properties seem to create a paradox, but Hagan says the solution is to identify protected environments on the early Earth where the higher-energy "bad" rays were dispersed through seawater or minerals. Charles Darwin thought that life could have originated "in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, electricity, etc. present." Researchers have reflected upon Darwin's sunlit shallow pool ever since. John Desmond Bernal, for instance, said that life could have begun in tidal regions, where molecules faced alternating wet and dry periods. The wet period would dissolve chemicals and allow them to react with each other, while the dry periods would allow the chemicals to condense, spurring further reactions. Yet the danger of UV damage prompted other scientists to suggest that a protective water layer would be necessary. Such an environment, however, would eliminate the possibility of the condensation reactions. But if Mulkidjanian's study is correct, then the UV exposure of tidal regions would not prevent the origin of an RNA world. Hagan says that he, too, favors surface environments like the tidal lagoons for the origin of life. He thinks that while hydrothermal vents may have contributed to the concentration of organic chemicals, the sun provided a more widespread and intense energy source. "I just don't think that we can ignore the tremendous power of solar energy as the most abundant fuel on the early Earth," Says Hagan. What's next? Mulkidjanian and his colleagues suggest that their hypothesis could be tested further. A reactor system could be set up to enable nucleotides to form from simpler molecules under conditions of UV-irradiation, with aluminosilicate clays added to catalyze the nucleotide formation. "If confirmed by experiment, this would provide an exciting new role for UV light in the selective formation of biopolymers," says Hagan. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article492.html. ________________________________________________________________________ PREPARING FOR CONTACT: LESSONS FROM THE PAST By Douglas Vakoch From Space.com 11 June 2003 Among scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), it's quite common to be focused on the future, ever mindful that it could take years, or even decades, to find a signal from otherworldly intelligence. But if historian Steve Dick has his way, astronomers will also turn their attention toward the past as they search for life beyond Earth. "I am a firm believer that history should inform our present actions, that we should learn from our past to help us make good decisions for the future," says Dick, author of Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate. "You've heard the saying that those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it; ...without prior preparation based in part on history, we could make big mistakes with big consequences." Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_vakoch_history_030612.html. ________________________________________________________________________ CHARLES TOWNES: THE NOBEL LAUREATE WHO "FATHERED" OPTICAL SETI By Diane Richards From Space.com 13 June 2003 Father's Day came one week early to the SETI community this year as Dr. Frank Drake, "father" of modern SETI, presented an award bearing his name to Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel laureate, inventor of the laser, and "father" of optical SETI. Addressing a crowd of astronomers, astrophysicists, students, and SETI Institute friends, Townes reflected upon the challenges and joys of bringing new ideas into the world, and offered sage advice for the current generation reaping the benefits of his visionary ideas. As he accepted the 2002 Frank Drake Award for Innovation in SETI and Life in the Universe Research, Townes--who also recently accepted a seat on the Institute's Board of Trustees--spoke on themes that are strongly resonant for SETI researchers: taking chances, strength in conviction, and the pursuit of a passion. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/charles_townes_030613.html. ________________________________________________________________________ PREPARING A HUMAN MISSION TO MARS VIA ANTARCTICA AND TOULOUSE ESA release 13 June 2003 A human mission to Mars may still be some time away, but scientists are already aware of the many hazards that must be overcome if the dream is to become a reality. One particular cause for concern is the potential for physiological and psychological problems that could arise from the conditions of weightlessness, isolation and confinement experienced during a journey that could last six months or more. To address these concerns ESA, in cooperation with the French space agency CNES, NASA and two Antarctic research organizations, is seeking proposals from scientists wishing to participate in two pioneering ground-based studies to simulate some of the side effects of extended periods of space flight. Concordia The first of these Research Announcements is for opportunities to conduct medical, physiological and psychological research at the Concordia station, a new scientific base that is being built in Antarctica by IPEV--the French Polar Institute, and PNRA--the Italian Antarctic Programme. Although proposals put forward under this Research Announcement may or may not be relevant to space exploration, the space agencies recognize that Concordia's unique environment will be invaluable for preparatory activities related to future human Mars missions. "As one of the most isolated places on Earth, Concordia will provide an excellent analogue environment to replicate aspects of a mission to Mars," said study leader Oliver Angerer. "For eight to nine months of the year the base will be completely cut off, so the occupants will have to learn to be fully autonomous." From the selected proposals, an integrated research program will be created with a start date in spring 2006. The program will be aimed at increasing knowledge of human adaptability to extreme environments-- isolation, confinement, climate, altitude--and improving medical care in isolated locations. International long-term bed rest study In the second Research Announcement, ESA and the French Space Agency CNES are collaborating with NASA to solicit research proposals to address two of the cornerstones of the European Programme for Life and Physical Sciences and