The Mars Quarterly · 2019-09-06 · The Mars Quarterly 4 Volume 1, Issue 4 We are in danger;...

The Mars Quarterly www.MarsSociety.org 1

The Mars Quarterly 2 Volume 1, Issue 4

Failure IS an OptionBy Chris Carberry ........................................3

Readers' Forum: GOING TO MARSBy Raymond Burke......................................4

BOOK REVIEW: The Big God NetworkBy J.C. McGowanReview by J. Emilio Rondeau......................5

Lavatubes on Mars: Science, Habitat, and ResourcesBy Penny Boston.........................................6

Mars Society Launches TEMPO BalloonBy Tom Hill ..................................................8

The Upcoming Season at MDRSBy Artemis Westenberg..............................9

Batteries Recharged!By Keith Keplinger .....................................10

FMARS - A Key Strategic AssetBy Joseph E. Palaia, IV .............................13

The Habitability of the Phoenix Landing Site:A Comparative Assessment .....................14

Interview with Professor Dava Newman, MITBy Susan Holden Martin ...........................16

Interview with John GrunsfeldBy Chris Carberry ......................................18

A Cold Dry Cradle, Part IIBy Gregory Benford & Elisabeth Malartre .24

IInn TThhiiss IIssssuueeFall 2009 - Volume 1, Issue 4

PublisherThe Mars SocietyHeadquarters11111 W. 8th Ave., Unit ALakewood, CO 80215 USAwww.MarsSociety.org

The Mars SocietyPresident..........................Robert ZubrinTreasurer..............................Gary FisherSecretary ...........................Sara SpectorExecutive Director..........Chris CarberryAccounts Receivable Director.............................................Patt CzarnikWebmaster...............................Alex KirkDirector, Public Relations ...Kevin SloanDirector of Membership .....Patt CzarnikDirector, International Relations ..............................Artemis Westenberg

The Mars QuarterlyEditor-in-Chief......Susan Holden [email protected] Director ...................Keith Keplinger,

Keplinger Designs, Inc.Contributing Editors ......Chris Carberry,

Artemis Westenberg, Josh Grimm,Blake Ortner, Byron Wiedeman,

Gus Scheerbaum, Jean Lagarde,Joseph Webster, Kevin Sloan,

Patt Czarnik, Alex Kirk

A Note to ReadersThe views expressed in articles are

the authors’ and not necessarily thoseof The Mars Quarterly, or The MarsSociety. Authors may have businessrelationships with the companies oragencies they discuss.

ReproductionThe Mars Quarterly is published

quarterly by The Mars Society,Lakewood, Colorado, USA. Volume 1,Issue 4; copyright 2009 The MarsSociety. Nothing herein containedmay be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronicor mechanical, including photocopy,recording, or any information storageand retrieval system, without writtenpermission of The Mars Society.

Advertisers send email to [email protected]. Addressletters, general inquiries, or sendmember dues or charitable donationsto The Mars Society, PO Box 1312, BigPiney, WY 83113, USA. Please includeyour full name, address, and daytimephone number. The Mars Society is a501(c)(3) organization.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to our newest editors:

Associate EditorRaul Colon, Director of TMS-Puerto Rico; Writer, Sport Reporter and Columnist

Technical EditorsDavid M. Christhilf, Aerospace Engineer; NASA Langley Research Center

Debbie Foch, B.S., Space Science; M.S., Astronomy; CSeti.orgEric Harkleroad, M.S., Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Princeton

Dr. Simmi Kharb, Professor/Medical Biochemistry, Pt. BD Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak, Haryanaohtak, India

Copy and Proof EditorsLarissa Douglass, DPhil candidate, Oxford; Editing/Desktop publishing; Amateur Astronomer

Douglas Jacques, Commercial Pilot; Electronics Technician/Amateur Radio (Advanced)Kenneth Katz, Rabbi; university lecturer (ancient/medieval history); engineering student

Edie Tepper; Educator/English; Editing and Publishing

Editors at LargeDeclan O'Donnell, Esq., Director, TMS; Trial attorney; Space Law

Jocelyn Thomsen, Esq.; Attorney and Professor of Law; Writing and Research

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On the Cover: Steven Hobbs lives in Australia and combines photography and computer graphic talents in his artworks.

www.StevenHobbsPhoto.com.au

On behalf of the staff of The MarsQuarterly and The Mars Society, Iwould like to thank everyone whoresponded to our call for editorialassistance. The response wasoverwhelming and all candidates werehighly qualified. It was a difficult taskto choose from among them. Pleasejoin me in welcoming our newesteditors.

We are currently in need ofexperienced professionals who canassist us in our advertisingdepartment. If you would like to jointhe team, please let us know.

On to Mars!

Susan Holden Martin, [email protected]


We could fail! We may not gethumans to Mars in the next decade ortwo, or even in our lifetime. If we allowothers to make decisions without ourstrong and consistent input, we couldabsolutely fail in our cause to seehumans on Mars in the near future.What I mean by the near future is the2020s. Regardless what some peoplein Washington, D.C. and elsewhere say -that humans to Mars in the short-termis impossible - they are wrong. Theyare either misinformed, have otheragendas, or do not have faith that greatdeeds are still possible.

While the recently releasedpreliminary report of the of U.S. HumanSpace Flight Plans Committee (TheAugustine Committee) does state thatMars should be an ultimate goal forhuman space flight, it appears topromote the concept of technologydevelopment without purposefulobjectives and without a schedule thatwould require any effort to achieve itsgoals. We need a stronger, betterdefined plan to truly put the UnitedStates back into the business ofexploration rather than "testing thewater" indefinitely. Keep in mind thatthis report is just recommendations tothe Obama Administration. PresidentObama doesn't have to accept any of

these recommendations. In addition,we are not alone in our reservationsabout this report. Several members ofCongress and other prominentindividuals have been quite critical ofAugustine's preliminary report.However, if the administration doesn'thear any strong opinions from thepublic on the subject, they may bemore inclined to go with Augustine'srecommendations.

We live in complicated times. Theworldwide economy is still struggling,and the United States government isspending colossal sums of money in aneffort to restore faith in our nation'sability to succeed. Sadly, they fail tosee that a rapidly developed humanmission to Mars could stimulate theeconomy dramatically by spending onlyan extreme fraction what has alreadybeen spend on stimulus efforts. It is upto us as an organization and asindividuals to make sure the Marsmessage is heard by our electedofficials, the press, and the generalpublic. Our message is a muchstronger and positive message thanmost concepts circulating aroundWashington, D.C. It proposes anoptimistic future for the United Statesand the world. We can win this battle.We just need to make our voices heard.

We can also lead by example. That iswhat The Mars Society does. That iswhat we want to do more effectively inthe future. Our projects and politicalefforts can and do make the difference.These projects are moving ahead welland we expect the next couple of yearsto be highly productive for The MarsSociety - but we need your help.

What can you do?1. Contact your elected officials and

say that you support a human missionto Mars at a vastly accelerated schedulethan is now planned.

2. Become a Mars Society volunteer.We have a lot of important projects andcould use your help.

3. Contribute to the Mars Society.Our ongoing and targeted effortsrequire a substantial amount of moneyin order to be successful. We can'tachieve our goals without your financialsupport.

4. If you know anyone who mightwant to support our organization andprojects, let us know!

5. Ask your friends to join.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Chris Carberry can be reached at: [email protected]

Failure IIS aan OOption - BBut iit ddoesn’t nneed tto bbe...By Chris Carberry

NightSky - Photo by Babak Tafreshi/TheWorldAtNight

TWAN Director Receives Lennart Nilsson Award - Babak Tafreshi (Iran) of The World at Night shares the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award with the NASA’s Cassini Imaging Director Carolyn Porco.

http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/news.asp?newsID=6040


We are in danger; danger of notrealising our dreams.

I had attended the 4th EuropeanMars Conference at the OpenUniversity in the UK in 2004, and wasinspired and impressed by the variedpresentations and visionary goals.Since then, the whole experience andthe story of reaching the Martian Grailhas been further impressed upon meby two books I have recently read.

The first book,The Arctic Grailby Pierre Berton(1988), chroniclesthe explorationsof the BritishNavy in theeighteenthcentury,highlighting theintransigence ofthe Admiralty in its attempts toconquer the Northwest Passage. Thenationalistic approach, the non-adoption of native survival customs,the ill-preparedness for the cold,scurvy, and overland travel, even afteralmost a century of documentedsuccesses in those areas by seasonedArctic explorers, was wholly negligent.Some might think that that was a signof the times. That is true; but NASA isa sign of our times. And things are notlooking good.

NASA reminds me of the oldAdmiralty. Obstinate in its approachesto space travel and not heeding adviceand warnings from experiencedscientists, technicians and seniorastronauts. NASA has rekindled thecomplacent culture of the Admiralty,both organisations suffering loss of lifeand folly after folly. I am reminded ofthe Challenger and Columbia shuttledisasters, which surely rank with theFranklin Expedition. With failed roboticMars expeditions, the cancelled orbitalspace plane programme, the rejinked1

Space Exploration Initiative and thelustreless International Space Station,

NASA has failed to recapture the glorydays of its moon shots, just as theArctic expeditions were used merelyto employ sailors and to glorify theEmpire after Napoleon's defeat. Theparallels are striking. I can only hopethat in a century's time, people do notlook back at our time and wonder withdismay, what went wrong?

The second book is FriedrichNietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra

(2003 translation).In it, the characterZarathustramuses: "Mankindstill has no goal...if the goal ofmankind is stilllacking, is notalso mankinditself still lacking?"Well, to me the

answer must be a resounding "Yes!"You may be thinking that mankind

has goals! Alleviating poverty,eliminating diseases, increasingeducation, cleaning air, land and sea,and forestalling starvation, etc, are allgoals of mankind are they not? Well,no. They are not goals, they are rights.Everyone has the right to be free ofpoverty and disease, to be educated,to have clean food, water and air, etc.Going to Mars is not a right - it has tobe striven for; attained. Going to Marscontinues our long and proud heritageof human exploration. It is indeed aworthy goal for mankind.

How can we achieve this? We wouldneed a collaborative Mars programme.In an ideal world, NASA, ESA, theRussians, Japanese, Chinese andother space-faring nations wouldestablish a policy derived from all ofthe individual national pursuits. Wewould learn from each other and fromour past mistakes so that one overallMars programme would be instituted.We would need to create a balancebetween public, corporate and privateinitiative, sustained effort, financing,

and continued support for decades.But that is in an ideal world. In

reality, each nation is pursuing its ownagenda, like the British, and later, theAmerican and Scandinavian efforts todiscover the Northwest Passage andthe North Pole. Each nation has thesame goal, but achieving it alone withdiminishing funds and support, will benext to impossible, unless there is aradical shake-up of the spaceestablishment. The goals ofexploration, whether to the ends ofthe Earth or Mars, mean differentthings to different people, but in theend, it can only benefit mankind. It isironic that the Mars Society, dedicatedto the exploration and colonisation ofMars, has its Flashline Mars ArcticResearch Station (FMARS) in the highArctic on Devon Island. What wouldthe Admiralty of old have made ofthat? And now NASA has announcedplans to return to the moon. Let ushope that the resurgence of the oldNASA "can-do" spirit has taught themlessons about the past and makesthem keen to set a new goal for allmankind.

Is Mars too far or too expensive amission? Tell that to Columbus, or thePilgrims, or to Neil Armstrong. Whydo we have costly Olympics or otherworld sporting events or fly aroundthe world on holidays? They, amongother entertainment and adventures,may benefit and enrich human life, butthey are costly pursuits. In all honesty,Mars would not benefit the public forsome time, perhaps not for ageneration. But who does not save fortheir children's further education orwedding in a generation's time, withno immediate benefits? Who does notinvest in mortgages, pensions,insurance or other financial plans?They are risk investments that matureor bear fruit in a generation's time.Going to Mars is the same; a smallinvestment now will bring future

continued on page 32

RReeaaddeerrss’’ FFoorruummGGOOIINNGG TTOO MMAARRSS

by Raymond Burke

Going to Mars continues our long and proud heritage

of human exploration. It is indeed a worthy

goal for mankind.


Twenty years from now, humanshave not yet visited other planets andSETI's radio telescopes have failed topick up a coherent signal from anotherworld. Yet an appreciation of thecosmos has grown greatly in popularculture. Unmanned space probes arecommon, and the Net and satellite TVoffer channels withlive video feedsfrom space camson Mars, Titan,and the sub-surface oceans ofEuropa. Manyreligions mixspirituality withcosmology andbelieve that lifethroughout theUniverse is sacred.This is part of thebackdrop to therecently publishednovel The Big GodNetwork by J.C.McGowan, whichmixes near-futurescience fictionwith wry political satire and a healthydose of Carl Sagan-esque "cosmicawe."

Sally Simkin, a principal character inthe book, believes in UFOs and wouldhave much to discuss with the lateastronomer Fred Hoyle, a proponentof the "panspermia" hypothesis. She isa member of Offworld, a group thatbelieves that life came to Earth viacomets or meteors. In addition,Offworlders believe that"interventions" by extraterrestrialshelped guide Earth's evolution. YetOffworld is not a wacky UFO cultalong the lines of Heaven's Gate or theRaelians. Rather, it is a global religionwith nearly unlimited resources that ispouring billions of dollars into a top-secret project called the Channel,which seeks to surpass SETI. The two-way "smart" Channel seeks interactionwith extraterrestrials; it transmits radio

waves laden with artificial intelligenceinto space and is ready to decipherand interact with AI-encoded alientransmissions sent our way.

A side benefit, or danger, of theChannel is that its powerful AI(artificial intelligence) renders the mostsecure Earthly information systems

vulnerable, andthreatens thebalance of poweramong the newnations of "post-America" (theUnited Stateshaving fragmentedinto a liberal WestCoast, a theocraticheartland andother newcountries). Darkforces covet theChannel forpolitical ends andnet journalist FranzSampaio seeks tokeep it out of theirhands. The actionsprawls across

California, Bali, Tokyo, and exoticvirtual worlds (people now spendmuch of their time in cyberspace).

The Big God Network is funny,political and visionary. Loaded withdiverse cultural references, the novelreferences ideas familiar to readers ofscientist-authors like Michio Kaku. It isdownright rhapsodic about theuniverse. As the character Arwinreflects, "We aren't alone, ultimately.All the life in the universe originated ina singularity, spouses and siblings andneighbors emanated from the galacticwomb, and every man carries thebirth of the universe in his bones, theatoms of stars in his blood, andbillions of years in his stride. And afterwe die, we will leave a progeny ofmatter scattered through this world, inthe flora and fauna, its rocks and itsrain, and molecules drifting into space,there to be absorbed into new worlds,

emerging universes. The matter of alltime is what our ashes shall ultimatelybe, while in the night sky shines afirmament of our far-flung, long-lostcousins."

