the mars quarterly · director, chris carberry, with elon musk, ceo of spacex, and will whitehorn,...

The Mars Quarterly www.MarsSociety.org 1

The Mars Quarterly 2 Volume 2, Issue 1

Moving ForwardBy Lucinda Land ..............................3

The Mars Society Launches a Humans To Mars Petitionby Robert Zubrin..............................3

Mars Analogue LivingBy Artemis Westenberg...................4

Drilling On the Moon And MarsBy C.R. Stoker, J. Zavaleta1, M. Bell,S. Direto, B. Foing, D. Blake, and S. Kim ...............................................5

Interview With Elon MuskBy Chris Carberry ...........................6

Mojave 2009 MS NorCal ReportBy Boris Debic .................................9

Interview with Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galacticby Chris Carberry...........................12

BRSK Marsonaunt Mechanism: Proposed Planetary Bioengineeringby Dr. Balwant Rai, Jasdeep Kaur.16

Space Exploration AllianceAnnounces February 2010Legislative Blitz On Capitol Hill........................................................19

Phobos I and II, Red Russia - Last Attempt on Mars

By Raul Colon ................................20

A Cold Dry Cradle, Part IIIby Gregory Benford & ElisabethMalartre ..........................................22

IInn TThhiiss IIssssuueeWinter 2010 - Volume 2, Issue 1

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

The Mars SocietyPresident..........................Robert ZubrinTreasurer..............................Gary FisherSecretary ...........................Sara SpectorExecutive Director.......................Lucinda (Weisbach) Land Accounts 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, Debbie Foch

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 2,Issue 1; copyright 2010 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.

FFrroomm tthhee FFlliigghhtt DDeecckk

On the Cover: Colorful StreaksThe HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the

most powerful one of its kind ever sent to another planet. Its highresolution allows us to see Mars like never before, and helps other

missions choose a safe spot to land for future exploration. Thousandsof images are available online at: uahirise.org. NASA's Jet Propulsion

Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology inPasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's

Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin SpaceSystems is the prime contractor for the project and built thespacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace &

Technologies Corp. and is operated by the University of Arizona.

By the time this issue goes to press,NASA's 2011 budget will be availableat http://www.nasa.gov/budget. It isexpected to include "innovationinitiatives" that will place an emphasison outsourcing the development ofcommercial launch vehicles to theprivate sector. In this issue, we offerinterviews by outgoing ExecutiveDirector, Chris Carberry, with ElonMusk, CEO of SpaceX, and WillWhitehorn, President of VirginGalactic. These two companies areuniquely positioned to take advantageof these new NASA initiatives.

In this issue we are also pleased toinclude articles by Raul Colon,President of the Puerto Rico Chapterof The Mars Society on the subject ofthe Russian space program, and byArtemis Westenberg, on thechallenges met by those whoexperience a Mars analogueenvironment.

We hope you will join us at our 13thAnnual International Convention whichwill be held in Dayton, Ohio, onAugust 5-8. Register early!

On to Mars,- Susan Holden Martin


It has been said that 2010 will be theyear for space, and our organization iscommitted to keeping Mars at theforefront of the space movement. AsActing Executive Director, I standbehind our cause to make sure thatthe exploration of Mars as well as theinevitability of a human mission iskept in the minds of space advocatesand enthusiasts. In moving forward, itis imperative that our outreach goesbeyond our normal circles ofinfluence, and reaches those that maynot have considered the possibility ofsending humans to Mars.This is why we do what wedo, and why we depend onyour dedication andpersistence incommunicating ourmessage.

The Mars Society is aforward-movingcollaborative, community and action-oriented organization that inspiresmany. We are this because of you,our members, and a handful of verydevoted individuals who create ourconferences worldwide, competitions,

and lobbying efforts in WashingtonDC. One committed individual, whohas made significant strides for ourorganization over the last two years, isChris Carberry, our previous executivedirector, and we are with heavy heartto see him move on. He has left uswith a strong foundation on which wewill continue to build a mighty politicalposition on the Hill with our unendingstrive to go to Mars. We are gratefulfor his dedication and leadership toour organization and wish him wellwith his future space endeavors.