Applications utilizing the International Space Station (ELIPS). These are: * Muscle and bone physiology: the effects of changes of load on muscles and bone mass. * Integrated physiology: the understanding of blood pressure and heart regulation. Transatlantic cooperation for this effort is welcome and NASA has issued an equivalent Research Announcement specifically for US investigators. As opportunities for investigating human physiology in orbit are very limited, it is planned to simulate the effects of long-term microgravity on the ground by studying the human body's response to head-down tilt bed rest over a period of 60-90 days. The study, which will take place at a specialized French bed rest facility of the Institute for Space Medicine (MEDES) in Toulouse, will also evaluate preventative strategies and countermeasures to combat the associated adverse effects. Male astronauts and volunteers predominated during previous studies in simulated and real microgravity, so the planned study for 2004/05 will investigate about 25 female volunteers (intervention groups and control group) and, if scientifically justified, a male control group consisting of about seven volunteers. This should reveal the differences and similarities in the response of the female and male physiology to musculoskeletal unloading. "Essential driving factors behind the two research studies are oriented towards both application and exploration," explained study leader Peter Jost. "In this way, the results will benefit the ESA Life Sciences Programme, with important spin-offs for medical science. Ultimately, advanced strategies will be developed to further improve health and safety during long-term stays on the International Space Station, and to facilitate a human mission to Mars." Further information More information on the two Research Announcements can be found at http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/bedrest and http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/concordia. The closing date for proposals is 11 August 2003. Contacts: Concordia study Dr. Oliver Angerer Human Exploration Science Coordinator ISS Utilisation and Promotion Division Directorate of Human Spaceflight European Space Agency Noordwijk, The Netherlands Phone: +31 (71) 565 3728 E-mail: concordia@esa.int Bed rest study Dr. Peter D. Jost Life Sciences Medical Doctor ISS Utilisation and Promotion Division Directorate of Human Spaceflight European Space Agency Noordwijk, The Netherlands Phone: +31 (71) 565 6612 E-mail: bedrest@esa.int Read the original news release at http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMOS4T1VED_index_0.html. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS: HISTORY OF ANTACIDS From Astrobiology Magazine 14 June 2003 The milestone launch of NASA's latest Mars mission--called Spirit-- provides the impetus to revisit the remarkable journey of the earliest martian missions. Excerpts from the lively debates that took place prior to the 1976 Viking missions give immediacy and perspective on both the rewards and challenges that the Red Planet offers. In this and forthcoming issues, Astrobiology Magazine is pleased to commemorate the descriptions offered in the words of then mission contemporaries. NASA historians have compiled these notes in their five-hundred page edition of On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958-1978 (NASA HQ SP-4212). The problems list Project Manager Jim Martin began the Viking Top Ten Problems list in the spring of 1970 to give visibility to problems that could possibly affect the launch dates. Viking project directive #7, issued 4 October 1971, codified the concept: "It is the policy of the Viking Project Office that major problems will be clearly identified and immediately receive special management attention by the establishment of Top Ten problems list." To qualify for this dubious distinction, the problem had to be one that seriously affected "the successful attainment of established scientific and/or technical requirements, and/or the meeting of critical project milestones, and/or the compliance with project fiscal constraints." Anyone associated with the Viking project could identify a potential priority problem by defining the exact nature of the difficulty and forming a plan and schedule for solving it. When Martin made an addition to his list, a person in the appropriate organization was charged with solving the problem, and someone in the Viking Project Office monitored his progress. Weekly status reports were datafaxed from the field to Langley. At Martin Marietta, William G. Purdy, vice president and general manager of the Denver Division-through Albert J. Kullas, and later, Walter Lowrie, his project directors-sent weekly status bulletins on the lander's top problems, since that system seemed to have the greatest number of difficult components and subsystems. In the spring of 1972, Martin told Cortright he hoped the supervisors of employees who had one of their tasks assigned to the top 10 list would not be penalized. Martin, not wanting a stigma attached to identification of a problem, was concerned that at Martin Marietta assignment of a problem might "automatically be considered as a mark of poor performance" when promotions or raises were given. Generally, the nature of the crucial problems was so complex that punishing one individual would not solve the problem. As with the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer and the biology instrument, the novelty of the technological task was often the source of the trouble. Some problems seemed to stay on the manager's worry list forever. Others made repeat performances. The first flight-model computer was delivered to Martin Marietta in April 1974, nine months late according to the original schedule. Faith, testing fate Continuous monitoring of the subcontractor's troubles was rewarded, however, in late 1974 when the computers were finally ready for delivery. On 15 January, Jim Martin received the following message from Walt Lowrie at Martin Marietta. "Oh ye of little faith--we gave birth to the last computer today, I don't know how you feel on the subject but it would appear to me that this top ten has now died of old age. Seriously--although the path has been extremely tortuous I really feel we now have an excellent computer on Viking." Martin removed the lander computer from his list