Reviewer J. Emilio Rondeau is ajournalist and filmmaker in Rio deJaneiro who spent twenty years in LosAngeles covering film, music andculture for Brazil's TV Globo andvarious international publications.

Author J.C. McGowan is anAmerican writer of diverse interestswho now lives in Rio de Janeiro. AsChris McGowan, he is also the authorof the music guide "The BrazilianSound: Samba, Bossa Nova and thePopular Music of Brazil" (TempleUniversity Press, third edition, 2009)and "Entertainment in the Cyber Zone:Exploring the Interactive Universe ofMultimedia" (Random House, 1995).He blogs for the Huffington Post andhas written about culture, the arts,politics, and the environment for theLos Angeles Times, Billboard, LosAngeles magazine, and Musician,among other publications.

About the book:"The Big God Network" by J.C.McGowan (Xlibris, 2008)ISBN: 978-1-4257-6937-6

Big God Network Amazon page:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1425769373

Big God Network Facebookgroup:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67854007436

Big God Network's MySpace page(with reviews):http://www.myspace.com/biggodnetwork

BBOOOOKK RREEVVIIEEWW:: TThhee BBiigg GGoodd NNeettwwoorrkkby J.C. McGowan

Review by J. Emilio Rondeau

During the Apollo era, scientistsrecognized that the lunar terrainstrongly resembled volcanic regionson Earth, including open channels(rilles) and closed tubes that are thebyproduct of lava flows. Wheneruptions cease and these tubesdrain and cool, they are known aslavatubes or pyroducts. These areactually caves and many of themon Earth are easily accessible tohuman entry. Several times in the1980's and early 1990's, peoplehave speculated about thepotential for such structures onMars. During the latest era ofMartian missions, starting withPathfinder in 1997, the evidencefor lavatubes has continuallyincreased, showing a largenumber of apparent tubes.These appear much larger thantheir Earth counterparts.Typically tubes on Mars canrun for a hundred kilometersor more with entrancediameters on the order of100 meters and only a fewtubes reach 30 m indiameter. The longest tubeknown on Earth, Kazumurain Hawaii, is only about 61km (38 miles). Thegargantuan sizes of thesestructures may be due tothe lower gravity on Marsallowing lava to flowfarther or chemicaldifferences in the makeupof the lavas themselves.Whatever the reason,Mars appears to belavatube-rich. Thestrongest evidence sofar, has been offered byGlen Cushing and histeam at the USGeological Survey inFlagstaff, Arizona.They havedocumented a seriesof lavatube entrancesin Martian imagingdata from the MRO(Mars Recon-naissance Orbiter)HiRise camerasystem from a


LLaavvaattuubbeess oonn MMaarrss:: SScciieennccee,, HHaabbiittaatt,, aanndd RReessoouurrcceess

by Penny Boston

number of different angles and newdata is in the works to further bolstertheir case.

So, the tubes appear to be there…they appear to be very numerous…and they appear to be extremely big!What does this mean for us asadvocates of Mars science,exploration, and human habitation?With all the truly compelling sites onMars that have been championed asthe "best" sites for future Marsmissions, why have we chosen tofocus on caves?Is it just becausewe are lookingfor a new twiston the old themeof planetaryexploration?No, we havechampioned thisidea becausecaves provide both unique scientifictargets and critical practical humansupport functions.

ScienceThe geology of the tubes will

obviously be a major focus of futurestudies but from the perspective of anastrobiologist, my focus is on theirpotential as habitat, past or present.We have long argued that any presentMartian life is more likely to be similarto Earth's subsurface microbiologicalbiosphere than anything currentlyfound on Earth's surface. As early as1992, I published a paper suggestingthis with colleagues Chris McKay atNASA Ames and Mikhail Ivanov, aRussian friend and colleague. Besidesdrilling (a very technically challengingactivity on Mars), natural cavities likelavatubes or other caves present apotential way to get into thesubsurface to study any lifeformsthere, the subsurface gas and fluidchemistry and geology, and to assessthe status of potential resources likewater ice. We have been activelystudying Earth caves for more thanfifteen years in pursuit of exotic andamazing microbial life partly todemonstrate the potential forextraterrestrial caves to yield similarsecrets. We know that on our planet,some microorganisms make theirliving by using inorganic materials in

the bedrock itself. They often leavetelltale mineral traces of theirpresence. Similar traces of life, knownas biosignatures, might be identifiablefrom the walls of Martian lavatubesand other caves.

Besides the possibility of livingorganisms in Martian caves, traces ofancient life will likely have been betterpreserved in the subsurface. As weknow, the present Martian surfaceenvironment is extremely cold, dry,chemically active, and high in both

ultraviolet andionizingradiation. Indeed,even organicmaterials do notappear to surviveon the surface.Caves offernatural timecapsules for

biological materials, geochemicaltraces of past life, and past climateindicators here on Earth. Weanticipate that on Mars, caves mayalso be similarly valuable.

Human HabitationNatural subsurface cavities present

the most mission effective habitatalternative for future human missionsin the high-radiation and thermallychallenging environments of Mars andEarth's Moon. Because rock is a goodattenuator of ionizing radiation and thesubsurface protects from strongultraviolet radiation, the potentially"free real estate" that extraterrestrialcaves represent could provide anenormous advantage in reducingpayload mass. Requiring only thematerials necessary for modificationrather than construction, the time toprepare a habitat for humanoccupants could be significantlyreduced compared to building fromscratch. In addition, tubes and othercaves could offer easier and safersubsurface access for drilling deep,and may provide extractable minerals,gases, and ices.

Between 2000 and 2006, our teamworked on a series of several NASA-funded feasibility studies of theconcept of cave utilization on Marsand the Moon. We developed a menuof critical enabling technologies

necessary to implement the idea ofsubsurface extraterrestrial habitat andscience. These technologies includedinflatable cave liners that could befoamed in place after inflation,modular air locks that could be fittedto complex cave entrances also withflexible inflatable units, and manyothers. We designed and implementedsimple prototypes of some of thesetechnologies and conducted a "MouseMission to Inner Space" (MOMIS) totest some of them with mice assubstitute speleonauts. We furtherdesigned and built components for a"Human Mission to Inner Space"(HUMIS) which awaits field testing.We developed the concept of acomplete, integrated subsurfacehabitat system including a spectrum ofmissions from both robotic precursorsto human expeditionary missions andultimately colonization. Humanity'sfuture may well be on Mars, orperhaps it may actually be IN Mars!

Relevant web links:NASA Institute for AdvancedStudies Reports on the KarstInformation Portal (KIP)http://www.lib.usf.edu/karst-test/docs/NIAC_Cave_I.pdf

http://www.lib.usf.edu/karst-test/docs/NIAC_Cave_II.pdf

http://www.lib.usf.edu/karst-test/docs/Microbot_NIAC_II.pdf

Overview of the NIAC workhttp://www.highmars.org/niac/

Images of the lavatubes and othercaves we study on Earth byphotographer Dr. Kenneth Inghamhttp://photos.i-pi.com/Caves/

http://www.caveslime.org/

For kids K-12, Journey into Caveswebsite:http://www.caveslime.org/kids/cavejourney/


What does this mean for us as advocates

of Mars science,exploration, and

human habitation?

As an interim step in preparation for the TetheredExperiment for Mars inter-Planetary Operations

CubeSat (TEMPO-Cubed) orbital mission, the MarsSociety Steering Committee approved a high-altitudeballoon flight in February of 2009. Balloon flightshave the advantage of being relatively low-tech, and

have the potential to return data along with excellentpictures and video of Earth and their payloads.After several months of development using a home-

made structure and off-the-shelf electronics, a group ofMars enthusiasts took to the plains of Colorado onSeptember 26th to fly the experiment. The mission wasdesigned to fly to approximately 100,000 feet in 2 hours,then use model rocket engines to 'spin up' the TEMPOportion of the craft, so it could drop away and generateartificial gravity for a few seconds before air resistanceimpacted the flight. Both flight segments would berecovered using GPS tracking data and short-rangebeacons.

Unfortunately, a design flaw in the connection betweenthe balloon and the payload cut the flight short. Theconnection broke about 25 minutes into the flight, butthe attached parachute brought the hardware down invery good condition. Current plans are to fly the missionagain in March, applying lessons learned from theSeptember flight.

Meanwhile, efforts move forward in developing theorbital mission for TEMPO. Talks continue for a flightopportunity, and we hope to make an announcementwith more details soon.

The TEMPO project wishes to thank Eric Knight, RodLane, Don Skinner, and the Stratofox team(http://www.stratofox.org/events/tempo3-20090926/)who helped in final assembly, tackled some last-minutetechnical problems and made the payload recoverypossible.


MMaarrss SSoocciieettyy LLaauunncchheess TTEEMMPPOO BBaalllloooonnBy Tom Hill, TEMPO^3 Project Manager

Balloon launch: The TEMPO craft and its gondola are hauled into

the Colorado sky while Mars SocietyPresident Bob Zubrin (center)

and TEMPO Project Lead Tom Hill(right) watch.

Photo credit: Eric Knight


This season, MDRS (Mars DesertResearch Station) will host the threewinning experiments of the Floridahigh school students that SpaceFlorida, together with Kennedy SpaceCenter and the Florida Department ofEducation, organised with the MarsSociety. 46 teams with more than 300students have registered to competefor this Mars Experiment DesignCompetition that gives high schooland middle school students a chanceto hand in experiments ongeology/biology field studies, missionoperations and human factors. A Habcrew will conduct the experiments andtransmit data via 'live' camera andInternet blogs. With cooperation fromNASA-KSC and their Digital LearningNetwork (DLN), NASA personnel willtransmit special interactive programsto the three winning school entrants.

This season will also see thecontinuation of the Food Study of Dr.

Kim Binsted, the Extremophile SearchProject for Reactive Surfaces Ltd., theEnvironmental Contamination Study ofDr. Penny Boston, and the SpacewardBound program of Dr. Chris McKay.Many more experiments and fieldresearch projects will be brought in bythe 12 crews that will visit the Hab.Media visits will show the Marsanalogue experience to theiraudiences.

On 14 November, the MDRS seasonwill begin and run for five months. Dr.Carol Stoker's crew will start with herdrilling on the Moon/Mars project, anda fully Belgian crew, to celebrate thestay of the Belgian astronaut Frank deWinne at the ISS, will complete theseason. As is the same in everyseason, a group of volunteers will startup the Hab in the weeks before thefirst crew arrives.

Thanks to sponsors, new flags willfly over MDRS sponsored by Kazi

Blaszczak. New linoleum will coverthe upstairs floor thanks to thedonation of Ronnie LaJoie. And twonew, well second-hand ATVs willtransport the crews because of adonation by Gary Fisher.

Steve McDaniel has taken care ofthe costs of a needed spectrometer.The season as such will run on feespaid by each crew member whoparticipates at MDRS.

We are looking at a financiallyhealthy Hab season with potential forgrowth and more upgrades. On ourwish list is a garage for the ATVsfashioned onto the hillock oppositethe Hab, a better workbench for thecrew engineers, and a new 33-footgrowing dome for the fresh foodsupply.

Follow the Hab crews athttp://desert.marssociety.org/MDRS/and http://www.hablife.org

TThhee UUppccoommiinngg SSeeaassoonn aatt MMDDRRSSBy Artemis Westenberg, Mission Director

On 14 November, the MDRS season will begin and run for five months.


"Cap and Trade." Health Care.Unemployment. Obama's birthcertificate. The news is full of thingsthat tug at us, and the things that wehold near and dear tend to get buriedin the pile. So it was with great hopeof getting priorities rearranged that Iheaded off to the University ofMaryland, College Park for the 12thannual gathering of The Mars Society.Sara Spector, TMS Secretary andMom-in-Law, was to join me on thetrek, but situations changed thatprevented her from making the trip.Another long drive ahead.

Thursday dawned bright and full ofhope as I left Fredericksburg andheaded up I-95 for DC. A simple hour'sdrive. Nope, more like 2 ½ hours - Youcan have DC traffic! I arrived at theUMD campus, got checked in,arranged for parking (thanks for the

ticket!) and was ready for The MarsBlitz! About 60 brave souls gatheredand were divided into 14 groups.Group 11 consisted of myself (groupleader), Brian Mikkelson, MatthewHaslam and Jurgen Herholz. A busride, two Metro trains, and a four-block walk, and we were ready! GusScheerbaum did a great job of settingup the appointments with the 14groups, so that the group membersgot to see senators andrepresentatives (or their aides) fromthe group's home states.

Group 11's first meeting was withRep. Betty McCollum's aide, ChrisKelly. Since Brian is originally fromMinnesota, he took the lead in thediscussion, as each group memberexplained the talking points and ourown experiences and dreams forMars. Mr. Kelly thanked us for our time

and we presented him with hispackage of TMS materials. A briskwalk across the Capitol's lawn affordedus a few photo opportunities, then ournext appointment. Next up wasSenator Debbie Stabenow's aide,Trevor Clarke. Matt made thepresentation to the Michigan Senator'saide, as Matt is from Michigan.Another good meeting and discussionensued. Finally, we had a meeting withNorth Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan'saide Frannie Wellings. Ms. Wellings'schedule was rather tight, and sherequested that we keep ourpresentation to the allotted 15minutes, so we arrived a few minutesearly to make sure that we couldmaximize our time. While waiting inher office, I had the opportunity to"preach" the Mars sermon to theSenator's junior aides who were in his

BBaatttteerriieess RReecchhaarrggeedd!!The annual “once-in-a-lifetime” gathering of The Mars Society

puts Mars back on the top of the pile. Text and photos by Keith Keplinger, Keplinger Designs

Martians invade Washington DC! Well, not quite, but The Mars Society did spend Thursday afternoon lobbying many senators and congressmen.


lobby with us. The aides werefascinated at the prospect of landinghumans on Mars within 10 years -never miss an opportunity to spreadthe word about Mars! Brian onceagain lead the discussions, as he iscurrently attending college in NorthDakota, and we had an interestingQ/A discussion and left the TMSmaterials. Back across the Capitollawn, all of the teams gathered for aquick photo with the Capitol in thebackground and it was back on theMetro to get back to UMD for theevening's programs. Everyone hadgreat stories to tell of their meetingsand the feeling was that we hadaccomplished our mission well.

Thursday evening began with awelcome reception sponsored byAerojet and a few well-deserved frostycold beverages. The highpoint of theevening was the screening of "RovingMars" the IMAX movie by directorGeorge Butler of the saga of SteveSquyres and the Mars ExplorationRovers. Mr. Butler preceded thescreening with anecdotes of themaking of the movie, and Mr. Squyresfollowed the movie with hisobservations and an update of theRovers' continued progress. For amission that was scheduled to last 90sols, the Mars Rovers passed the 1982sols mark the evening of thepresentation and are still makingexciting discoveries. Talk about the

little Energizer™ bunnies! You canpurchase "Roving Mars" throughAmazon.com. My copy should behere soon!