HumansToMarsPetition.orgIn continuing to reach the general

public, we have begun an internationaleffort to convince President Obama tomove Mars forward in light of the

Augustine Commission'srecommendations. We are asking youto participate in urging PresidentObama to set a course for Mars andgive the US Space Program a goal,and that goal should be sendinghumans to Mars by the end of thenext decade. Here is your opportunityin communicating that message, signthe petition, and send humans to Marsat www.humanstomars.org.

I am thankful for this organization,its members, and dedicatedvolunteers. I take great pride in beinga part of our Mars community and

moving it forward. I am alsoeternally grateful for mypredecessors who have laiddown a solid footing for meto stand on and want tocreate a path to take us towhere we want to go…to Mars.

-On To Mars,Lucinda Land, Acting Executive DirectorThe Mars Society

MMoovviinngg FFoorrwwaarrddBy Lucinda Land, Acting Executive Director

The Mars Society outreach initiatives for 2010:- SEA Legislative Blitz, Washington DC, February 21st-23rd- MDRS crew rotations Fall 2009 - Spring 2010- University Rover Challenge, Hanksville, Utah, June 3rd-5th- The Mars Society conference, Dayton, Ohio, August 5th-8th- International Mars Society conference, Poland, October (TBC)

Mars Society Launches PetitionCampaign - "President Obama: Set theCourse for Mars"

The failure of the AugustineCommission to provide the Obamaadministration with a worthy objectivefor the American human spaceflightprogram threatens to leave NASArudderless. Under these conditions,those who believe that the spaceprogram needs a real goal - and thatgoal should be humans to Mars - needto step forward. For this reason, theMars Society is launching an

international petition campaign, callingon President Obama to set the coursefor Mars. The petition is open to all tosign, regardless ofage or nationality,because thequestion ofwhether NASAsucceeds in doingwhat it can andshould do to open the space frontier isa matter of vital concern to allhumankind.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong

and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon.In the 40 years since, no human hasgone farther. Four decades ofstagnation in human spaceflight is

more thanenough. We donot need a fifth.It is time for thepeople to speak.Sign the petition.Spread the

petition. Post links to it on everywebsite you can. Let the voice of thefuture be heard.

TThhee MMaarrss SSoocciieettyy LLaauunncchheess aa HHuummaannss TToo MMaarrss PPeettiittiioonnby Robert Zubrin

The petition can be found at www.HumansToMars.org

Click Now!


Winter hit MDRS early and harshlythis year, bringing problems of frozenwaterlines and even water tanks tothe crews. Truth be told it made theexperience of being at our Hab a lotmore Martian, or so crews reported.The intense cold brought home adeeper understanding of whathumans will face on Mars: a hostileand dangerous environment thatdares you to forget even the merest -detail of the chores at MDRS aimed

at keeping allthe systemsalive. Anunintentionallyunplugged heattape means abroken greywater line andheaps of troubleto fix that whilethe weatherremains so cold.The outsidewater tank gotinsulated, butthe water in thetankneverthelessfroze for manyinches. Only a

livestock feeder heater was able toalleviate that. And that is what lifeon analogue Mars seems to be allabout: every time we think we havea firm grip on the situation, Marsthrows us a curveball and we need toget creative once more to remedy theproblem.

We are in our 9th season at theHab and we are already having manyplans, and even agreements with 3rdparties, for the 10th and 11th season.

Full crews and individuals areapplying for those seasons and if youfeel that you want to be part of that,feel free to apply as well. Over theyears we realized that theeducational outreach of the station,like under the Spaceward Boundcontract with NASA, but also ingeneral, could be so much greaterthan what we are doing right now.Therefore we intend to widen thescope of the educational outreach.More levels of participation induration, from a few days/longweekend, the normal crew rotation oftwo weeks, to even several monthswill be offered. All in order for ournext generation of would-be scientistand engineers to get a taste and ahands on feel for the science andtechnology that is such a large partof our societies nowadays.