of major problems. Thus it went, step by step-problems identified and then solved. At this stage in Viking's existence, there was very little glamour, just long hours, hard work, and an occasional antacid. Deorbit-entry-landing thermal simulation tests, conducted on a component level, duplicated the effects of entering the martian atmosphere-- pressure increase, entry heating, and the post-landing cooldown. Components were placed in the vacuum test chamber at 1/760 of an Earth atmosphere, heated to a temperature of 149°C, and held there for 530 seconds. Chamber pressure was then raised to 5/760 of an Earth atmosphere with cooled nitrogen gas, to provide an atmospheric temperature of -101°C. In this manner, the lander's passage through the martian atmosphere with the attendant heating and cooling was duplicated. The change of 250°C represented the wide range of temperatures that the lander would be exposed to on Mars. Such extremes were part of the reason the engineering of the lander had been such a complicated task. For all components, the most critical period would be the 15 to 20 minutes after landing, since by that time all equipment would be operating and the entry heat buildup would not have had time to dissipate. Lightning strikes twice In consultation with the Science Steering Group, the test engineers chose argon for the chamber atmosphere during the cold extreme, because preliminary data from the Soviet Mars probes had indicated that as much as 30 percent of the planet's atmosphere might be composed of this rare gas. Since argon promotes electrical corona and arcing in electronic components, the test teams were to determine whether there would be any adverse effects on lander subassemblies if the concentration of argon was that high. Whereas the mass spectrometer went through the end-to-end functional and operational exercise, the biology instrument did not. The biology instruments were delivered too late for proper testing. By the time the hardware became available, limited time, money, and manpower argued against the thorough test. Martin told Klein: "We have neither the dollars to extend the test nor the people to analyze the data." Other aspects of the biologists' plans for testing were likewise impossible. "...your request for lander/biology tests with transmitters/antennae in real operational modes is also difficult to accommodate. As you know, this test would require use of an anechoic chamber (very expensive) or moving the entire lander to an outdoor location to avoid RF reflections (also expensive). We made a fundamental decision in 1973/1974 that the lander [electromagnetic compatibility] test program had to proceed without a real biology instrument because such an instrument did not exist until much too late. Instead, we have relied upon the positive results of a rigorous EMC test on the instrument at TRW. In today's dollar limited environment, the dollars to plan, set up, and conduct another radiated EMC test for biology are prohibitive. We must rely on analysis and instrument level test experience." To questions about the adequacy of the functional testing of the hardware on the proof-test capsule lander in Martin Marietta's thermal vacuum chamber and the biological operation of the experiments, Cal Broome told Martin on 30 June 1975, less than two months before liftoff. "The current planning assumes that the testing already accomplished is adequate, i.e., the combination of Biology [performance verification] at the lander level (instrument 103) and soil biology at the instrument level (instrument 102 and 103) is adequate to provide assurance of proper operation on Mars." The minimum time required for an entire end-to-end electrical and pneumatic checkout of a biology instrument was one month on a round-the- clock schedule. Only abbreviated functional tests could be performed. Viking lander capsule l arrived at the Cape on 4 January 1975, and engineers made a detailed inspection and subjected the capsule and lander to a series of verification tests, which included compatibility checks between the S-band radios and the Deep Space Network. Up to this point, the flight lander and orbiter had never been physically or electrically in direct contact, having been assembled over 1600 kilometers apart. A lightning bolt that struck the Explosive Safe Area Building caused momentary excitement. Electrical charges from the strike induced currents that damaged two pressure transducers on the orbiter propulsion module S/N-005. After a quick review, the Viking managers decided not to fly this unit. Viking orbiter l, and Viking lander capsule 1 were mated for the first time on 8 March. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article495.html. ________________________________________________________________________ CAVE SLIME By Stephen Hart From Astrobiology Magazine 16 June 2003 Cold, slimy and pitch dark. Just add some acid and you'll make Diana Northup and Penny Boston happy. Northup, Boston and their colleagues-- the self-named slime team--study cave-dwelling microbes. In some cases the bacterial growth is so abundant the walls drip slime. What's making this mucus-like substance? "The snot? The bacteria are making sort of a biofilm in which they exist," says Northup, a microbiologist, librarian and avid caver at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Caves provide one of the most constant of environments; the temperature and humidity remain the same. But in some caves, hydrogen sulfide combines with oxygen to produce sulfuric acid. Some bacteria add their own acid as a waste product. To protect themselves, bacteria produce their own microenvironment within the slimy biofilm. "It acts as a place for them to conduct their own little chemistry labs, so to speak, regardless of what is going on outside of the film," says Boston, a microbiologist at New Mexico Tech, in Socorro. "We protect ourselves (sometimes ineffectually) against the byproducts of our metabolism, everything from simple waste products like feces to the toxic substances resulting from our industrial efforts," Boston says. "In essence, the bacteria are doing the same thing." While the acid-producing bacteria appear to etch away the limestone of caves--helping to produce the soft, crumbly stone cavers call punk rock- -some cave bacteria create crystals, actually producing new rock, much like dripping water