Friday began with a packed list ofexciting Plenary Session speakers. Dr.Jim Garvin/NASA Goddard spoke on"Mars - The Past 10 years and theFuture"; Dr. Mario Livio/SpaceTelescope Science Institute discussedthe "Top Ten" Hubble Telescopediscoveries; Dr. John Mather/NASASenior Astrophysicist/Nobel PrizeWinner presented information on ExoPlanets and the search for new ones;and Dr. Louis Friedman/ExecutiveDirector rounded out the morning withinformation from The Planetary Society.

A quick salad from the studentcenter, and it was back for the paneldiscussion of "Exploration: An

Historical Perspective" with RogerLaunius/Curator, National Air & SpaceMuseum; Andrew Chaikin/Author,Theodore Swanson/NASA Goddard;and Robert Zubrin/The Mars Society.Where we've been, how we got there,and where we want to go - a livelydiscussion! Track sessions includedJurgen Herholz on MarsSociety/Germany's Archimedesproject, as well as sessions on Marssettlements, philosophy, missiondesign, and advocacy - something foreveryone!

Friday night continued with theTown Hall meeting, where TMSmembers were encouraged to ask

questions of Dr. Zubrin and ChrisCarberry/TMS Executive Director. Theevening's presentation was a paneldiscussion moderated by MilesO'Brien/Former CNN news anchor, andincluded William Klanke/Publisher,Space News; Robert Asman/Producer,NBC News; Jeff Foust/Space Today,The Space Review; and ARHogan/UMD master's student.Included in this presentation was aspecial remembrance of legendarynewsman Walter Cronkite. Theevening drew to a close with a specialscreening of "Marsdreamers" a soon tobe released movie by the eminentSwiss documentarian, Richard Dindo,which featured several TMS memberson the big screen!

Saturday was another opportunityto "plug in and charge up" with thefirst session on Mars Science,moderated by Dr. Jim Garvin/NASAGoddard and featuring Dr. PaulMahaffy/NASA/Goddard/PI on SAM-MSL; and Dr. Brent Bos/NASAGoddard. Next up was Dr. ChrisMcKay with a presentation on MarsSample Return, Lunar Base and NEOas steps to Human Exploration ofMars. A lively Q/A session followedhis presentation. Joe Cassady/Aerojetgave an interesting presentation on"One Way Mission to Mars".

Following lunch, it was time for the"Art of Space" discussion panel,moderated by Michael Carroll/Artist(2009 TMS Convention poster) andfeaturing Andrew Chaikin/Author,Steven Hobbs/Artist-Photographer,George Butler/Director "Roving Mars",

Steven Squyres (PrincipalInvestigator) and George Butler

(Film Director) discussed the film “Roving Mars” and the ongoing

mission of the Mars Rovers.

Jurgen Herholtz (The Mars Society/Germany) gave a very informativepresentation on the Archimedes project.

Emil de Cou/Assistant Conductor,National Symphony Orchestra, JamesDean/Founder NASA Art Program,Bert Ulrich/Curator, NASA ArtProgram, and myself, AdvertisingCreative Director. An inspiring displayof works of art that have challengedmankind for over 50 years waspresented, as well as discussions ofhow film and music all inspire us toreach for Mars.

Unfortunately, after the Artspresentation, it was time for me to"Unplug from the Charger" and headhome, as I had family and workcommitments. But my "Mars Batteries"were well charged and I'm eagerlyoptimistic of what the rest of 2009 andthe future bring for humankind's questfor Mars. Plan to get yourselfrecharged each year by attending TheMars Society's annual convention.

After Keith left, the real fun started!

By Chris CarberryThat evening we held our annual

banquet. It was a lively affair. MilesO'Brien served as Master ofCeremonies and was able to move theprogram along seamlessly. The crewof the FMARS 2009 season gave animpressive presentation, whichincluded some stunning aerial videosof FMARS. Although Carolyn Porcohad to back out as our dinner speaker,space artist Michael Carroll, steppedto the plate and delivered a wonderfulafter dinner lecture. Next up was theauction event. The two auction itemsthat received the most attention werethe original painting of our conference

poster (painted by Michael Carroll),and a Robert Zubrin bobblehead dollthat we had made several monthsago. Artemis Westenberg is now theproud owner of the Robert Zubrinbobblehead. The auction wasfollowed by the annual fundraisingaddress by Robert Zubrin.

On Sunday, we had presentationsby FMARS 2009 crew member, Joe

Palaia; an update on the TEMPO3tether satellite project by Tom Hill; anda panel of TMS authors gave tips onhow to write and publish books. Aftera short afternoon session of trackspeakers, Robert Zubrin delivered hisclosing remarks which exhilarated thecrowd, effectively "recharging thebatteries" of our audience for anotheryear!

The Space Art Panel included Michael Carroll, Andrew Chaikin, Steven Hobbs, George Butler, Emil de Cou, Jim Dean,Bert Ulrich, and Keith Keplinger.


Artemis Westenberg, MDRS Mission Director and Gary Fisher, TMS Treasurer, lust over the collection of spacesuit gloves during the

tour of the University of Maryland’s Space Systems Lab.


The Flashline Mars Arctic ResearchStation (FMARS) is a key strategicasset which has to this date beenunderutilized. Asa high profile,flagship project ofThe Mars Society,the station canprovide, on anongoing basis,unrivaledopportunities forshowcasing thetalents, acumenand determinationof the society'svolunteers andstaff before aglobal audiencewhiledemonstrating through bold actionthat The Mars Society is capable ofmanaging the financial, logistical andtechnical aspects of a complexproject. Only through demonstratingsuch capabilities can The Mars Societyhope to attract the support needed totackle even more ambitious projects.

FMARS consists of an impressiveand valuable set of infrastructure. Therobust two-story habitat is welldesigned and strongly constructed,having weathered nearly a decade inthe harsh arctic environment whileremaining virtually unscathed. It

contains everything needed to supportand enable, on the remote Marsanalog Devon Island, a crew of up to

seven researchersfor extendeddurations. Butwhat I find moststriking aboutFMARS is itsvirtually untappedpotential. The2009 crew, duringa few shortmonths ofpreparation,raised significantsupport includingfinancialdonations andsponsorships as

well as key equipment and scientificexperiments to deploy. In addition,their actions resulted in over twodozen news articles highlighting TheMars Society's efforts. Imagine what adedicated group working throughout

the year could accomplish!Going forward, strong planning and

proper program management are thekey ingredients required to allow theproject to consistently exceedexpectations, expand and flourish. It ismy opinion that this would result, inshort order, in the fiscal self-sufficiency of the project and in muchgreater utilization of the station forfurthering The Mars Society'sobjectives. This can best beaccomplished through theappointment of a passionate,enthusiastic and skilled operatingteam, and through the empowermentof this team with professional andfinancial incentives linked toperformance and appropriately craftedto ensure mutual success. I make it nosecret that I intend in the near term tosubmit a proposal to The Mars Societyto accomplish these ends, and lookforward to vetting my approach beforeThe Mars Society.

FFMMAARRSS -- AA KKeeyy SSttrraatteeggiicc AAsssseettBy Joseph E. Palaia, IV - FMARS 2009 Executive Officer & Chief Engineer

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Introduction: The Phoenix landingsite was chosen to sample nearsurface ground ice in the NorthernPlains discovered by the GRSexperiment on Mars Odyssey [1].One goal of that sampling was todetermine whether this environmentmay have been habitable for life atsome time in its history. The unifyingtheme of the Mars Explorationprogram, as laid out in the MEPAGroadmap, is the search for life on Mars[2]. Given our current understandingof life, the potential for habitability in aspecific time and space encompassesthree factors: (1) the presence ofliquid water (Plw ), (2) the presence of abiologically available energy source(Pe), and (3) the presence of thechemical building blocks of life (e.g. C,H, N, O, P, S) in a biologically availableform (Pch). In addition to these factors,temperature and water activity mustbe high enough to support growth.Since these three factors must besimultaneously present, MEPAGfurther defined a Habitability Index,HI= 100 * Plw Pe Pch , which is theproduct of the probability representedby each of the three factors, andposited that a life detection missioncould not be justified unless aprevious mission had determined HIto have a combined probabilitygreater than 50. Thus a quantitativeevaluation of habitability is a precursorrequirement for sending a mission tosearch for life.

Another useful guide to determinewhere and when life detectionmissions are justified is the probabilitythat signatures of life are preserved inthe environment and can be observed.We call this the Detectability Index

(DI). Factors affecting DI include howlong before present that habitableconditions occurred, and whether theenvironment is conducive to organicpreservation of a record of life. Thispaper evaluates HI and DI at thePhoenix landing site and shows how itcompares with other sites visited onMars.

Approach: Each of the aboveprobabilities can further bedecomposed into sub-elements orobservables that combine for itsevaluation. Each probability iscomputed using the formulaPn=oFniWi/oWi (Eq. 1), which is thenormalized sum of relevant factors,weighted relative to each other by theimportance of each factor, and (insome cases) the certainty associatedwith the observation. In equation 1,Fni are the factors identified, and Wiare their weights. In all cases, thefactors are assigned a value from 0 to1. Weights estimate the relativeimportance of each factor, or theuncertainty in the analysis of thefactor, and are also in the range 0 to 1.

Plw is comprised of two mainfactors: Fo, observations (chemical ormorphological) that suggest liquidwater; and Fth, theoretical models thatshow ice melting is possible.Observations that suggest liquid watermay have occurred include 1)heterogeneous subsurface icemorphology including the presence ofpossible segregated ice located in apolygon trough area as compared toice cemented soil located in thepolygon center; 2) carbonate mineralswere observed by both the ThermalEvolved Gas Analysis (TEGA) and WetChemistry Laboratory (WCL)

instruments; and 3) microscopicevidence for chemical etching of soilparticles is observed. However, noneof these observations constituteunambiguous evidence of liquid waterin the local area, so this factor isassigned a medium value.

Theoretical considerations for thepresence of liquid water involve botha mechanism to emplace water at thelanding site and climatic conditionsthat support stable or even transientliquid water. Snow was observed onMars by the LIDAR instrument and SSIcamera [3] and near surface groundice is also an available water source.The Mars North Polar region (and thelanding site) experiences periodicclimate change associated with thevariation in orbital parameters caus-ing conditions that are far warmerthan at present, and sufficient to causesurface melting of pure liquid water[4]. This factor is assigned a highvalue.

The evaluation of Pe considers thepresence of energy available tobiological systems. At the surface,solar energy is available and is adominant energy source. However,the presence of strong ultravioletradiation may result in sterlization ifmetabolism is not active enough toovercome high rates of organic de-struction. In the subsurface, below thephotic zone, metabolism is onlypossible if chemistry supports oxi-dation reduction reactions (redoxpairs) for chemoautotrophy.Perchlorate salt was identified in thesoil by the WCL, probably in the formof MgClO4[5]. The reduction potentialof perchlorate and chlorate (1.287V;1.03V) makes these compounds ideal

TThhee HHaabbiittaabbiilliittyy ooff tthhee PPhhooeenniixx LLaannddiinngg SSiittee::AA CCoommppaarraattiivvee AAsssseessssmmeenntt

by C.R. Stoker1, P.D. Archer, Jr.2, D. Catling3, B. Clark4, J. Marshall5, P. Smith2, S. Young6,and the Phoenix Science Team

1NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, [email protected],2Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tuc-son

3University of Washington, Seattle,WA 98195;4Space science Inst. Boulder CO 80301,

5SETI Institute, Mountain View CA 94043,6Tufts University, Department of Chemistry, Medford, MA 02155


electron acceptors for microbialmetabolism and they are utilized as anenergy source by numerous speciesof microbes [6]. Perchlorate reducingbacteria grow by the oxidation oforganic carbon or inorganic electrondonors (H2, H2S, or Fe2+) coupled tothe reduction of perchlorate. Theyhave can grow under a wide range ofenvironmental conditions including inAntarctic soils, and have a broadrange of metabolic capabilitiesincluding (of relevance to Mars) theoxidation of soluble and insolubleferrous iron. Since both Sunlight andchemical energy are available in thesame zone where liquid water canoccur, Pe is assigned a high value.

Pch is the probability of presence ofchemical conditions conducive to life.Factors evaluated in Pch include thepresence of organic carbon, presenceof soluble ions of biogenic elements,presence of other elements known tosupport metabolism, and the presenceof non-toxic chemical conditions.CHNOPS sources. The presence ofcarbonate(s) and the alkaline pHmeans that in addition to theatmospheric reservoirs of C (as CO2

and CO), there is an abundant sourceof readily available C in the soil. H isavailable from H2O. There is noinformation on fixed nitrogen on Mars.Although some terrestrial organismsare capable of converting atmosphericN2 to nitrate, it is energy-intensive andbiochemically complex so nitrates inthe soil would be a very importantnutrient source. WCL ISE for nitratedetection was masked by its responseto perchlorate ions. However, inAtacama Chile, where perchlorateforms in the driest terrestrial deserts,nitrate also occurs in uncommonlyhigh abundances. The aggressiveoxidants in the martian atmospheremay produce nitric acid which thencan be scavenged by the soil toproduce nitrates. Hence, theoccurrence of perchlorates isconsistent with nitrates in the soil. Inaddition to sources in the atmosphere(O2, O3, H2O2) and variousphotochemical oxidizing non-molecular forms (OH radical, O*, O-,etc.), the perchlorate salts provide astorehouse of relatively readily

available oxidizing power. Nomeasurements of P content areavailable for Phoenix samples butphosphorus-containing minerals areabundant in all MER samples,including strong enrichments in Caphosphates in some suites ofmaterials in the Columbia Hills.Martian meteorites containphosphates extractable using mildlyacidic solutions (pH 5 or lower). It isinferred that P is as abundant inmartian soils as in terrestrial soils,although the alkaline pH implies fromlimited solubility of most plausibleminerals that P will be present at tracebut sufficient quantities formetabolism. No sulfates weredetected in Phoenix samples, butsulfate has been identified in manylocations on Mars. Because of globaldust storms, it is anticipated that somefraction of globalized dustcontaining Sis present in the topmost polar soils atleast. All sulfates of major cationsexcept CaSO4 are highly soluble, andshould provide trace quantities whichare as bioavailable as most terrestrialnon-oceanic environments.

Finally, the measured pH of 8.3 isonly slightly alkaline, comparable tomost semiarid soils, and ideal for abroad range of organisms. The WCLhas also measured ions of Potassium,Calcium, and Magnesium, recognizednutrients for microbial growth, that arein the normal range for terrestrialsoils. Based on these considerations,Pch is assigned a high value.