Halfway in this 9th season at theHab you would think we know it all,but believe us when we tell you thatthere is scope for quite a bit oflearning yet. We invite you to comeand see for yourself. And until youdo, follow us on:http://twitter.com/MDRSupdates andhttp://www.freemars.org/mdrscam.

MMaarrss AAnnaalloogguuee LLiivviinnggBy: Artemis Westenberg


Introduction: DOMEX (Drilling onthe Moon and Mars in HumanExploration) is using analog missionsto develop the approach for usinghuman crews to perform scienceactivities on the Moon and Marsinvolving exploration and sampling ofthe subsurface. Subsurface science isan important activity that may beuniquely enabled by human crews.DOMEX provides an opportunity toplan and execute planetary missionscience activities without the expenseand overhead of a planetary mission.

Objectives: The objective of thisfirst in a series of DOMEX missionswere to 1) explore the regional area tounderstand the geologic context anddetermine stratigraphy and geologichistory of various geologic units in thearea. 2) Explore for and characterizesites for deploying a deep (10 mdepth) drilling system in a subsequentfield season. 3) Perform GPR oncandidate drill sites. 4) Select sites thatrepresent different geological unitsdeposited in different epochs andcollect soil cores using sterileprocedures for mineralogical, organicand biological analysis. 5) Operate theMUM in 3 different sites representingdifferent geological units and soilcharacteristics. 6) Collect rock and soilsamples of sites visited and analyzethem at the habitat.

Approach: A crew of 6, comprisedof 3 scientists and 3 engineers, wasdeployed for 14 days at the MarsDesert Research Station (MDRS)November 14-28, 2009. The MDRS is aunique facility that is designed to looklike a Mars lander from the MarsDirect architecture[1]. The facilityhouses a 6 person crew, providingtheir habitation needs, and laboratoryspace for sample analysis includingwet lab, refrigeration, autoclave, oven,basic laboratory equipment andinstrumentation. Ingress/Egress isprovided through simulated airlocksand EVAs can be simulated usingmockup spacesuits. MDRS is locatedin an important Mars analog site inSouth-central Utah. The area hostsexposed and nearly vegetation-freesediments deposited during the lateJurassic and Cretaceous geologicperiods. Layered sediments weredeposited from environments rangingfrom seafloor, floodplane, massivedunes, and evaporite sequences. Thearea exposes a rich array ofmineralogies including sulfates andphyllosilicates and many types ofconcretions of particular interest asMars analogs[2].

Equipment: Instrumentation used tosupport our mission included keyinstruments developed for flight usewith support from the MIDP programincluding the Moon Mars

Underground Mole (MUM)[3], theCRUX Ground Penetrating Radar[4],and the Terra X-Ray DiffractionAnalyzer [5]. The MUM is a subsurfacepenetrometer designed for penetrationthrough regolith using an internalhammering mechanism. The devicecontains a hammering front end, arear optical compartment with lightcollection optics for a fiber opticRaman spectrometer, and a tethermanagement system (Figure 1). TheCRUX GPR (Figure 2) is a small groundpenetrating radar consisting of anantenna system mounted on a sledthat can be towed. It returns radarechoes diagnostic of subsurfacestructure to a depth of 10m. The TerraXRD analyzer (Figure 3) is acommercial instrument, ruggedized forfield use, that is the prototype of theCHEMIN instrument on the MarsScience Laboratory[5]. In addition, weused a manually operated soil coringsystem to obtain sterile soil cores.

Other: Detailed timing records weremaintained of all crew activities. Audiorecords were acquired before andafter each major traverse activitydescribing goals andaccomplishments. Daily reportswritten by the crew summarized eachday's activities.