deposits limestone stalactites. If the colony is growing on the underside of a ledge or on a roof, they build a slimy projection the team calls a snottite. The mineral portion of a snottite carries a bacterial signature in its crystal formation, so a snottite sample from Mars, say, could be distinguished from a small stalactite. Walls dripping with slime may seem like a scene from a horror movie to some, but not to Northup. Vast colonies of bacteria coat the walls of some Hawaiian lava tubes, Northup says. "They're really cool because when you shine your light on them at certain times of the year it looks like somebody has silvered the walls. It's just breathtakingly gorgeous. It's so thick, I saw where people had written their names in the slime." Other caves, such as Lechuguilla in New Mexico--the deepest cave in the continental United States and a favorite of the slime team--may appear nearly devoid of life, Northup says. "In a cave like Lechuguilla, if you didn't know from microscopy that there were microbes there, you would never guess it. The only place you see them is a place called Pink-Dot Pool, where there are actually colonies of bacteria floating. Whether that's a matter of contamination or not, we don't know," Northup says. Nonetheless, both bacteria and archaea call Lechuguilla home, many using gasses as sources of energy: hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, for example. Northup extracts and sequences DNA from bacteria in the several caves the team studies. In some cases, the bacteria represent new species. But even in the age of desktop DNA analysis, if the researchers want to learn how the bacteria eke out a living, they still need to grow them in the lab--not always an easy chore. "DNA analysis provides no information on the metabolism, physiology, ecology, biochemistry, or geomicrobiology of a strain, Boston says. "It cannot reveal the amazing chemical and mineralogical talents of organisms. Only growing them in the laboratory and hoping to induce them to perform feats of bacterial derring-do reveal those processes." So Boston cooks up new recipes for growing the bacteria in the lab, all the while maintaining the constant temperature and humidity of the original cave. The process should begin, the team found, even before they bring the bacteria out of the cave. Larry Mallory, of Biomes, Inc., a pharmaceutical company formed to search for novel drugs made by cave microbes, discovered that starting the bacterial culture in the cave produces better yields of difficult-to-grow species. "The results are consistently better by using their natural cave environment as their first 'incubator,'" Boston says. In Lechuguilla, the team has kept bacteria growing in cultures in the cave for almost a year. Furthermore, they have begun growing bacteria on faux cave rock, and even glass slides, hoping to bring out even richer bacterial samples. Caves on Mars Boston sees caves as more than just another extreme environment. "We have thought about what the life might look like on the surface [of other worlds], but in light of the huge biodiversity of microorganisms in the subsurface of Earth, the subsurface in general and caves in particular will be an important place to look for life on other bodies. I believe that there may be many planets, including Mars, where the only life on the planet will be restricted to the subsurface." As the team finds out more about how cave microbes thrive in the extreme environment of earthly caves, they'll learn more about what chemical and crystalline signs to look for in what may be the normal environment of other planets. What's next? Northup is extracting DNA from bacteria collected by Boston in a cave with such a high carbon dioxide in the air that cavers need special breathing equipment. "We think we'll probably turn up some really interesting bugs there," she says. The team plans to continue exploring known caves and to search for caves with unique environments. Each environmental extremity offers new challenges to microbes living there and therefore new challenges in growing those microbes in the lab. But the effort may pay off in new clues to look for in the search for life on other planets. Cave microbe research wouldn't be complete without a space mission, and Boston has one in the works. "The experiment was originally scheduled for the Space Shuttle this summer," she says. With the shuttle fleet grounded, Boston's experiment will instead ride to the Space Station aboard an unmanned Russian Progress vehicle. Boston will grow a bacterial strain that produces unique mineral crystals in the microgravity of near-earth orbit. "Because microgravity is known to affect the growth of crystals," she says, "we hope to gain insight into the fundamental crystal-producing mechanisms of our organisms." "In the meantime, Boston says, "we are plowing through laboratory analyses of samples from previous trips. For every hour in the field, you can figure on about 100 hours of lab followup or more, so we are always behind!" Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article497.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA SPACE VETERAN LEADS UNDERSEA CREW NASA release 03-198 16 June 2003 For the first time, an astronaut with months of experience in space will compare that time to life underwater. Peggy Whitson, an International Space Station veteran, is commanding a NASA crew spending two weeks living on the ocean floor. Whitson, who called the Space Station home for six months last year, is joined by astronauts Clay Anderson and Garret Reisman and scientist Emma Hwang for a NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission June 16-29. The quartet will serve as the NASA members of a crew living in the Aquarius Underwater Research Facility off the coast of Key Largo, FL in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. "NEEMO 5, our next-generation mission, goes beyond the bounds of space analog experience and will attempt to answer several significant scientific questions about long duration isolation in extreme environments," said Bill Todd, NEEMO project manager at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston. "We have ratcheted up the isolation factor, complexity and science objectives to a level that closely parallels a space mission experience. And the science we are performing may very well help answer