Results: An evaluation of Equation 1shows that the HI for the Phoenix siteis higher than for any other landingsite previously visited. Figure 1 showshow the landing sites compare, withall sites normalized to the highest HI.Since many of the factors in thecalculation are uncertain, the absolutevalue of the HI is similarly uncertain,

but the general conclusion is that thePhoenix landing site is the mosthabitable.

The conclusion is even stronger thatthe Phoenix site has the highest valueof DI. The presence of organics at thePhoenix landing site is still an openissue [7], but organics were not foundat the Viking site, and were not lookedfor at the other sites. So, organicpreservation at all sites is not adistinguishing characteristic.Therefore, the comparitive value of DIscales based on whether conditionsallowing liquid water occurred inmodern or ancient times. We assign avalue to this factor of 1/t where t=1for modern, t=2 for Amazonian, andt=3 for Hesperian or Noachian. Thus,DI is correspondingly lower for theother landing sites where habitableconditions occurred during ancienttimes.

In summary, Phoenix landed at alocation on Mars with a higherpotential for detecting life than anysite previously visited and sampled icymaterial that periodically may becapable of sustaining modernbiological activity. The payloadselected provided key informationabout the potential habitability of thisenviron-ment and the data suggesthabitable conditions have occurred inmodern times.

References:[1] Feldman, W.C. et al., Jour.Geophys. Res. 109, E09006,2003JE002160, 2004.[2] Beatty, D. (ed.) MEPAG GoalsDoc., Feb. 2006; Steele, A. andBeaty, D. , Findings of theAstrobiology Field Lab ScienceSteering Group, MEPAG Doc.April, 2004.[3] Smith et al., ScienceSubmitted to Phoenix specialissue, 2009.[4] Ricardson, M.I. and M.A.Michna (2005) JGR 110, E03003,2004JE002367.[5] Hecht et al. Science Submittedto Phoenix special issue, 2009.[6] Coates, J. and L. Achenback(2004) Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2, 569-580.[7] Ming et al., LPSC 2009.

Figure 1. Habiltability and Detectability index, normalized to 1.

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IInntteerrvviieeww wwiitthh PPrrooffeessssoorr DDaavvaa NNeewwmmaann,, MMIITTBy Susan Martin

Martin: Tell us a bit about yourselfand how you became interested in thedevelopment of the BioSuit.

Newman: I've been working on theBiosuit for about 10 years. It stemsfrom the last two decades of my workon the current NASA spacesuits. Myspecialty is trying to quantify astronautperformance and looking at designsthat enable exploration. The currentsuit, EMU, is quitecapable especiallyfor a microgravityoperation such asfixing the HubbleSpace Telescope,but there is a hugelack of mobility.So we set oursights to come upwith an advanceddesign for theMoon and Mars.The currentcapabilities justaren't sufficient atall.

Initially we wereable to get funding from the NASAInstitute for Advanced Concepts atNyack. It has gone away now, but itwas really a wonderful offshootorganization. It was set up outside ofAtlanta, Georgia, and offered a smallfunding level. The great thing aboutthe Nyack mission was that theywanted an idea that could not beattained within 10 years. So we hadto give them a 10 to 40 year timehorizon, and that just was fantastic.So the idea to do a completelyrevolutionary Biosuit design was agood fit. But the technology -- wereally had to push the envelope --maybe we couldn't do it in next fewyears, but it would take about 10 yearsto have all the concepts that relate tothe materials, and enoughunderstanding of how we could usemechanical counter pressure. That isthe fundamental idea behind theBiosuit -- applying pressure directly tothe skin of the astronaut -- rather thanputting [the astronaut] in a gas

pressurized balloon, which is allconventional spacesuits, both NASAand the Russian suit.

Martin: What would you say hasbeen the most exciting aspect of suitdevelopment to date?

Newman: We now have [theBiosuit] trademarked and patented,and so really I would say design and

patterning of thesuit were ourbiggestbreakthroughs.

Martin: Anysurprises orsetbacks duringsuitdevelopment?

Newman: Firstlet me give creditand mention acouple ofimportant facts.Our work isbased on areview of the

literature and background of PaulWebb, who had space activity suit thatused mechanical counter pressureback in 70s. He is an advisor to ustoday. Another important person isDr. Iberol, who looked at gaspressurized, but really how to increasemobility. Both of their contributionsare really fundamental to my work.They both had great ideas well beforetheir time; both gentlemen wereworking in late 60s and 70s, obviouslythinking at that time of lunar suits inthe Apollo era. I looked at our workas taking their ideas and contributingand enhancing them. So theirfundamental ideas are what we usedinitially to start on, then fast forward totoday and what we haveaccomplished with our prototype andmockups. We have the MITEngineering team, the designers areTrottier and Associates, and then wego to Italy to have the mockupsfabricated with Dainese. So theteaming has been really important

between MIT Trottier Associates andDainese. The work has been a lot offun as well -- not too surprising, butwe put together a really great team ofengineers, industrial designers andarchitects to at least get us to wherewe are at today.

More challenging has been the lackof funding in last few years, we hadPhase I and II funding from Nyackbetween 2000-2006, but no continuedfunding from NASA in past threeyears. So now I am doing it on myown with discretionary funds. It is justa reality that nothing is receivingNASA funding right now. The flip sideis that I am starting up with theNational Science Foundation, usingsome of my own designs and patternson a really exciting project to takesome of the suit patterns and to applythem to try to help kids with cerebralpalsy walk. So one day perhaps wewill make a spacesuit for Moon orMars astronauts, but we will feel reallygood if we can also have the 1gapplications and some really excitingbiomedical applications that I ampursuing right now too. These aremore down to earth applications if youwill, and so that's going well.

Martin: Have you tested the suit inanalog environments, and if so howhas that contributed to suitdevelopment?

Newman: We do vacuum chambertesting with the prototype lower legsof the suit in the lab. That is the mostrigorous testing we do. We don't havea full suit; the pictures you see aremockups. NASA has a big vacuumchamber, but we haven't gone in that.We don't have breathing air in thehelmet, so we haven't done full bodyvacuum chamber testing. We haveteamed up with some of the folks andcolleagues who have gone up toHaughton Mars, but that hasn't beenwith a whole pressure suit.

We have an information technologysystem that is part of my spacesuitresearch. On any future lunar suit, weneed to make a lot of enhancements


to the information [available to theexplorer]. We need to improve visualdisplays, as well as voice displays.We have an effort called MissionPlanner, now "Sextant" which hasterrain mapping. So imagine you'rethe explorer, you're in a suit, and let'ssay to the left of [the helmet] screenyou want your vitals -- heart rate,oxygen consumption, and maybe youonly have 40% left because you areout being a geologist from sixdifferent way points. So obviouslyyou don't want your vision obscured.Then we envision on the right side ofthe helmet we have the capability toshow you a 3D topographical map ofwhere you are at, and then we plot thesix way points on there. We can givea real rich dataset; we calculate themetabolics, how long it will take to getthere, and we also do route planning.You can go over a steep ridge, butthat's going to cost lot of energy, so ifyou take a longer path, we plot theslopes, we do the calculations ofdistance/time and metabolic costs.Right now we have two new elementswe are working on. We're adding ascientific weight, and trying to get thatin real time. So maybe I send myrover out the night before to the sixway points and get good pictures, andI decide I'm still going. While I'mthere, as scientists typically do, Idecide I'm finding such good data thatI want to spend more time, so in realtime we can replan the mission to seeif I am still going to get to my six waypoints. That's what I call missionplanning -- it's a 3D topographical mapif they want it, and it's very rich inhelping execute the actual path, theslopes, and the metabolic costs.

Martin: What aspects of suittechnology are you currently workingon?

Newman: We are working oncalculations of moon and sunillumination angles, which are acritically important. This was a bigproblem for the Apollo astronauts.When it is bright, it is very bright.They literally almost fell into ConeCrater when they were there withApollo 13, and of course when it'sdark, it's black, really black. Not agood time for exploration. So we are

doing calculations for sun illuminationso that we can present that to theexplorer, and even preplanning -- whatmight it look like, what to watch outfor. Those are the simulations and thepreplanning part of the mission.

Martin: What is the projected costof BioSuit development lookingforward to production for a mannedmission to the Moon or Mars? Haveyou been affected by the downturn inthe economy in terms of the fundingof further research?

Newman: In terms of cost, it is bestnot to use numbers. I would say thecost of research and developmentwould be 1 or 2 orders of magnitudeless than a current flight capable suit.What do I think it would take to getthe Biosuit to be a qualified flightsystem? At MIT we could do it in thenext 3 to 5 years, but we would needreally significant research funding atthe level of $1-2 million per year.Which is still orders of magnitude lessthan current NASA suits. But Iapproach it from the research side. AtMIT we won't field space qualifiedsuits -- that's NASA's job, or NASAwith industry contractors. We do theresearch and development and hand itoff to NASA and industry folks; we arenot in business of making flightsystems.

Martin: What aspects of Biosuittechnology will be most useful tofuture humans on Mars?

Newman: This whole 3D mappingexercise is now actually much easierright now for us to do on Marsbecause we have much betterresolution images so we have puttogether 3D topographical maps, andwe can do [our mission planning]better from Mars right now than fromthe Moon. In terms of the technology,I see humans and rovers and robotsall working completely in unison and itis very essential that we have all theseprecursor missions because it'sexpensive and we should only sendhumans to Mars when they are reallyvery valued-added. Personally I thinkthere is a huge value-added; I thinkwe will have a much better chance tolook for evidence of past life.Astronauts will need to be in very

flexible mobile spacesuits. They willbe riding rovers, and I'm sure therewill be pressurized and unpressurizedrovers; and if [they] have a lot ofrobotic assistance, all the better.When we do this mission planning wepurposely say "Ok, we're going tosend two rovers up in this direction,and maybe one astronaut will go withone rover," because when we get toMars we will definitely be in this state,which will be a seamless operationbetween robots, rovers, and people.

Martin: What challenges are aheadfor continued research at MIT?

Newman: It is all tied in to whatNASA is going to do, maybe somecommercial opportunities, of coursethose are going to be very short --maybe low Earth orbit, or just up anddown. I'm hoping the commercialefforts will be very successful becauseit would be a shot in the arm to space[programs] all over the world.

In terms of the report of theAugustine Commission, the goodnews is that Mars is in the picture, butthe bad news is that it looks like it's along way away. But I think that CharlieBolden needs to have a chance to puthis vision on it. We're all in same boat— about exploration — whether to theMoon or Mars, and hopefully both. Interms of our research at MIT, we aretrying to push the limits to make surewe have the best possible designs andengineering solutions. We think theBiosuit, and a very mobile spacesuit,is part of an overall EVA system thatcould really enhance operations.

Dava J. Newman, is a Professor ofAeronautics and Astronautics andEngineering Systems at MIT, and theDirector of the Technology and PolicyProgram. Contact: Room 33-307;Phone: (617) 258-8799; or via email at:[email protected]. For moreinformation: http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/index.html.

Photo Credit: Professor DavaNewman, MIT: Inventor, Science andEngineering

Guillermo Trotti, A.I.A., Trotti andAssociates, Inc. (Cambridge, MA):Design

Dainese (Vicenza, Italy): FabricationDouglas Sonders: Photography


Based on his recent first-handexperience in orbit at the HubbleSpace Telescope, astronomer,physicist, and astronaut Dr. JohnGrunsfeld (Ph.D. in Physics, 1988),describes what humans could doin space that robots could not. Inhis opinion, the original plannedrobotic mission would haveyielded poorer results than themission that Dr. Grunsfeldactually flew. He credits the MarsSociety and other advocacygroups for their part in convincingNASA to risk a human crew forthis mission to rescue “ThePeople’s Telescope.” - Kenneth Katz, Contributing Editor

Carberry: The mission was a longtime in coming. From yourperspective a few years ago, did youthink it was ever going to take place?And what role did groups in theadvocacy community - like The MarsSociety - have in resurrecting themission?

Grunsfeld: I think the role ofadvocacy was huge. When NASAAdministrator Sean O'Keefe made thedecision that it was too risky to usepeople to go to Hubble - Hubble beinga non-station (ISS) flight - in theaftermath of the tragic loss ofColumbia and in the context of thefindings of the Columbia AccidentInvestigation Board, I think the publicresponse - the advocacy communityresponse -the Congressional response- the press response - and to a lesserextent, the White House response -was swift and clear. The reality was[that ]- it was true that it is riskier - buthow much riskier? That's aquantitative question and it issomewhere around ten percent riskier.

At the time, from whereAdministrator Sean O'Keefe stood, itdid not look like we could mount themission with the depth of defense

that we eventually had. And by that Imean it wasn't clear that we couldlaunch a second orbiter in case we gotinto trouble. It wasn't clear that wecould have any kind of extended-staycapability in orbit. We hadn'tdeveloped any of the tile repair orleading edge repair techniques, norinspection techniques that allowed usto stand alone to make sure theorbiter was safe to come in. We didn'thave that capability; so it would havebeen substantially more risky. In factit would have been like Russianroulette - not knowing the condition ofthe thermal protection system.

Folks know thatwe went up andrepaired Hubble,but what theygenerally don'tknow is that wespent almost twofull daysinspecting theoutside of theorbiter fordamage - bothbefore we worked on Hubble - justafter liftoff - and after we deployedHubble - to make sure we were safe tocome home. There were a number offolks who were critical in putting themission back on. The Space TelescopeScience Institute - Steve Beckwith,then the Director, was an advocate.John [Bacall], representing the sciencecommunity has been a staunchdefender of Hubble throughout theprogram, but particularly when theservicing mission was cancelled. Thevarious space societies would lobbyCongress and the White House. Evenschool children in Australia sentpostcards and letters to the WhiteHouse and NASA saying, "Please putthe Hubble mission back on." Theyeven collected pennies to help pay forit. It was quite broad.

At the same time, I was part of agroup that started the Hubble RoboticServicing Mission led by the GSFC

and the Hubble team. The thoughtwas, if we can't use the Shuttle toservice Hubble, then how we canservice Hubble? So, we invented theHubble Robotic Servicing Mission inorder to find at least a minimalmission so that we could extendHubble's life at least another fiveyears. Given the knowledge in 2004,the Hubble project crystal ball saidthat Hubble would end its life in 2007or 2008 because of battery lifetimeand gyro lifetime shortly after that. Sothe clock was ticking, and I think if wehad been forced to mount the Hubblemission by 2007, we wouldn't have

made it. Thehuge credit in allof this goes tothe hard-workingfolks in theShuttle program -the technicians,the engineers, theplanners - beingable to developwhat we believeis robust tile and

leading edge repair and orbiter boomsensor system that has the cameraand sensors on the end of it - whichallows you to inspect. And theprocedures - we were able to puttogether a plan that had two SpaceShuttles on the pad, ready to go at thesame time. That was really a tour deforce of folks working incredibly hard.We needed the tile repair and theleading edge repair for all flights.NASA did a great job of getting backon its feet after Columbia - doing theright thing and making the program alot safer. People often ask me what Ithink about riding the Shuttle whenthe chance of dying is something likeone- in- sixty-five- or- seventy. Thiswas Shuttle flight number five for me,and I am convinced it was the safestShuttle flight I have ever been on. Theprevious ones, we just thought weresafer than they actually were. We'vecome a long way.