Results: At mission start the crewperformed a regional survey to

Continued on page 8

41st LPSC Abstract 2697 2010

DDrriilllliinngg OOnn TThhee MMoooonn AAnndd MMaarrss:: DDeevveellooppiinngg TThhee SScciieennccee AApppprrooaacchh FFoorr

SSuubbssuurrffaaccee EExxpplloorraattiioonn WWiitthh HHuummaann CCrreewwssC.R. Stoker1, J. Zavaleta1, M. Bell2, S. Direto3, B. Foing3, D. Blake1, and S. Kim4,

(1 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035 [email protected]; 2 NASA JSC, Houston, TX; 3 ESTEC /SCI-S, Postbus 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands;

4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadea CA)

Figure 1. MUM operation in the field. Figure 2. Collection of GPR data in the fieldduring a simulated EVA operation.

Figure 3. Terra XRD instrument operated inthe field during a simulated EVA operation.


IINNTTEERRVVIIEEWW WWIITTHH EELLOONN MMUUSSKKBy Chris Carberry [October 19, 2009]

Carberry: Can you give us anupdate on Falcon 1 & 9 as well asDragon and what the next year willbring?

Musk: Falcon 9 will begin finalvehicle integration at Cape Canaveralin January 2010. The first flight ofFalcon 9 will have a stripped downversion of Dragon - basically ourDragon spacecraft qualification unit.This is the actual article used toqualify Dragon for flight loads, so it isidentical to a flight vehicle as far asthe core structure and mold line, butwill not carry engines or avionics.

The second flight of Falcon9/Dragon will be under the NASACOTS program and will probably takeplace the middle of next year -thatflight will have an almost fullyfunctional Dragon. It will maneuveraround, communicate, re-enter andget recovered.And then by theend of next year iswhen we hope toget to the[InternationalSpace] Station. Asfor human spaceflight, there is a lotup in the air andwe only controlpart of it. The real decision is goingto be with The White House withrespect to commercial manned spaceflight. I think it is going in the rightdirection, but of course, you don'tknow until it happens.

Carberry: If all goes well, when doyou think you could get a humancrew up to ISS?

Musk: I believe we can do it withinthree years of receiving the NASAcontract - that is allowing for a year ofmargin. Our internal schedule is twoyears, but add a year in there forunknown issues.

Carberry: I know that it can be acomplicated process to get "Human-Rated." Do you foresee any problemsgetting your vehicles human-rated?

Musk: There is no question that itwill be challenging to achieve anofficial human rating, but it is notgoing to be as hard as for say an Atlasor a Delta. We built the Falcon 9 andthe Dragon spacecraft to meet theNASA human rating requirements, ascurrently defined, from the beginning.There may be some things here andthere that we missed, but all in all,we've probably got 99 percent plus ofthe requirements satisfied. Also, ourDragon spacecraft - for the portion ofthat it is in the facility of ISS - ishuman-rated because you havehumans on the space station, and ifsomething were to go wrong withDragon, you could destroy the wholespace station, which is a $100 billionasset. In many ways, for that portionof the flight, Dragon is already human-rated. The parts that will have to be

addressed will bereentry and ascent.Ascent really beingrocket related - thecore booster, theescape system, andthen reentry. Weshould be okay inreentry, really. Wehave redundantparachutes,

redundant drogues and mains, andthe g-loading is very light, so I thinkwe'll be fine with reentry. I thinkascent will be the real tricky one. Thething that affects our schedule is theescape system.

Carberry: What challenges doesthe escape system pose? Is it basedon systems that have been usedbefore?

Musk: We are considering going ina new direction that has not beendone before, but assuming we dosome sort of NASA contract, we needto do a careful study betweentraditional methods and the newmethod that we've created. But I don'twant to talk too much about itbecause it is not something that we'vedecided on and we may find that it is

...there will be hugeopportunities for

entrepreneurs to figureout how we make it work on Mars.

not feasible. So, I prefer not todiscuss that right now.

Carberry: Assuming all goes wellwith the funding of COTS, and youcontinue to get other contracts, wheredo you hope to see SpaceX in 10years?