several critical path questions on our road map for journeying to Mars and beyond," Todd said. NEEMO missions are a cooperative project of NASA, the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Undersea Research Center, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNC-W). Aquarius, the only undersea research laboratory in the world, owned by NOAA and managed by UNC-W, is similar in size to the Space Station's living quarters, the Zvezda Service Module. The crew will use the undersea habitat as practice for long-duration space habitation and to build undersea structures simulating Space Station assembly activities. They will also conduct scientific research on the human body and coral reef environments. The 45-foot long by 13-foot diameter underwater laboratory operates three miles off Key Largo. It sits on the ocean floor, about 62 feet beneath the surface, near deep coral reefs. A surface life support buoy provides Aquarius with power, air, and communications, allowing scientists to live and work in reasonably comfortable quarters, and a shore-based "mission control" in Florida and a control room at JSC monitor crew activities. The aquanauts plan to discuss their mission with the crew of the International Space Station, Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA Station Science Officer Ed Lu, during a ship-to-ship linkup tentatively planned for 12:25 PM EDT on June 25. An opportunity for media to interview the crew of NEEMO 5 is available from 6:30 to 7:30 AM EDT, June 25. A second opportunity is available June 26 from 3:00 to 4:00 PM EDT. Media interested in conducting audio or video interviews with the crew should contact the JSC Newsroom at: 281-483-5111 no later than noon EDT, Tuesday, June 24. The NEEMO 5 crew will also participate in six educational "point-to- point" videoconferences and a Web chat during the mission. Students in Titonka, IA; Jersey City, NJ; Omaha, NE; Nashville, TN; Charlotte, NC; Honolulu, HI; Milford, MA; Austin, TX; and Seattle, WA will participate in various educational events. The Web chat, a cooperative effort of JSC's Distance Learning Outpost and NASA's Ames Research Center Quest project, is at 2:30 PM EDT, June 19. Information about the Web chat is available on the Internet, at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/projects/space/aquarius/2003/june.html. For information about NASA on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov. For information about the NEEMO project on the Internet, visit http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/training/neemo/neemo5.html. For information about Aquarius on the Internet, visit http://www.uncwil.edu/nurc/aquarius/. Contacts: Melissa Motichek NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1272 Kelly Humphries NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX Phone: 281-483-5111 Jana Goldman National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration Phone: 301-713-2483 ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 16 June 2003 Terrestrial extreme environments articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles2. html S. Hart, 2003. Cave slime. Astrobiology Magazine. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles3. html DuPont, 2003. First soybeans grown in space similar to Earth-grown crops. SpaceDaily. M. Ransford, 2003. Researchers to study effects long space missions have on muscles. SpaceDaily. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles4. html D. Richards, 2003. Charles Townes: the Nobel laureate who "fathered" optical SETI. Space.com. D. Vakoch, 2003. Preparing for contact: lessons from the past. Space.com. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_articles5. html L. Mullen, 2003. Shining light on life's origin. Astrobiology Magazine. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTINUING COVERAGE OF THE COLUMBIA DISASTER By David J. Thomas 16 June 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.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_redesign_030610.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_fl_030611.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_caib_030612.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_statement_030614.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_trust_030616.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030607120230.4jrtm477.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030614161154.tmmdd53y.html http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/030613225648.0j96i9st.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03u.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03v.html http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=1&u=/ap/2 0030612/ap_on_sc/shuttle_investigation http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/2 0030611/ap_on_sc/shuttle_o_keefe ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 5-11 June 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Monday, June 11. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm. On-board activities this week included Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High Frequency Receiver calibrations, uplink of the Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) Ka-band Exciter and Ka-band Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier power-off that will execute this Friday, uplink and execution of the Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) flight software checkout and data policing overlay, uplink of CIRS Instrument Expanded Blocks (IEB) to the SSR, and uplink and execution of an Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph SSR IEB Library Test. Additional activities included uplink of commands to deregister a program residing on the sequencing region followed by a CDS memory readout, deregistering of the Mission Sequence Subsystem (MSS) D8.0 on board modules, and clearing of the ACS high water marks. The sequence development process for C38 concluded this week. Last week the "D" version of the C38 background sequence was approved for uplink. A command approval meeting was held this week for an RPWS IEB load to the SSR, the MSS D9.0 modules, and the C38 background sequence. All three files were subsequently uplinked to the spacecraft. C38 begins execution on Saturday June 14. A Subsequence Generation (SSG) Sequence Change Request (SCR) approval meeting was held as part of the S14 Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP) Verification and Validation (V&V). SCRs received by the deadline were dispositioned. In addition, detailed subsequences were submitted by all participating teams, comments submitted on the delivered subsequence, closure provided for assigned Science Planning Liens and Actions Table items, and IEBs submitted that will be sent in the background sequence along with any necessary trigger Immediate/Delayed Action Programs. The second SSUP V&V status meeting was also held this week. Agenda items included a review of last week's comments/questionnaire responses and the past week's work for SSUP V&V, including the SCR meeting and process, subsequence inputs, upcoming IEB submission, and process. Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory personnel are investigating the impact of the lack of CDS channelized housekeeping data. This change in available data policing information will result in either a software redesign, or less information relayed to the Science Teams, or both. The task to identify instrument noise events in time is now looking at Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) operations. A dialog was begun with VIMS team members to define the timing of shutter and mirror movements during the various operational modes. RSS personnel are preparing to support the descoped activities for Solar Conjunction Experiment #2 beginning 15 June. A test pass will be performed at Goldstone on 12 June. Cosmic Dust Analyzer pointing strategies during both observation periods and downlinks, and DSN weekly maintenance, what it is, what it's trying to prevent, why it needs to be every week, followed by some discussion of its effect on Cassini tracks during tour were covered at this week's Mission Planning Forum. Volume 104, Issue 1-4e of the Space Science Reviews publication is devoted to 16 papers on Cassini and the Huygens Probe. Space Science Reviews is an international journal containing invited review papers on space science, defined for this purpose as scientific research carried out by means of rockets, rocket propelled vehicles, and partly also by stratospheric balloons and at observatories on Earth or the moon. The journal is principally concerned with the purely scientific aspects of the subject, but instrumental and technical aspects also receive attention. June 11th marked Cassini's flyby of Saturn's satellite Phoebe one year from now. The Phoebe flyby occurs less than 1 month before Saturn orbit insertion on July 1, 2004. The "Cassini at Saturn" section of the web site will begin to be populated in the coming weeks. The first segment, Phoebe flyby, will be posted soon. A detailed tour encounter summary and science goals for each rev will be posted during the summer months. The initial number of planetariums and museums that have requested a copy of "Ring World", the Cassini planetarium show, currently total 178 in the US, over 300 in Japan, and 5 others world wide. It is expected that this number will grow quickly after museum activity related to Mars opposition passes. It is also expected that requests for the DVD version will far outstrip the show kits. DVDs will be available in October to schools, speaker groups, Girls Scouts, 4H, Space Place, Solar System Ambassadors etc. 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, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. ________________________________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL CREW TO MAN FLASHLINE MARS ARCTIC STATION FOR 2003 SEASON Mars Society release 16 June 2003 The 2003 crew for the Flashline Mars Arctic Station has been chosen. The Mars Society announces that the upcoming four-week rotation at FMARS is the longest to date. At the site on Devon Island, the members of Crew 8 will simulate a long-term research mission to the planet Mars, studying the region around the Houghton Crater and living at the analog space station there. This year's Flashline crew is made up of the following members, some of whom have previously served at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah. Crew Commander and Chief Biologist Steve McDaniel is an attorney and entrepreneur out of Austin, Texas, with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University and a J.D. degree from the University of Houston. His law firm specializes in intellectual property litigation. He served on two MDRS missions as biologist and engineer. His scientific interests revolve around technology involving enzymes capable of detoxifying certain types of neurotoxic compounds found in soil bacteria. He hopes to replicate in the arctic environment the successful biological mission he and others developed during his previous MDRS rotations. Steve's personal interests include martian studies and boating. Jody Tinsley, who will serve as crew geologist and Executive Officer, is a veteran of MDRS Crew 15. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.S. in Hydrogeology from Clemson University, in Clemson, South Carolina, where he is currently a lecturer in Geology. Having previously spent six weeks on Ellesmere Island doing geological research, he brings Arctic experience to Flashline. He is interested in the interplay between science and society, passive solar design and alternative energy systems, and long-distance canoe trips. His interest in rivers led him to co-edit the American Canoe Association's River Safety Anthology. Jan Osburg is a German-born aerospace engineer specializing in manned spaceflight systems and interdisciplinary design methodologies. While working on his doctoral degree, he ran international workshops on space station design at the University of Stuttgart. He holds an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, where he studied probabilistic design methodologies and worked on the conceptual design of supersonic passenger aircraft. On this crew, he will be the Safety and Security Officer as well as the radio communications system engineer. Additionally, he will perform Human Factors and atmospheric science research. Veteran of MDRS and president of the Georgia chapter of the Mars Society, he resides in Columbus, Georgia, with his wife and daughter. Australian-born Digby Tarvin is a software engineer specializing in real-time and embedded control systems and operating systems. He holds a Computer Science