IInntteerrvviieeww wwiitthh JJoohhnn GGrruunnssffeellddBy Chris Carberry

NASA did a great jobof getting back on itsfeet after Columbia -doing the right thing

and making theprogram a lot safer.


Carberry: Of course, some thingshave changed since you wereplanning a robotic mission. Therewere additional failures on Hubble.Do you think a robotic mission wouldhave been possible for the missionthat actually took place or was thehuman element essential for missionsuccess? Do you think the humanelement bolstered the argument forhuman spaceflight as a whole?

Grunsfeld: That's a good question.The robotic mission we had originallyplanned for Hubble was just to dothree things - 1) bring up batteries, 2)bring up gyros, and 3) extend theHubble through those means. At thesame time, we needed a plan to putup a de-orbit capability, which we stillhave to do. There was a hope toreplace the wide-field camera 2 withwide-field camera 3, because that's anexternally mounted instrument. That'swhen it started to become morecomplicated. Even so, I think if wehad found a clever way to get gyros

mounted without having to open thedoors, and if we could have put thebatteries on the bottom in parallel withthe current batteries, that would havebeen better than nothing at all. Wewouldn't have done it the same wayas eventually we did it with our crewon STS-125. The software complex-ities, the vision systems, andovercoming the problems that we hadare beyond what we can do in spacewith robots.

Carberry: Were there any points intime when you didn't think you weregoing to be able to accomplish all themission objectives when you were upthere?

Grunsfeld: There were points, butlet me finish the robotic point. Onplanet Earth we have robots doingsurgery on real-life human beings.Robots is a tough term. When we sayrobots, we must include mechanicaleffectors of human hands and mind.We have surgeons that are using theserobots -that could be remote -to do

surgery on people; that's veryeffective, and much better than havingfigures and scalpels actually controlledby humans. So the potential is thereto do very complex repairs andoperations on spacecraft from remotelocations with robots, even with the[latency] problems. For the missionwe did - STS-125, Drew and I got outof the hatch and our first major taskwas removing wide-field camera 2 anda simple stuck bolt that involved tryinga bunch of different things to get itunstuck. Eventually, it took elbowgrease, and the risk was the torque inwhich this bolt released was very

close to the torque in which themechanism would break. Sowe inched into it. If we had hada robot driving that same bolt Ithink we would have had the

same result. It would have involvedthe ground trying it and increasing thetorque slowly until it released. I thinkit will be many years before we canget a robot to do other things though,like the Space Telescope ImagingSpectrograph repair which involvedthe tiny screws and pulling out a card,and certainly the Advanced Camera-For- Surveys Repair - which rank byfar as the most complex EVA we'veever done in space would be tough fora robot. There were so many littleproblems during that task -- and justthe raw complexity of the task - that Ithink it will be many years before wecan get a robot to do that. Then thereare just simple things: opening andclosing the Hubble doors reallyrequires a level of coordination andusing the senses - touch and feel.Trying to train a robot to coordinatewhat it's sensing and what it's seeingalong with the knowledge of how toopen and close things. You'd need anincredibly immersive virtual realityenvironment to have feedback to ahuman operating such a robot. I don'tthink we're quite there yet.

The really great thing about sendingour crew up there is that we were ableto accomplish so much more, to thepoint where Hubble is really like abrand-new telescope. It is the firsttime we have had five state-of-the-artinstruments operating: the Wide-FieldCamera 3, the Cosmic Origins

The Mars Society members Robert Zubrin, Chris Carberry,Blake Ortner, and David Schuman in front of the clock

at the STS-125 launch.


Spectrograph, the Space TelescopeImaging Spectrograph, the AdvancedCamera for Surveys, and the NearInfrared Camera and Multi-ObjectSpectrometer are all back to life. Plusthe new gyros and the new batteries.We have a new scientific instrumentcommand and data handlingcomputer. Combined with previousmissions, we've put in a newspacecraft computer; a new powersystem; and a new transmitter. Weeven dressed up the outside of thetelescope to have better thermalprotection. I think after 19 years inorbit, we've gotten Hubble to itsultimate capability. Not that in fiveyours we couldn't put in newdetectors that would be even better,but Hubble now has the bestdiscovery capabilities that it has everhad. In 2009, there is no way that wecould have even done a small fractionof that using robotics. The Hubblerobotics were really about a rescuemission to maintain a minimalcapability. What our crew did was thecomplete makeover.

Carberry: What are yourexpectations for Hubble over the nextten years?

Grunsfeld: I think our warranty isthree years.

Carberry: Okay, what are yourexpectations for the next three years?

Grunsfeld: Our expectation forstrictly mission success is three years.I think everybody is convinced -barring any odd failure - we'vecertainly bought five years of life. Oneof the things that we did in 2004 wasto challenge the operations team atNASA Goddard Space Flight Centerand the operations team at the STSI tofind ways to extend Hubble's lifetimeso that we didn't have this looming2007 or 2008 death- by- battery failure.The folks really rallied. They went tothe manufacturers of the batteries.They did extensive testing at theMarshall Space Flight Center in thebattery lab. They learned how tooperate the batteries more efficiently.Between 2004 and 2009 the batteriesdidn't lose any capacity. One of thebattery cells actually gained capacity.

Sort of like doing a deep cycle on yourbattery to regain capacity. These arenickel hydrogen batteries and it isphenomenal that they lasted 19 years;orbiting the Earth every 96 minutes -they get cycled and charged back up -that's a lot of cycles. It's remarkablethat they were able to maintain abouthalf their capacity. If those lasted 19years and it was only three years thatthey were operated super-efficiently, Ithink the batteries could easily lastanother 19 years or more.

The gyroscopes are a little moreproblematic. We have six gyroscopes.We need two to operate as anobservatory. There is software thatwould allow us to operate on one[but] our observing efficiency wouldgo down a lot. Prior to the decisionnot to go to Hubble, we thought weneeded three gyros. With this lifeextension program, we built andtested the software to operate on two.It has been very successful. So, intheory, using two gyros at a time andassuming that they last another threeyears in pairs, that's nine years. Myguess is that they will last longer thanthat. The gyros probably have a tenyear lifetime. We put in a new FineGuidance Sensor. We'll probably loseone in the next few years just becauseof mechanical wear - that's FineGuidance Sensor 3. Strangely, FGS1has been in since the launch and isstill going strong. Almost all of theother systems are dual redundant. Ifwe have a failure, we can switch over.I'm hopeful -very hopeful - that we canget ten productive years.

Carberry: If it is still functioning andproductive when the James WebbSpace Telescope is launched, do youthink they would still run Hubble orretire Hubble - or run them both at thesame time?

Grunsfeld: You hit what I think is avery exciting point. It didn'tdisappoint me at all when we shiftedfrom the original launch date of April2008 to August, September, October,then we slipped all the way to May of2009, because it increases thepossibility that we have overlapbetween Hubble and the James WebbTelescope. The James Webb Space

Telescope is an infrared telescope -near infrared and far infrared - and itis going to give us amazing insightsinto an earlier universe than Hubblecan see, because of the Redshift, dueto the expansion of the universe. Itwill also be able to peer through a lotof cosmic dust into the center ofobjects that in the optical, Hubble can'tpenetrate. But the amazing thing isthat if you look at the combination ofthe two, we get coverage from theultraviolet, to the optical, to the nearinfrared with Hubble; and then pickingin the deeper infrared all the way tothe far infrared with the JWST. Wecover an amazing range ofwavelengths which we've learned isthe most powerful way to understandthe physics of what theseastronomical objects are - to havewide wavelength coverage. Almost allobservations these days are based ona combination of, say, Hubble in theoptical and Chandra in the X-Ray, orHubble and Spitzer in the infrared andoptical - or Hubble in orbit and a largetelescope like the Gemini Observatoryon the ground doing spectroscopy.Well, now we have the capability ofdoing infrared and opticalspectroscopy from the ground andalso ultraviolet spectroscopy onHubble. With the JWSP we'll be ableto look much further into the infraredand much deeper into the universe.

We believe that we are in the goldenage of astronomy now with all thesegreat tools, but I think it is just thebeginning of the golden age. Thereare many new capabilities comingonline. What I think is trulyphenomenal is the potential of havingan operating Hubble Space Telescope,a James Webb Space Telescope,along with the tremendous groundobservatories that we have - includingone that is called the Atacama LargeMillimeter Array (ALMA) that will havebetter resolution than Hubble on sub-millimeter observations. So we'll beable to put this all together. We'llreally start getting a much moredetailed understanding of how theuniverse works. I think it is a veryexciting time to be in astronomy orgoing into astronomy and thatincludes new observations in our own


solar system. We're still at the verybeginning of our exploration of thesolar system.

Carberry: Well, hopefully theseprospects do inspire a new generationof astronomers - who may not havegone into astronomy otherwise.

Grunsfeld: It is very much like theexploration of Mars. We've known fora century that there is water on Mars.We've seen the polar caps. We'veknown that there was bothCO2 ice and water ice. Allthis hoopla about waterdiscoveries on Mars - why isthat such a big deal if we'veknown about water on Marsfor so long? The MarsExpress and the ESAspacecraft that have helpedmap Mars, have shownthere is not just trace water,but extensive water, and itextends quite far south fromthe poles. Then of course,there were the amazingdiscoveries from Spirit andOpportunity that showedthat water was not afootnote to Mars but was amajor factor in shaping thesurface and the mineralogyof Mars - and what Mars ismade out of. To top it all off, therewas the phenomena of the Phoenixlander landing on top of a big icecube. To me, all of our dreams aboutgoing to Mars and having access tosomething as critical as water is huge.I've often said that discoveringsubsurface water there might be aseasy as pounding a steel pipe into thesurface and turning on a heater andwatching water flow out. So thedream is a reality now. Once youhave water - and Bob Zubrin has beena big advocate of this - once you havewater, the in situ resource utilization istotally achievable. It is a lot easier tosplit water through electrolysis usingeither nuclear or solar [power] than itis to try to create methane from CO2,via the Sabatier process. We knowhow to do both and we should be ableto do both. But water of course iscritical for life - and whether there islife on Mars now, we don't know; but

if we go there, we will certainly needthat water.

In the planetary field, thediscoveries we've been making onMars just make the need to continueto go there and explore that muchmore compelling. At the same time,there is this little spacecraft calledKepler that in five years is just goingto change our world - change ourworld-view of the universe. It isalready beginning to do that. Though

we haven't yet, we're on the cusp ofbeing able to discover an Earth-likeplanet around a neighboring star,using Kepler or ground- basedtelescopes, or other instruments in thefuture. Then using these othertelescopes, like ALMA and Hubble andSpitzer, to characterize that planet, wemay find that it has life. We may beable to find another life-bearing, rockyplanet around a nearby star within thenext 15 years.

Carberry: Shifting a little bit topolicy, although I know you probablycan't comment much on the AugustineCommittee, but in the broadercontext, do you think that an Apollo-like program is still possible in thecurrent political environment - andpossible at NASA in general?

Grunsfeld: NASA AdministratorCharlie Bolden has set the bar forcommentary by saying we have just

got Augustine and we now have todigest it. I can say that the AugustineCommittee (full name) has come outwith its preliminary report and therewere some good things in the reportand there is nothing in there thatsurprises me at all; we look forward tothe full report. The Committee saidvery clearly that we should continuethe space exploration program and itsgoal should be to extend us beyondlow Earth orbit - a program in addition

to the really great thingsthat NASA does for planetEarth, for aeronautics, andcertainly for space science.But what we really areabout is our humanexploration program, andwe should go out andexplore. The preliminaryreport also said we needmore resources in order tobegin meeting this goal ina timely fashion. The goalof extending humanexploration beyond lowEarth orbit and the needfor more resources toaccomplish that are tworeally important points.But another point is howhumans do well when theyhave a high performance

challenge that is goal-oriented and thegoal is well defined; if we just say thatwe're going to go out and explore andnot articulate where we're going to go,it is hard to implement any sort ofprogram, so having a destination isimportant. We're much moresuccessful when we say we're goingto leave LEO or that we want toexplore NEOs because they arefundamentally interesting and also ahuge potential threat, or even thatwe're going to visit the Moon, if thathelps.

Someday Earth is going to get hit bysomething big and we're not going tolike it but what are we going to doabout it? Dinosaurs didn't do anythingabout it and look what happened tothem. But we get to choose. We havea space program and we want toexplore Mars because Mars, of all theplanets in our solar system, has lifemost similar to what we know -


microbial life. Certainly the moons ofJupiter and Saturn also hold atremendous amount of intrigue forexploration, because life there may bequite different from what we know -more into the extremophile - or farinto the extremophile existence. So Ithink we should go explore those, too,probably first with robots, but sendpeople there someday. As for theJovian moons, they may be a little tooharsh from Jovian radiation, so maybewe send robots. But that doesn't ruleout exploring them some day. Mars isthe most obvious and compellingdestination. As to giving NASA all ofthose options, I think Augustine wouldagree that they examined options totry and the range of options we oughtto be thinking about, without beingprescriptive and saying these are theonly five options, or these are the onlyoptions. I think what he [Augustine]wanted to convey is that we have thecurrent Shuttle derived plans, and wecould look at EELV based options. Ithink he was very supportive of heavylifting, whether it was Ares V oranother variant. He was also verysupportive of the opportunities thatcommercial space transportation toLEO may offer if it is successful.

Carberry: That was my nextquestion. What do you think the roleof the private sector will or could be?

Grunsfeld: Since I got involved inthe policy arena as Chief Scientist ofNASA, I've said I think it is a wonderfuldream that someday NASA canpurchase trips to LEO the way we buyairline tickets now. Routinely flyingspace tourists to LEO will bring suchrobustness to the system, but will onlyoccur when the systems engineeringand reliability engineering are so goodthat the degree of safety allows us totrust riding on the rockets. That canonly benefit NASA.