Musk: Well, that is hard to predict.SpaceX didn't even exist 10 years ago- we're only seven years old. At thecurrent rate of progress we'll probablybe on Mars, but as you tend to getbigger, the rate of progress tends toslow down.

Carberry: What can the advocacycommunity or other small groups doto help promote the cause? I knowwe can always do political efforts, butdo you see any technical projects thatcould be done by the advocacycommunity that might help us get toMars?

Musk: Convincing NASA to gocommercial; but beyond that, there isnot that much because it isfundamentally about the booster,which is a huge capital project. If wecan make the transportation systemwork, there will be huge opportunitiesfor entrepreneurs to figure out howwe make it work on Mars. Butyou need the transportationsystem. It is like having arailway--Union-Pacific.What I would like to seehappen is to extendlife to Mars,making lifemulti-

planetary. I certainly didn't foundSpaceX because I think this is theeasiest way to make a buck.

Carberry: If you had the option tomount a mission to Mars throughSpaceX, or through NASA or someother combination, and you were theone choosing the mission architecture,how would you do it? And, do youthink NASA's plans could do it, orwould you do something like Zubrin'sMars Direct?

Musk: I think NASA's plans areconstrained by budget. Congress isnot going to appropriate the money todo that. I remember reading Zubrin'sbook at one point, but all I recall is theuse of ISRU propellant. Was theremore to it than that?

Carberry: [Mars Direct ina nutshell: ISRU, returnvehicle first, then crew,no in-orbitassembly, etc.]

Musk: I thinkthere is somelogic tothat.

Didn't someone else come up withthat? Wasn't that part of the Marsworking group, or something like that?

Carberry: A lot of these conceptshad been thrown around for years andthen Zubrin put the pieces together ina way that no one else had. He alsohad some great innovations that headded to the plan. Then there was theNASA Reference Mission which was avariation on what Zubrin hadproposed with Mars Direct.

Musk: I think Zubrin has somepretty high costs for the humans toMars missions - multiple billions. Inreality, we have to do this mission per

passenger inthe lowest


[individual] billions. If you want tomake life multi-planetary, that's theonly way to afford it. Eventually costswill come down, but I think the long-term approach will be having peoplego there to stay and maybe go backonce or twice after they get there - butmuch further down the road.

Carberry: You have also beenrunning other interesting companies,such as Tesla. Doyou see aconnection betweenTesla and SpaceX?Could you use thetechnology fromTesla on Mars? AMars pressurizedrover perhaps?

Musk: Yes, I thinkTesla would be theperfect company todo a Mars rover.Electric cars workjust as well on Marsas they do here on Earth.

Carberry: I seem to recall readinga statement in support of thepreliminary report of the AugustineCommission, but what are yourgeneral thoughts about theirrecommendations?

Musk: I think the realistic optionsinvolve the use of commercial crewservices.

Carberry: So you don't thinkNASA's going to get us to Mars?

Musk: Not doing things the waythey've been doing them. And, it's notabout going to Mars and doing the"Flags and Footprints" thing. That'snice, but do you really want to spend$100-$200 billion on that? Whatmatters is a system that is going to[breath] life into Mars and has a verylow cost of transport. NASA's notcurrently set up for that.

Carberry: Is there anything elseyou would like to say to the readers ofthis magazine concerning your goalsand hopes for the future ofspace/Mars exploration?

Musk: What I think is really of great

importance is to make life as we knowit multi-planetary. This is the first timein our four billion year history that it ispossible. Who knows how long thatwindow will be open? It might be along time - and I think it probably willbe a long time. I'm quite optimisticabout the future, but it may be thatthere is some sort of calamity waitingaround the corner and this isinsurance for life. I think we should

really try to promote that idea assomething that is worthy of a portionof our economic resources. SpaceXwill do as much as we can to helpfurther that goal, but we certainly can'tdo it alone. There will have to be a lotof other companies doing things -particularly when you get thetransport system working; and tryingto figure out how to create a self-sustaining, growing ecosystem onMars is going to be very difficult. Ihonestly do hope that there are otherswho will develop space transportsystems [that are] competitive withSpaceX.