degree from the University of New South Wales in Sydney and is now studying for a degree in Physics, Astronomy and Planetary Science at the Open University in the UK. He has worked on projects from Australian submarines to Russian steel mills and Korean broadcast systems and has spent several years at the University of New South Wales, where he taught operating systems and computer organization and design. He holds both Australian and UK citizenship and currently runs a software consultancy in the UK. He enjoys skiing and other adventure sports, travel, and reading. April Childress is an Instructor of English at Greenville Technical College in Greenville, South Carolina. She holds an M.A. degree in English from the University of Arkansas and was the journalist on Crew 15 at MDRS, where she continued to teach her classes through the internet; as Communications Officer at FMARS, she will record the day- to-day lives of the crew and create an archive of the mission. When not in sim, April and her husband and fellow crew member Jody Tinsley live in the upstate region of South Carolina, where they enjoy listening to the Atlanta Braves on the radio and spending time in the woods. Peter H. U. Lee is a German-born Korean-Canadian who holds a Master of Space Studies degree from the International Space University. Currently, he is completing an M.D./Ph.D. at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI, with plans to complete residencies in Emergency Medicine and Aerospace Medicine and to pursue a career in aerospace medicine and space biological research. He will be serving as the Health Officer and biologist at FMARS. His research interests have been in biotechnology and muscle atrophy, as well as various aspects of aerospace medicine. Peter is a licensed EMT, a private pilot, and a Captain in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, as well as a 6th degree black belt Master in Taekwondo. Ella Carlsson grew up in northern Sweden and spent 8 years as a flight mechanic for the Swedish Air Force. In that capacity, she was decorated for action in Bosnia. After leaving the service, she enrolled in the Luella University of Technology in Sweden, where she received a degree in physics. She is a veteran of MDRS Crew 9, and was recently accepted as an intern with the Astrobiology program at NASA Ames Research Center. She is an avid mountain climber, having climbed Kilamanjaro, and likes to sing and play the piano. The crews operation in the field will be supported by Mars Society volunteers working with the Mars Society Mission support group in Denver led by Dr. Tony Muscatello. In addition, the team's field work will be further supported by a telescience team led by Dr. Penelope Boston of the New Mexico Institute of Technology and including members from Texas A&M, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown Universities. A special report on the 2003 operations of the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station will be presented at the 6th International Mars Society convention, to be held at the Hilton Hotel in Eugene Oregon, August 14- 17 2003. Registration for the convention is now open at www.marssociety.org. For further information about the Mars Society, visit our web site at www.marssociety.org, or contact info@marssociety.org. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA'S "SPIRIT" RISES ON ITS WAY TO MARS NASA release 2003-084 10 June 2003 A NASA robotic geologist named Spirit began its seven-month journey to Mars at 1:58:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time (10:58:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time) today when its Delta II launch vehicle thundered aloft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. The spacecraft, first of a twin pair in NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project, separated successfully from the Delta's third stage about 36 minutes after launch, while over the Indian Ocean. Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, received a signal from the spacecraft at 2:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time (11:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time) via the Canberra, Australia, antenna complex of NASA's Deep Space Network. All systems are operating as expected. Spirit will roam a landing area on Mars that bears evidence of a wet history. The rover will examine rocks and soil for clues to whether the site may have been a hospitable place for life. Spirit's twin, Opportunity, which is being prepared for launch as early as 12:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time (9:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time) June 25, will be targeted to a separate site with different signs of a watery past. "We have plenty of challenges ahead, but this launch went so well, we're delighted," said JPL's Pete Theisinger, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover missions. The spacecraft's cruise-phase schedule before arriving at Mars next January 4, Universal Time (January 3 in Eastern and Pacific time zones), includes a series of tests and calibrations, plus six opportunities for maneuvers to adjust its trajectory. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Information about the rovers and the scientific instruments they carry is available online from JPL at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer and from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, at http://athena.cornell.edu. Contacts: Veronica McGregor Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-9452 Don Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1727 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/delta2_launch_030610.html http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/030610launch.html ________________________________________________________________________ WHERE'S SPIRIT RIGHT NOW? By Ron Baalke NASA/JPL release 11 June 2003 I've added a "Where's Spirit Right Now?' page to the MER web site at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/mission/spiritrightnow.html. The page will track the position of Spirit (formerly MER-A) from Earth to Mars until arrival at Mars in January 2004. Five views are currently provided and are updated every 10 minutes: * Overhead view of the inner solar system showing the spacecraft's trajectory from Earth to Mars, and the spacecraft's current position. * Mars as seen by Spirit (Mars will get bigger as the spacecraft approaches) * Earth as seen by Spirit (large view of Earth currently being displayed) * Looking down on Spirit (a closer view of Spirit's position) * Looking down on Earth, showing the spacecraft's position relative to the Earth-Moon system. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVER SPIRIT MISSION STATUS NASA release 2003-085 12 June 2003 NASA's Spirit spacecraft, the first of twin Mars Exploration Rovers, has successfully reduced its spin rate as planned and switched to celestial navigation using a star scanner. All systems on the spacecraft are in good health. As of 48 hours after the June 10 launch, Spirit had traveled 5,630,000 kilometers (3,500,000 miles) and was at a distance of 610,000 kilometers (380,000 miles) from Earth. After separation from the third stage of its Delta II launch vehicle on Tuesday, Spirit was spinning 12.03 rotations per minute. Onboard thrusters were used Wednesday to reduce the spin rate to approximately 2 rotations per minute, the designed rate for the cruise to Mars. After the spinning slowed, Spirit's star scanner found stars that are being used as reference points for spacecraft attitude. Navigators and other flight team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, will be deciding soon when to perform the first of several trajectory- correction maneuvers planned during the seven-month trip between Earth and Mars. Spirit will arrive at Mars on January 4, 2004, Universal Time (evening of January 3, 2004, Eastern and Pacific times). The rover will examine its landing area in Mars' Gusev Crater for geological evidence about the history of water on Mars. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer and from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, at http://athena.cornell.edu. Contacts: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-0880 Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/next_launch.html http://www.space.com/marsrover/ ________________________________________________________________________ SPACECRAFT AND EXPENDABLE VEHICLES STATUS REPORT: MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS By George H. Diller 13 June 2003 Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-A/Spirit) Launch Vehicles: Delta II Launch Pad: 17-A Launch Date: June 10, 2003 The MER-A Delta II launch vehicle carrying the "Spirit" Mars Exploration Rover was launched successfully from Pad 17-A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday, June 10. The official liftoff time was 1:58:46.773 PM EDT. Communication with the spacecraft through the Deep Space Network indicates that the spacecraft is in good health and on the proper trajectory. There are no issues or concerns with the mission at this time. Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B/Opportunity) Launch Vehicle: Delta II Heavy Launch Pad: 17-B Launch Date: June 25, 2003 NET Launch Time: 12:38:16 AM--1:19:19 AM EDT Mating of the spacecraft to the upper stage booster, the Delta's third stage, was completed on Thursday in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF). Today the spacecraft is being placed into its transportation canister in preparation for going to the launch pad. That is scheduled to occur before dawn on Tuesday, June 17. Meanwhile, at Pad 17-B, preparations are under way for the Simulated Flight test of the Delta II launch vehicle to occur sometime within the next few days. This is a test that activates the Delta's mechanical and electrical systems during a simulated flight of the vehicle to verify how they will perform during ascent. A decision on the final launch date is expected on Monday after the test has been completed. The MER-B vehicle's first stage is on Pad 17-B. Erection of the nine solid rocket boosters was completed May 22. The second stage was hoisted atop the first stage on May 29. Encapsulation of the spacecraft into the payload fairing atop the Delta II is currently planned for June 21. Contact: George H. Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center Phone: 321-867-2468 ________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 5-11 June 2003 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available. Cycloidal Dust Devil Track (Released 05 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/05/index.html Terrain Near Gordii Dorsum (Released 06 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/06/index.html South Polar Cap in Summer (Released 07 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/07/index.html Layers in Galle Crater (Released 08 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/08/index.html Tractus Catena Collapse Pits (Released 09 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/09/index.html Frost in Charitum Montes (Released 10 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/10/index.html Gullies in Crater Wall (Released 11 June 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/06/11/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 9-13 June 2003 Masursky Crater (Released 9 June 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030609a.html Dalmatian Terrain (Released 10 June 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030610a.html Destination: Gusev (Released 11 June 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030611a.html Lava-filled craters (Released 12 June 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030612a.html Canyon Walls (Released 13 June 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20030613a.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 13 June 2003 The Stardust team had six periods 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 present position and orbits of the Stardust spacecraft and comet Wild 2 may be found on the "Where Is Stardust Right Now?" web page located at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/scnow.html. The navigation team is preparing for the upcoming Deep Space Maneuver. This will be a two-part maneuver with the first burn taking place on June 17, and the second on June 18. Each one of these burns will be 25- minutes in length. As with previous maneuvers of this type, during both burns Stardust's solar panels will be edge-on to the Sun and the spacecraft will operate solely on battery power. 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 24.