The work we've been doing withSpaceX and Orbital is exactly the rightanswer to getting cargo to ISS. Therecould be a service as reliable as theUS Postal Service, FedEx, or UPS -where you pay some money and thenext thing you know your packagearrives at a destination. If someone iswilling to do the engineering and

provide the service for getting cargoto ISS, then we should take advantageof that. Then we can use our NASAresources to build rovers to drive onthe Moon and build new spacecraftsystems to enable us to get to Mars,and do the really hard work that isexclusive to the US government, andthat can be done in collaboration withour international partners. I also havea dream that commercial companiesdevelop a LEO commercial capabilitythat is affordable. Then I can take myfamily into space, an experience Iwould love to share with them. Thatwill only be possible with a reallyrobust industry.

I will also add that being anastronaut for 17 years and knowingthe complexities of the rockets, of thesystems, of the software, of theenvironmental factors, and of thespace environment itself, I know that itis a very unforgiving business. It isvery challenging. So I think anycompany that wants to develophuman space flight or build rocketshas a very steep road ahead, and Ithink it is wonderful that we havepeople who can be challenged in thatway and who are rising to thechallenge.

Carberry: Risk versus Reward?Grunsfeld: I think the drive to

explore is encoded in human DNA.You only have to look at babies tryingto understand their world to confirmthis. It is that drive for exploration thathas made us so successful on thisplanet. We've explored most ofterrestrial planet Earth, in some way oranother. We've explored, by somemeasures, about ten percent of theoceans; there is still a lot ofunexplored ocean, although we thinkwe have a pretty good understandingof many facets of the ocean. We'veexplored only a tiny bit of space -even with all of our wonderfultelescopes that have allowed us tolook back within 700 million years ofthe beginning of the universe. As faras exploring space in the waypioneers in this country explored theAmerican west, we have barelyscratched the surface. People havetaken huge risks exploring this planet.

They have done that in part due tothat fundamental drive to explore, butalso for the perceived rewards.

As we press out into spaceexploration, I've made a personaldecision and a decision on behalf ofmy family to only take risks for thingsthat I really believe are important. Inspaceflight, I feel that I have done that.Nothing characterizes thiscommitment more than taking the riskto go to space and enable greatscience. Doing the servicing missionto HST is enabling great science, andis something else I really believe inbecause I think it will have lastingimpact on humanity.

I think for humans to push outbeyond LEO, to explore the Moonagain, and especially to push onbeyond that - to Mars - and to see ifwe can live there, is definitely worthrisking human lives. I think we havebeen phenomenally lucky that we'veonly lost the Apollo 1 crew, and theChallenger and Columbia crew. Tragicas it is, when you look at the risks wetook back in the Apollo program, itcould have been much worse. I justhope that the public and ourpolicymakers have the stomach toweather through what may be futurelosses of life as we push out. It isgoing to be hard because the fartherout we go, the riskier it is going to get.The reality of this risk is the same forthe commercial providers. I hope thatif SpaceX or Orbital or Virgin Galacticor one of these other companiesdevelops a privately run human spaceflight capability, and if there is loss oflife, that they persevere and learn fromthe experience and make theirsystems more robust.

Imagine if there had been a newsreporter helicopter circling overDonner Pass when those folks werestruggling for their lives andeventually succumbed. There mayhave been criticisms, and discussionsabout how we shouldn't push aheadand explore the Oregon Trail andsuffer this way. If the exploration ofthat time in our past had been underthe microscope of the instant mediathat we have today, people might havebeen turned away from exploration bythat constant microscope.

Fax this form to 307-459-0922, or donate online atwww.MarsSociety.org


THE MARS SOCIETY is a 501(c)3 tax-exemptnon-profit organization with headquarters inColorado, USA, committed to furthering thegoal of the exploration and settlement of theRed Planet, via broad public outreach toinstill the vision of pioneering Mars, supportof ever more aggressive governmentfunded Mars exploration programs aroundthe world, and conducting Mars explorationon a private basis.

THE MARS SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Robert ZubrinDeclan O'Donnell

Richard HeidmannScott Horowitz

Penelope Boston

THE MARS SOCIETYSTEERING COMMITTEE:

Buzz AldrinPenny BostonChris Carberry

Jonathan ClarkePatricia Czarnik

Tamarack Robert CzarnikGary Fisher

Gus FrederickJames Harris

Richard HeidmannRt. Rev. James Heiser

Jean LagardeDarlene S.S. LimBruce Mackenzie

Bo MaxwellGuy Murphy

Anthony Curtis MuscatelloGabriel Rshaid

Shannon M. RupertGus SheerbaumFrank ShubertKevin F. SloanPeter Smith

Sara SpectorLucinda Weisbach

Artemis WestenbergRobert Zubrin


Gregory Benford is currentlyworking on a novel that entwines bothSETI and the Mars life we envisionedin Cold Dry Cradle (and thenexpanded into The Martian Race). Itexplores what such an ancientlifeform would think about...

Despite Marc's best efforts, dinnerwas not a culinary success. Marc wasthe foodie among them, forever tryingout new combinations of the limitedrange of kitchen stores. But they hadlong ago exhausted the narrowpotential of the kitchen stores for newtastes, and now everything they atewas too familiarto the tongue,though Marc kepttrying. He hadeven broughtalong spices aspart of hispersonal massallowance. Someof his infamous attempts hadproduced stomach-rumbling distress.The microwaved frozen vegetablesespecially resisted creativity. Still, thefood was much better than the freeze-dried horrors of NASA days...or sosome said.

They took turns in the tiny galley.On the outbound voyage Ann bowedto the public's expectation anddutifully did her time, but the othersagreed that the results were definitelysubstandard, and she was relieved ofcooking. Instead, she did extracleanup.

That didn't bother Ann, a dedicatednon-foodie, who believed that eatingwas a somewhat irksome necessity.She went through school with aminimally equipped kitchen.Throwing a box of macaroni andcheese into boiling water stretchedher limits. Piotr joked that he sure asHell hadn't married her for hercooking. She actually liked good food,but wasn't interested in taking the timeto produce it.

"So what did you two do while wewere gone?" Ann asked later over veryslightly grainy pudding. The chocolatecolor disguised any visible traces ofMartian dust, but the tongue found itssting.

Marc licked his spoon carefully."Well, we drilled another core. Foundsomething ...interesting."

"Where were you working?" askedPiotr.

"We took the runabouts back to themouth of the big canyon in LongRidge-- you know, where we saw thefog a couple of months back on thatearly morning trip." The base sported

two open dunebuggies that thecrew used forshort sprints ofless than 10 klicksroundtrip. Bytaking bothbuggies, it waspossible to haul

the drilling gear. Ann shivered, remembering the

biting cold that morning she and Marchad seen the fog, suit heaters crankedto the max, looking like quiltedpenguins. Their picture now gracedthe cover of the Lands' End catalogue,wearing the parkas and leggings nowcalled Marswear©, of course. It wasthe latest rage in macho-type clothes,and the underwriting helped pay forthe mission.

As they'd prepared to leave therover she'd grabbed her tea cosy andworn it like a knit ski cap. That wasonly the first time she'd used it asextra insulation.

Marc continued, "We were downabout thirty meters, going pretty slowthrough some resistant stuff, then allof a sudden the drill started to cutdown real fast. I stopped it then sowe wouldn't lose the tip. But when wepulled out the drill stem and core, itwas smoking."

"Uh-oh," said Ann, automaticallysympathetic.

"That's what it looked like, anyway,but it wasn't hot, wasn't even warm."He smiled, looking at Ann and Piotrslyly.

"So how could it be smok-- oh, wait,it was water vapor!" shouted Ann."You found water!"

Marc grinned. "Yep. The drill tipwas really wet, and making cloud likemad." It was so cold and dry on Marsthat water on the surface neverpassed through a liquid stage, butsublimed directly from frozen to vapor.The team had concentrated theirefforts to drill for water in placeswhere early morning fogs hinted atsubsurface moisture.

"So, the deepest core is always thewettest. Makes sense. There reallymust be frozen oceans down there,"said Ann.

"What does Earth think?" asked Piotr. "Well, with all the data from the

other cores, first indications are thatit's probably good enough."

"Good enough for the government,as they say," said Raoul withuncharacteristic levity. Raoul Molina,the compact and muscular fourthcrew member, was the top mechanicon the team, and ritually cynical aboutgovernments. He even disliked thefact that NASA had separatelycontracted with the Consortium tosupply some geological data.

"Too bad we're not working for thegovernment, eh?" shot back Marc.

Ann looked over at him, surprised.The brief exchange left much unsaid,but all understood the shorthand.Tensions were definitely building asthe launch date approached. No onewanted to be the cause of a delayedreturn. The search for subsurfacewater had gone slowly, disappointingsome of the mission backers, andraising the specter that the teamwould be asked to stay longer tocomplete the mapping.

After dinner it was time for theirregular video transmission to Earth.They pulled Consortium logo shirts

AA CCoolldd DDrryy CCrraaddllee,, PPaarrtt IIIIby Gregory Benford & Elisabeth Malartre

© Abbenford Associates, 1997

Still, the food was much better than the

freeze-dried horrors ofNASA days...

or so some said.


over their waffle weave longjohns andprepared to look presentable. In fact,they wore as little as possible when inthe hab-- loose clothing didn'taggravate the skin abrasions andfrostbite spots they suffered in thesuits. They kept the heat cranked upto compensate, but then nobody hadto pay the electric bill, Marc pointedout. Competition was keen for creamsand ointments for their dry skinrashes.

"My turn, I think," said Marc.Ann smiled. "Janet on the other end

tonight, then?" Janet Burton was aformer test pilot who had trained withthem, and clearly had hoped to makethe trip. The Consortium had made acareful selection: individual talentsbalanced with strategic redundancy.The crew of four had to cover all thebasics: mission technical, scientificand medical. They fit together like anintricately cut jigsaw puzzle.

In the end it had come down to achoice between Janet and Piotr, andAnn was relieved at the final decision.She didn't know if she could have leftPiotr behind so soon after theirmarriage, even for a trip to Mars.

For the thousandth time shewondered if that had figured in thecrew choice. Adding a woman hadinevitably made for tensions, but onthe other hand, it also gave half thepossible Earth audience somebody toidentify with. And the Consortiumcould be subtle.

"Let's play up the water angle, notthe ankle," Piotr said.

"Drama plays better than science,"Ann said.

"So we must educate, yes?" Piotrjabbed his chin at Marc.

But Marc wasn't listening. The briefdescription of Piotr's accident hadbeen squirted to Earth earlier, and hewas downloading the reply. Due tothe time delay of six minutes eachway, normal back and forthconversations were not possible, andcommunications were more like anexchange of verbal letters. At timesthe round-trip delay was only a matterof four minutes, sometimes forty.Nonetheless, Earth and Mars teamsagreed on a download at a specifiedtime to preserve the semblance of a

conversation. They did a short videosequence at the same time. It wasgreat theater, but the Consortium alsohad a team of doctors scrutinize thefootage.

At the short delay times Marc andJanet tended to handle the bulk of thecommunications. And there was alittle spark in the transmissions.

The crew gathered around thescreen to watch the latest video fromEarth. It was Janet, all right, gesturingwith a red Mars Bar. Waiting for asuccessful landing, Mars, Inc., thecandy manufacturer, had agreed tobecome a mission underwriter,releasing a special commemorativewrapper-- a red number featuring thefour of themagainst a Martianbackdrop. Theyhad taken abouttwenty shots ofeach crewmember holdingup a standardMars Bar before a scenic backdrop.They each got five thousand dollarsper shot, with the Mars Bar peoplepaying ten thousand dollars per poundto ship a box of the bars out for thephoto shoot. It would have beenirritating after a while, except that theycame to relish the damned things,keeping one for exterior shots, whereit quickly got peroxide-contaminated,and eating the rest as desserts. Thecold sopped up calories and the zestof sugar was like a drug to Ann. Shewas quite sure she would never eatanother, Earthside, even if she did getan endorsement contract out of thedeal.

Ann had dubbed the resulting red-wrapped candy the Ego Bar, unwillingto honor it with the name of a planetand an ancient god, and the teamadopted the name. There had beensome talk early on about producinganother wrapper with Mars lifepictured, but microbes weren'texciting enough, and the manufacturerhad just decided to stick with the EgoBar.

Somehow, the commercialism of itall still grated on her. But she hadsigned on with eyes open, all thesame. She had known that market-

minded execs ran the Consortium, butgoing in had thought that meantsomething like, If we do this, peoplewill like it. Soon enough she learnedthat even exploring Mars was seen bythe execs as If we do this, we'llmaximize our global audience shareand/or optimize near-term profitability.Such were the thoughts andmotivations on Earth. Still, Mars theraw and unknown survived, unsulliedand deadly.

#

The spirit of getting to Mars onprivate capital was to shuck away allexcess. No diversionary moon base.No big space station to assemble a

dreadnought fleet.No fleet at all--justmissionslaunched fromEarth, thenpropelledoutward by theupper stage of the

same booster rocket that launchedthem. They had then landed on Marsafter a long gliding journey, as theApollo shots had.

But the true trick was getting toMars without squandering anybody'sentire Gross National Product. WhenPresident Bush called in 1989 for amanned mission to Mars on the 50thanniversary of the 1969 Apollolanding, he got the estimated bill fromNASA: 450 billion dollars.

The sticker shock killed Bush'sinitiatives in Congress. The price washigh because everyone in NASA andtheir parasite companies tacked everyconceivable extra onto the mission.

When evidence for ancient fossilmicrobes had turned up in 1996 andlater, public interest returned. Soonenough, even Congress-creaturesrealized that the key to Mars was livingoff the land. Don't lug giant canistersof rocket fuel to Mars, just to burn itbringing the crew back to Earth. Nofluids like water hauled along for aneighteen month mission. Instead, getthe basic chemicals from the Martianatmosphere.

The Mars Consortium had begun bysending an unmanned lander, theEarth Return Vehicle. It carried a small

Still, Mars the raw and unknownsurvived, unsullied

and deadly.


nuclear reactor for power, anautomated chemical processor, therovers, and the Return Vehicle,unfueled.

Using the nuclear reactor power, itstarted its compressors. They suckedin the thin Martian carbon dioxide andcombined it with a store of hydrogenhauled from Earth. This mademethane and water. The chemicalplant was compact, laboring for half ayear to separate the methane into therocket fuel tanks and clean some ofthe water for later human use. Therest of the water got broken intooxygen and hydrogen, and the oxygenwas reserved for later combinationwith the methane in the combustionchambers of the Return Vehicle.

All this was simple chemistry:hauling to Marsonly hydrogen asa feed stock forthe process, theship madeeighteen times asmuch rocket fuelas the mass ofhydrogen itbrought. Takingall that fuel toMars would have cost billions, plusassembly of the mission in orbit. Bygoing slim and smart, the Consortiumsaved all that. Had the early Europeanexplorers tried to carry all their food,water and fodder to the New World,few could have gone.