Carberry: Do you see any out thereright now that may give you a run foryour money?

Musk: I don't. I don't see anyoneeven close.

Elon Musk is CEO and CTO of SpaceX.SpaceX has developed two launchvehicles, and has been awarded COTSfunding by NASA to demonstratedelivery and return of cargo to theInternational Space Station. For more information, please visit:www.spacex.com.

Continued from page 5identify major geologic units thatwere correlated to recognizedstratigraphy and regional geologicmaps. Several candidate drill siteswere identified. During the rest ofthe mission, successful GPR surveyswere conducted in four locations.Soil cores were collected in 5locations representing soils from 4different geologic units, to depthsup to 1m. Soil cores from twolocations were analyzed with PCR inthe laboratory. The remainder werereserved for subsequent analysis.XRD analysis was performed in thehabitat and in the field on 39samples, to assist with samplecharacterization, conservation, andarchiving. MUM was deployed at 3field locations and 1 test location(outside the habitat) where itoperated autonomously for 2-4hours at each site. Depths achievedranged from 15 to 70 cm dependingon the soil compressive strengthand the presence and depth ofsubsurface indurated layers.Subsurface samples weighing 0.5 to1 g were collected at the deepestdepth encountered at each of thesites using the MUM automatedsample collection system, andsubsequently analyzed with XRD.Downhole inspection of holesproduced by MUM with the Ramanspectrometer was acquired on twoof the holes and spectral featuresassociated with selenite wereidentified in specific soil layers.Previously unreported fossilizedremains of vertebrate fauna fromthe Jurassic era were discoveredduring our mission. Analysis ofmineral biomarkers associated withthis discovery are underway.

41st LPSC Abstract 2697 2010References:[1] Zubin, R. The Case for Mars, 1996.[2] Chan, M. Nature 429,731-734, 2004.[3] Stoker, C.R., et al., NASA Tech. Conf.,

2006.[4] Kim, S.S et al., IEEEAC paper #1365,

2005.[5] Blake, D. et al, 40th LPSC, 2008.Acknowledgements: Funding provided by the MAMMA program.

MMoojjaavvee 22000099 MMSS NNoorrCCaall RReeppoorrttBy Boris Debic,

Northern California Chapter of the Mars Society


The Northern California MarsSociety chapter rover teamparticipated in a field scienceexpedition to the Mojave desertorganized by Chris McKay of NASAAmes for the NASA Spaceward Boundprogram [1][2]. The field expedition,also known as Mojave 2009, tookplace on locations near the ZzyxzDesert Research Station on theweekend of October 23rd. Joining theteam was a small group SpaceScience students from SwedishUniversities.

The main goals of the expeditionfrom our group's perspective were:• Field testing the Senseta rovers.• Gathering imagery and video for

future documentation, teachingmaterials and presentations.

• Field testing the MDRS rover basedesign.

• Field testing the new open sourcelinux/java based control software.

• Assisting and documenting theAmes group in testing the desertmat imaging rover.

• Assisting Senseta staff in setting upcommunication hardware andexperiments.

Field testingThe testing part was based on a

testing plan agreed upon before theMojave 2009 expedition. Here's asummary of observations performed.

In total, we brought three rovers toMojave, two for Mars Society testing(a J and an R, one running MaxKernel,one running MSRS) and one for theAmes group (an R runningMaxKernel)[3]. All rovers were up andrunning simultaneously on the samerouter. There were only a few issueswhile setting up the rovers. For one,the MSRS software was a littleunstable and video would cut outevery once in a while. It should alsobe noted that rovers have to besecured during transportation. We hadone of them shear a screw on the rollcage during transport. These were allresolved prior to field testing. The

rovers definitely proved their fieldworth - in pretty rough terrain as well.