Slightly over a year after the firstlaunch, the refueled Return Vehicleawaited the crew. They had launchedon a big Saturn-style booster rocket,the contribution of the Russianpartner, Energiya. Their closed-looplife support system had recycled theair and water.

As their upper stage burned out, itpulled away on a tether cable about300 meters long. A small rocket firedon the habitation drum, setting it torevolving with the upper stage as itscounter-weight. At two revolutions aminute, the hab drum had acentrifugal gravity of 0.38 Earth's, toget them used to Mars.

At the end of six months glidingalong a curving trajectory close to theminimum-energy orbit, the hab cut the

cable. Rather than firing its rocketright away, it used an aeroshell--acone-shaped buffer--to brake itself asit swung around the planet. Theytargeted on the radio beacon set upfor them and landed right beside thefueled Return Vehicle.

All this was risky; their loss ofprecious water on the way out hadcome close to doing them in. Makingexploration super-safe was not onlyhugely expensive, it was impossible.Further, it was anti-dramatic: thepublic audience was thrilled all themore if lives truly were at stake.

Risks were both obvious--a blowupat launch, as with the Challengershuttle--and subtle, as with radiationdosage. The voyage exposed them tothe solar particle wind and to cosmic

rays. They couldshelter from solarstorms, whichwere infrequent,but the rest oftheir exposureamounted toabout a fivepercent increasedprobability tohaving a fatal

cancer within their life span.Further, Mars itself could do them

in. Storms could collapse their habitator blow over their return rocket. Dustcould clog the pumps at the crucialblast off.

But the 1970s Viking landers hadbeen designed to last ninety days, yetone held out for four years againstcold, wind and dust, and the otherlasted six.

Multiple backup systems are the keyto safety--but the more backups, thehigher the cost. Bush's 450 billiondollar program showed that a NASA-run program could easily turn into anenormous government pork farm.

So a radical idea arose: theadvanced nations could get thisadventure on the cheap by simplyoffering a prize of 30 billion dollars tothe first successfully returned, mannedexpedition.

This mechanism Europeangovernments had used for riskyexplorations centuries ago. Theadvantages are that the government

puts out not a dime until the job isdone, and only rewards success;investors lose if their schemes fail.Also, if astronauts died, it was onsomebody else's head, not anembarrassment to a wholegovernment.

So the Mars Consortium of Boeing,Microsoft, Lockheed and the RussianEnergiya took the plunge. Theyoriginally wanted to use the nameMars, Inc., but discovered that a candymanufacturer had long ago beatenthem to it. A Japanese partner bowedout, finally contributing only the smart-toilet, now dubbed the Marsbidet. Atten thousand dollars to fly a pound toMars, disposables were impossible.This went right down to writing paper--erasable slates served better, andcould be digitally saved, even sentEarthside--and toilet items. Nobodyhad figured out how to recycletoothpaste, but toilet paper wasdispensable. The smart toiletcombined a bidet arrangement ofwater jets with a small blow-dryer.Since its inclusion on the mission itwas the hottest piece of plumbing ontwo planets.

A second mission attempt wasbeing made by Airbus Interspatiale,formed from the French NationaleIndustrielle Aerospatiale, BritishAerospace, the SpanishConstrucciones Aeronauticas S.A. andDaimler-Benz Aerospace. The Airbusgroup had a more cautious method;their fully fueled Return Booster hadarrived in Mars orbit four monthsbefore. The Airbus crew had launchedfifty days later. They could win only ifthe Consortium's Return Vehicle failedat launch. The whole world waswatching the race... which made theConsortium's nightly "Hello, Earth"show rake in the dollars.

#

They all snorted when the usualquestion came in from Janet. Shelooked embarrassed, but what couldshe do? "And how are you feeling,with Airbus getting nearer and yourown launch--"

Marc started before Janet wasfinished. "We'll wave to them as we

Bush’s 450 billion dollar program showed

that a NASA-runprogram could easilyturn into an enormousgovernment pork farm.


head home."Everybody laughed, but there was a

forced quality to it.After the usual updating on Ann's

foray, Janet wished Piotr a speedyrecovery, transmitted some blandmedical advice and then turned toquasi-technical details about theupcoming liftoff test. Piotr's accidentwas one more mishap to beovercome. Janet didn't fail to mentionthe obvious: the broken ankle meanttheir Captain would be less effective ifanything went wrong with the liftoff ofthe Return Vehicle. What should havebeen a routine test in this part of themission was looming as a potentialcrisis.

On arrival they had discovered thatthe Return Vehicle was damaged. Afailure in the aerobraking maneuvermade the Return Vehicle come in ashade too fast, crushing fuel pipes andvalves around the thruster. None ofthe diagnostics had detected this,since the lines were not pressured. Insome instances the damage wentbeyond mere repair and Raoul hadbeen forced to refashion and buildfrom scratch several of the moredelicate parts. Working with theEarthside engineers, he had beensteadily making repairs.

In this he drew upon not only histechnical training, but his family'stradition of Mexican make-do. Hisfather and uncle ran a prosperousgarage in Tecate, just below the USborder. He'd grown up in greasy t-shirts with a wrench in his hand.Coming from a country with a chronicshortage of hard goods meant that"recycle and reuse" was not just aslogan but a necessity. Raoul wasgood at creative reuse, making novelpieces fit, but never before had heworked under this kind of pressure.Their return, and quite possibly theirlives, depended on his repairs.

They ended the transmission on anedgy note. It was thirteen days andcounting to launch.

#

There was plenty of grunt labor toget ready for the liftoff test. Gear theyhad used on the repairs, supplies

dumped months ago while in a hurry,scrap parts--all had to be hauled awayfrom the Return Vehicle. The big jobwas taking out parts of the chemfactory that they wouldn't need on thelong glide back to Earth. Everykilogram extra they carried made theirfuel margin that slimmer, and it wasn'tthat fat to begin with.

Ann didn't mind the heavy labor.The low gravity helped but the laws ofinertia still governed. Man-handlinggear into the unpressured rovers tostow it for the next expedition at leastgave her a chance to think; simplejobs didn't absorb all herconcentration. That was when all herfrustrations surfaced and she decidedto do some pushing of her own.

#

After the usual heavy-carbo lunchshe found Marc in the hab's geologylab, packing a core for transport.

"So what do we do now?" sheasked. "Just you and me?"

Their last, long expedition in therover was out--that much was clear.Safety protocols demanded two in therover, and both mechanics, Raoul andPiotr, had to be working on the ReturnVehicle. Marc was the backup pilot,so he would be needed to help Piotr,at least through the liftoff trial.

"You're going to tell me, right?" Hegrinned.

"I'm not going to sit aroundtwiddling my thumbs on my last twoweeks on Mars."

Marc said crisply, "You can't go outfor a week by yourself, Ann."

"I know. Come with me, Marc.There's just enough time left for a venttrip."

The extensive Return Vehiclerepairs had cut into all their schedules.For the week-long rover trips, missionprotocol decreed that one of the pairbe a mechanic-- Raoul or Piotr. Whenthe two of them were tied up doingReturn Vehicle repairs, Ann and Marcwere restricted to day trips in therover. Marc had filled his time settingoff lots of small seismic blasts, andwas surprised to discover extensivesubterranean caverns severalhundreds of meters down. So far they

hadn't found a way into any of them,and Ann knew Marc was itching to getdown there.

Marc looked doubtful. "You did thatalready. I thought we agreed it was abust. No life or fossils."

"Yes, but we picked a vent that wasoutgassing remnants of atmosphere--it had oxygen in the mix."

"So? We were looking in the mostlikely place for life."

"For Earth life, and ancient Mars life,but not modern Mars life. Oxygen ismost likely poisonous to theorganisms we're looking for."

Marc frowned, distracted by hischore. "Why so?"

"About 4 billion years ago, Earth'satmosphere was a byproduct of theearly photosynthetic microbes...precursors of plants. They succeededby learning how to make their ownfood, and by poisoning thecompetition, the anaerobes, with theirwastes."

"Oxygen?" "Right!" Ann nodded vigorously,

caught up in her vision. "On Earth,anaerobes went underground orunderwater to get away from thepoisonous oxygen atmosphere. Hereon Mars, oxygen-using forms wouldhave been eliminated when the planetlost its atmosphere. Maybe it's theirdescendants under the soil, living offthe peroxides. But the anaerobes onlyhad to fight the cold and drought.They must have followed the heat andgone underground."

"Where d'you want to look?""The big vent about 55 klicks to the

north is the closest."Marc said, "We could maybe

manage a few days in the rover, nomore."

"Good enough. I'll start packing." "Not so fast. We've all got to agree."

#

Raoul shook his shaggy head. Allthe men were letting their hair growout to the max, then would shear itdown to stubble just before liftoff,including beards. The "Mars Bald"look, as Earthside media put it, wentfor Ann, too. In the cramped hab ofthe return vehicle, shedding hair was


just another irritant. If it got into theirgear, especially the electronics, itcould be dangerous. He gestured atthe injured Piotr. "Without him, we'lltake longer to complete checkout.Marc, I know it's not your job, but I'llneed both you and Ann to help. Iwant to eyeball every valve and servoin the undercarriage."

"Okay, I can see why you need all ofus for that. But once it's done--"

"Until we've done the liftoff, planningis pointless," Piotrsaid in a voicethat remindedthem all that hewas, broken ankleor not, thecommander. Sofar he had notneeded to throwsuch weight around. Ann shot him alook and saw in his face the man whowas the commander/ mechanic firstand her husband second. Which wasas it should be at this moment, sheknew. Even if a part of her did not likesuch facts right now. She said slowly,"I have a quick run we could do."

Piotr called from his bunk, "Forjewels, I hope."

She grimaced. Piotr was deeplymarked by the bad years in Russianspace science following the collapseof the Communist economy. Sherecalled his saying, "In those darkyears, the lucky ones were drivingtaxicabs, and building spaceships onthe side. The others just starved." Notonly research suffered. Some yearsthere had been no money, period.Faced with no salaries, staff membersin some science Institutes found newways to raise money, sometimes byselling off scientific gear, or museumcollections. It was like hergrandparents, who had grown upduring the Great Depression; theycouldn't get money far from mind. SoPiotr made a fetish of following

Consortium orders about possiblevaluable items: he scrounged everyoutcropping for "nuggets," "Mars jade"and anything halfway presentable.They all got a quarter of the profits, sonobody griped. Still, Piotr's weightallowance on the flight back wasnearly all rocks--some, she thought,

quite ugly."No, for science. "Piotr gave her a satirical scowl. "Your vent idea." Raoul eyed her

skeptically."There are three thermal vents

within a hundred kilometers. I want totry the closest one, to the north."

"We've studied their outgassing, thewhole area around them," Marc said.The Consortium wanted informationon water and oxygen; they could use

it on laterexpeditions, orsell the maps toanyone comingafterward.

Raoul shook hishead, scowling."We've alreadygot one injury.

And we've looked in one vent already.Crawling down more holes isn't in themission profile."

"True, but irrelevant," she saidevenly. Raoul was the tough one, shesaw. Piotr would support herautomatically, though grumpily, if shecould fit her plan into missionguidelines. Marc, as a geologist, hada bias toward anything that wouldgive him more data and samples.

"It's too damned dangerous!" Raoulsuddenly said.

"True," Marc said. "We could use ourseismic sensors to feel if there aresigns of a venting about to occur,though, and--"

"Nonsense," Raoul waved away thispoint. "Have you ever measured aventing?"

"Well, no, but it cannot differ greatlyfrom the usual signs on Earth--"

"We do not know enough to saythat."

She had to admit that Raoul wasright in principle; Mars had plenty ofnasty tricks. It certainly had shownthem enough already, from the peskyperoxides getting in everywhere--even her underwear!--to the alarmingway seals on the chem factory keptgetting eaten away by mysteriousagents, probably a collaborationbetween the peroxide dust and theextreme temperature cycles of dayand night. "But our remote sensingshowed that venting events are pretty

rare, a few times a year.""Those were the big outgassings,

no?""Well, yes. But even so, they are low

density. It's not like a volcano onEarth."

"Low density, but hot. Our pressuresuits do not provide good enoughinsulation. I believe we all agree onthat."

This provoked rueful nods. Thebiggest day-to-day irritant was not theperoxides, but the sheer penetratingcold of Mars. Raoul's style was tohedgehog on the technicals, then leapto a grand conclusion. She got aheadof him by not responding to theinsulation problem at all, but going toher real point. "The vents must be keyto the biology."

"We have done enough on biology,"Raoul said adamantly."Look--"

"No," he cut her off with a chop ofhis hand, the practical mechanic'shand with grime under the fingernails."Enough."

And they all had to agree. In Raoul'sset jaw she saw the end of herdreams.

#

The liftoff test came after two daysof hard labor.

They had been burning methanewith oxygen in the rovers for over 500days, but that was with carbon dioxideto keep the reaction heat down, actinglike an inert buffer much as nitrogendid in the air of Earth. But the ReturnVehicle boosters would burn at farhigher temperature. The manyengineering tests said the systemwould withstand that, but those wereall done in comfortable labs on Earth.And they did not use a system thathad ruptured on landing and thatRaoul had labored month after monthto repair.

A warning call from Raoul made hercrouch down. They had decided thatthis test liftoff, just to see if anythingblew a pipe, would have only Raouland Piotr aboard. Piotr could run thesubsystems fine from his couch. Sheand Marc took shelter a few hundredmeters away, ready to help if

The biggest day-to-dayirritant was not

the peroxides, but the sheer penetrating

cold of Mars.


something horrible happened. Thestubby Return Vehicle stood with itschem systems detached and geardragged away, looking a bit nakedagainst pink soil as thoroughly trod asCentral Park in Manhattan, and withmore litter.

She and Marc had nothing to dobut pace to discharge all theiradrenaline. The damned cold camethrough her boots as always and shestamped them to keep the circulationgoing. Even the best of insulationcouldn't keep the cold frompenbetrating through the soles of theboots. It was early morning, so theywould have a full day of sunlight tomake repairs. She seldom came outthis early into the biting hard cold leftover from the night. Quickly enoughthey had learned the pains of evenstanding in shadow, much less ofMartian night--skin stuck to boot tabs,frostbite straight through theinsulation. Raoul's limp resulted fromseverely frostbitten toes after hours ofmaking repairs in the shadow of theReturn Vehicle.

She closed her eyes, trying to relax.They were about to land on Mars forthe second and last time; think of itthat way. Such odd ways of takingeach moment, relieving it of itsobvious heart-thudding qualities, hadsustained her through the launchfrom Earth and their aerobraking.Months of tedious mission protocolsand psychological seminars had givenher such oblique skills.

"Ready," she heard Raoul throughthe suit com. "Starting the pumps."

Piotr responded with pressurereadings, flow rates. She saw a thinfog form beneath the rocket nozzle,like the vapors that sometimes leakedfrom the soil as the sun first struck it.

More cross-talk between the pilots.Their close camaraderie had been sointensive the past few days that sheand Marc felt like invisible non-entities, mere "field science" witnessesto the unblinking concentration of the"mission techs," as the terminologywent. Then Raoul said, almost in awhisper, "Let's lift."

A fog blossomed at the ReturnVehicle base. No gantry here, nothingto restrain it: the conical ship teetered

a bit, then rose."Nice throttling!" Marc called."Wheeeee!" Ann cheered.The ship rose twenty meters, hung--

then started falling. A big plumerushed out the side of the ship.Crump! came to her through the thinatmosphere. A panel blew away,tumbling. The ship fell, caught itself,fell another few meters--and smackeddown.

"All off!" Raoul called."Pressures down," Piotr answered,

voice as mild as ever."My God, what--?"Then she started running. Not that

there was anything she could do,really.

#

At least the damage was clear. Thepanel had peeled off about a meterabove thereaction chamber.Inside they couldall see a mass ofpopped valves.

"Damn, I builtthose to takethree times thedemand load,"Raoul said.

"Somethingsurged," Piotrsaid. "The readout shows that."

"Still, the system should have held,"Raoul insisted, face dark.

"Over pressure was probably fromthat double line we made," Piotr saidmildly.

"Ummm." Raoul bit his lip; she couldsee his pale face through his helmetviewer and wondered if he feltdefeated. Then he nodded briskly."Probably right. We should check withthe desk guys, but I'll bet you're right."

"The double line was their idea.""Right, Piotr. We'll go back to the

original design."Somehow this buoyed them. It had

to, she reflected. Either they get thesystem working or they wouldn't darelift. The Airbus crew would rescuethem, maybe, getting the glory andthe thirty billion dollars.

"Should I contact Ground Controlnow, or wait until you get back to the

hab?" Marc asked."They control nothing," Raoul said.

"We're in control.""Is damned right," Piotr said,

laughing in a dry way."Okay." She grinned uncertainly and

Marc followed suit."I suppose we should wait, talk to

Earthside before we pull anything outand start refitting," Raoul said.

Piotr's voice crackled in the radio,his accent more noticeable "Nyet,nyet, no waiting. You do it. AndMarc, tell them, the Airbus --we mayneed their wessel to get home."

#

She brought up the unthinkable as away of edging her way around to herown agenda. What the hell, they wereall exhausted from laboring on therepairs, and it had been three days.

They were nearlydone. Time tothink theunthinkable again.

Ann turned toMarc. "Okay,suppose we can'tget off at all.We've got monthsuntil Airbus getshere. What doyou think we

could do with the highest impact?"Marc looked surprised. Nobody

answered for a very long time. Shecould see in their faces a vastreluctance to face this issue. But theyhad to. Finally Marc said slowly,"Geology, maybe."

Piotr laughed sourly. "Scratchscientist, find fanatic. Geology wehave plenty. A cold dry desert withred rocks and ancient water erosion.Not much better than the Vikingpictures."

Raoul said reasonably, "Ann, this isan old argument. Of course the Vikinglanding spots were purposely pickedto be flat and boring and dry. Not thebest places to look for life, but thesafest to land. Now we know Vikingcould never, anywhere on Mars, havefound your microbes that retreated totheir little layer when the seas andlakes dried up."

“...While Viking waslicking dust into thebiology experiments,

an undetected Martiangiraffe walked by on

the other side of the lander.”


"Over a billion years ago, I estimate,"Marc put in.

"We don't know that the microberetreat model is the only one," shesaid.

Piotr called, "Ah, your new versionof the old Sagan argument. WhileViking was licking dust into thebiology experiments, an undetectedMartian giraffe walked by on the otherside of the lander."

Ann bristled but did not show it.Sometimes she wondered if Piotr hadto occasionally show that he was notjust her husband, and thus anautomatic ally. "I'm not reallyexpecting earth-type animals, but I'mkeeping an open mind about otherpossibilities."

Marc blinked. "You really think we'llfind more than microbial life in avent?"

"I certainly thinkwe should look.We're probablynever going to behere again, any ofus." She lookedaround at them."Right?"

This they hadnever discussed.In some ways the surface mission wasthe least risky part of the expedition,the first four-fifths in days spent butnot in danger. Their coming launchwas risky, and the aerobraking intoEarth's atmosphere would be moretricky than their rattling deceleration inthe comparatively soft Martianatmosphere. Still, the sheer wearing-down of their labors in the harsh colddryness of Mars had sobered them allsomewhat. When they returnedhome--or if--they would be wealthy,famous. Would they do this again?

"I might come back," Marc said."I, too," Raoul said, though without

the conviction he had before."I am honest enough to say that I

will not," Piotr said, grinning at them."I will have a wealthy wife, remember."

They all laughed, maybe more thanthe joke deserved. The laughter, aftera filling meal, served to remind themthat they were a team, closer than anycontracts could bring them. This was ahighly public, commercial enterprise,

of course, but none of it would workwithout a degree of cooperation andintuitive synchronization seldomdemanded anywhere.

Ann looked at the others, theirclothes emblazoned with the logos ofmission sponsors, all quite soiled.Through the Consortium's endlessmarketing they had endorsed astaggering array of products. Theywere destined to be a team forever, nomatter what happened in the future.

Marc said, "The metals, that's whyI'm here. They'll be more importantthan life, in the long run."

Piotr: "I disagree. The asteroid beltis where we will go for metals. Mars iswhere we build a base to mine theasteroids. Going to be much cheaperto boost from here than anyplaceelse."

Raoul appearedfrom the pint-sized galley totinga bulb of coffee."So we've justwasted our timelooking for metalson Mars? Suitsme. If wejettisoned all ofthe damned ore

samples there'd even be room tobreathe on the return."

Ann said, "We shouldn't be limitedby what we think we know. Or whatwe think we're going to find. Abiologist named Lovelock pointed outbefore the Viking landings that therewas probably no life because theatmosphere was in chemicalequilibrium with the surface.Spectroscopy from Earth showedplainly that there was nothing in it butboring CO2 & nitrogen."

"Good argument, you have toadmit," Marc said.

"But it assumed life would use theatmosphere as its buffering chemicalmedium. Unlikely, because it's sothin...so, what about life that has longabandoned the atmosphere?"

"That's what we found." Marc lookedpuzzled. They were co-authors on themicrobial Nature paper, but they allknew the major work was hers.

"Other life may have many ways ofholding on deep underground. We

can't reach it except through thevents."

When her news of life was beamedto Earth, the public had chewed overit, and decided that it was not all thatexciting. Just a bunch of microbes,after all. The deeper issue of itsrelationship to Earth life had to waituntil they got the samples home. Untilthen, the issue was the province oflearned talking heads chewing overthe implications. Time for that later.

They had been through all of thisbefore, of course. In the course of twoyears you get to know each other'sviews pretty damn well, she reflected,and Raoul had his set look, jaw solidand eyes narrowed, alreadyannouncing his position.

#

The second liftoff trial was grim.Their lives were riding on the plume ofscalding exhaust. She fidgeted withthe microcams--Earthside wanted fourviewpoints, supposedly forengineering evaluation, but mostly tosell spectacular footage, she was sure.

"Let's go," Raoul called in a huskywhisper.

The vehicle rose on a column ofmilky steam. The methane-oxygenburn looked smooth and powerful andher heart thudded as the ship roseinto the burnt-blue sky. It wasthrottled down nicely, standing on itsspewing spire as Raoul and Piotrmade it hover, then drift sideways,then back.

"All nominal," Piotr said, clipped andtight.

"Control A sixteen and B fourteenintegrated," Raoul answered. "Let's sether down."

And down they came, settling onthe compressed column. The shiplanded within ten meters of the dampsmear which marked the takeoff.

"Throttle down," came from Piotr ina matter-of-fact voice she did notbelieve for a minute.

Then she was running across therocky ground, feet crunching, hercheers echoing in her helmet alongwith all the others, tinny over the com.

#

Still, the sheer wearing-down of their labors in the harsh cold dryness

of Mars had soberedthem all somewhat.


Celebration. Extra rations; they evenate the last Ego Bar. Joyful calls fromEarth. The laconic way Piotr told theAirbus people that they would not beneeding a ride home after all...

Then the next morning.Assessment.

Now they had five days until liftoffand it stretched like forever. The rushto do the second test had kept them atit sixteen hours a day, pouring theiranxious energy into the other preflightprocedures. After two years theyfunctioned smoothly together,anticipating one another's needswordlessly. The efficiency of trueteamwork bore fruit: now they wereahead of schedule. Ann workedalongside them and judged theirmood and dreamed her own dreams.Home! The call of it was an ache inthe heart. The cool green hills ofEarth...

Still, she could not let go her ownitchy ideas. She lay beside Piotr in thecold darkness and thought.

Leaving Mars...Behind her she felt the yearning of

millions, of a whole civilizationreaching out. Why had the issue of lifehere come to loom so large in thecontemporary mind? It dominated alldiscussions and drove the wholeprize-money system. Piotr and Raoulthought economic payoffs would bethe key to the future of Mars, but theywere engineers, bottom line men,remorselessly practical. Just the sortyou wanted along when a rocket hadto work, but unreliable prophets.

She suspected that the biologistswere themselves to blame. Twocenturies before they had startedtinkering with the ideas of AdamSmith and Thomas Malthus, drawingthe analogy between markets andnature red in tooth and claw. Thedread specter of Mechanism hadentered into Life, and would never bebanished after Darwin and Wallace'striumphal march across thetheological thinking of millennia. Goddied in the minds of the intellectuals,and grew a rather sickly pallor evenamong the mildly educated.

All good science, to be sure, but thebiologists left humanity without angels

or spirits or any important Other totalk to. Somehow our intimateconnection to the animals, especiallythe whales and chimps and porpoises,did not fill the bill. We neededsomething bigger.

So in a restless, unspoken craving,the scientific class reached out --through the space program, throughthe radio-listeners of the Search forExtraterrestrial Life --for evidence tostaunch the wound of loneliness. Thatwas why their discovery of microbessatisfied nobody, not even Ann. Marshad fought an epic struggle overbillions of years, against the bluntforces of cold and desiccation,betrayed by inexorable laws ofgravitation, chemistry andthermodynamics. Had life climbed upagainst such odds, done more thanhold on? To Ann, survival of evenbacteria in such a hellish dry cold wasa miracle. But she had to admit, it leftan abyss of sadness even in her. Andthere was still time...

#

Morning. Four days to go. Overbreakfast Ann signaled to Marc, took adeep breath and made her pitch. Thelast few days' hectic work had pushedthem hard. More than that, it hadnudged them across an unseenboundary in their feelings towards thetrip. Despite what Marc and Raoulhad said about returning, they allrealized that this was a one-timeexperience. Once they left it would beall over.

Raoul looked up. "The vent tripagain? I thought we laid that to rest.You didn't find anything the first time."

"Absence of evidence is notevidence of absence," she shot back.

Raoul frowned, "Besides, there isn'ttime. We're not packed up yet."

"We're ahead of schedule," said Ann.Piotr cut in quickly. "Under normal

circumstances, yes." He gestured athis cast. "With this, I'm clumsy. Ittakes longer to do everything." Helooked at Ann. "I need your help."

They all knew that a publicadmission of weakness cost him a lot,and it touched her, but she wasdetermined not to be swayed. She

refused to meet his eyes. Damn.Why did women always have tochoose? He never would've askedthat of a man.

In an empassioned tone, she usedher Columbus argument --how couldthey go home when there was thechance they had only nibbled at theedges of discovery?

Marc came to her rescue. After daysof grunt work, the scientist in himyearned for this last chance as muchas she did. "We can do it in two days.We'll work here tomorrow morning,drive to the site and set up the pulleysby nightfall. Next day we'll explore thevent and come back. That gives us afull day to finish up here before liftoff."He looked at Piotr and Raoul. "We feelwe have to do this."

Technically, the two scientists couldamend mission plans if they felt it waswarranted. Clearly they would do sothis time.

Raoul looked pensive. "I want to goover the thruster assembly again.something might need adjustmentafter the burn we just did." He hurriedon, "but I can do it alone."

In a flash Ann understood that Raoulwished to take responsibility for therepairs, needed to have time alonewith his handiwork. He would be justas happy not to have two itchyscientists underfoot. Then he couldtake as much time as he liked, obsessover every detail.

There was a long moment. Theyskirted the edge of a rift. Finally Piotrnodded agreement. He had followedAnn's arguments carefully, hoping tobe convinced. Now he snapped backinto mission commander mode. "Da.All right. Two days only."

Ann's heart soared. She flashedhim a brilliant smile, leaned over and,ignoring mission discipline, gave hima big kiss. Spending one final night ina hellishly cold rover would be theprice, but well worth it. She wasgoing to explore the vent at last!

Part 3 will appear in the next issueof The Mars Quarterly.


Reader’s Forumcontinued from page 4benefits and security for humans. Atthis moment private corporations andother public/private interests arebringing costs down by investing theirown time and money so that thepublic will not have to bear all thecosts. The private industries will profitinitially, but that private profit will bethe guarantor of future missions andbenefit the public.

Is it too dangerous to go to Mars?No, it is not. Some people cite thedangers of cosmic radiation, technicaldifficulties, bone mass loss, the deep

isolation, food issues, etc., but in allhonesty, these issues will be resolvedbefore we go, whether from all thegrowing research upon Earth, on theISS, or on future Moon missions. Theonly danger is not having the politicalwill to do it and more importantly, tocontinue with the missions and nothave a one-off, flag-planting exercise.Both the expense and danger of goingto Mars will lessen significantly overthe course of a few missions with the'live off the land' philosophy. The morewe discover about Mars from rovers,satellites and human missions, themore we could depend on Martian

resources (oxygen, fuel, minerals,water, etc.) to survive. The real dangeris in not trying.

I do not believe that humans willlack the courage to go to Mars whenthe time comes, but we will need todo it soon so that the fear of tryingdoes not prevail and to secure thesurvival of our race. Going to Marsmay be the most selfless thing thathumankind can do.

1 Rejinked. Derivative of jink; verb:a [sudden] change of direction.Oxford English Dictionary, 2009.

TThhee PPoorrtt HHoolleeby former astronaut Julie Rodriguez Jones

From her “astronomical” space art to her liturgical banners and ministerial stoles, Julie Rodriguez Jones' passion for artshines through. http://www.ArtFromTheSoul.com

The Mars Quarterly · 2019-09-06 · The Mars Quarterly 4 Volume 1, Issue 4 We are in danger;...

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Transcript of The Mars Quarterly · 2019-09-06 · The Mars Quarterly 4 Volume 1, Issue 4 We are in danger;...