Rover SetupSetup proceeded smoothly. No

problems were reported. It takesabout 30 minutes to unpack therovers, boot the station and setupbasic wifi to get them going. Wedecided to skip some of the detaildocumenting at this point as wewanted to get an early start on thephysical testing. Documenting thesetup is easier to perform in the labwith controlledlighting andplenty of time forphotography andvideo. We havealready filed thisas a TBD withAndrew Klofas ofSenseta.

Rover PhysicalTesting BaseCourse

Performingbasic drivingoperations atclose rangeunder visualguidance was not a problem. Sunglare is a factor when using thecontrolling laptop as the onlynavigational aid. Early on we movedthe laptop into the shade of the van.Simple screen shades should bebrought for field operation. The VMOrover was driven as well, whileinherently less stable than thestandard J and R rovers due to itsoversized camera boom, control of ifproceeded smoothly on the basecourse.

The rovers didn't appear to have anyproblems with operating in the hottemperatures, but the ground stationcarried in a backpack did get quite hot.If we're expecting to do a lot of visualoperation of the rover with the groundstation in a backpack, we mightconsider a bag with better airflow to

keep the laptop cooler.The test on the rover ramp at

various inclinations proved the vehiclecan climb it at 20 degrees ofinclination. The first run was done onthe smooth board without any sandon it, the second run was performedafter the rover kicked some sand onthe ramp. In this second run the rovercould not climb at higher than 10degrees, and this only with the initialspeed being somewhat excessive. Theramp will need a redesign, with stepsinstalled to minimize the interference

of sand and dustand providebetter traction ata safer speed.

A CourseThe A course

selected was apatch ofrelatively flatterrain, presenceof desert crustwas noted. Thecrust is anindication of thepresence oforganisms thatlive in dry

(Xerophytic) conditions and haveimplications for locating life[4], oreven terraforming[5], in anotherextreme environment - Mars. Thoughcyanobacteria are among the mostprimitive living things, they havedeveloped sophisticated skills fordealing with an environment wherewater is both scarce and transitory.These bacterial communities are ofinterest to scientists ranging fromexobiologists to climatologists and willbecome a focus of more research andmonitoring in future years [6].

The tests didn't find loose sand tobe difficult at all to drive on on flatterrain. The soft tires of the roverhelped in gripping loose sand.Preliminary accelerometer data showsthe rover did not experienceacceleration of over 2Gs on any axis.


Situational awareness showed itselfas an issue for rover drivers. The testdrivers at Mojave complained theyhad a hard time telling where theywere when driving. A very wide anglelens on the camera would go a longway to help drivers drive safely. Wehad a rover tip over when it wasdriven into a dried out bush and a toohigh speed. Factors which led to therollover were; speed, inclination,communications lag and situationalawareness. On the other hand therover was very stable when crossingover alluvial terrain featuresin the sand of up to 12 cm.

Driving fast on loosesand kicks up a great dealof sand/dust in the air thatcan get into ports and ventsof the rover, as well aspotentially coating thecamera lenses. This couldmake driving by cameradifficult and cause otherproblems. We need torecommend bringing somecanned air and a brush toclean the rover vents andcamera lenses of dust occasionally.Towards the end of the testing on theA course when the batteries weregetting low, we noted an unusualnoise from the gear box. This wascorrected by replacing the batteries.We need to followup on the exactcause of the noise as it didn't seemtoo healthy for the rover. We alsofound the rover very useful whendriving under visual control overdesert mats. It did not leave any markson them and proved itself as a veryuseful tool for gathering field data withminimal or no impact to the desertfloor. This is an importantconsideration for any long termstudies to be performed in the future.

B CourseThe B course testing was split in

two parts. One in a sand pit to test theclimb ability on sandy terrain and theother on a rough patch littered withvolcanic rock varying from 3 - 40 cmin size. The rover had a hard timeclimbing any hills made of loose sandand would dig its wheels if notproperly controlled. Backing out anddriving at full speed with some

momentum helped to clear loose sandhills of a meter high or so, but anyhills taller than that will be a problem.If the rover is driven through suchterrain a combination of visual anddistance assessment data displayedon the controlling screen would bevery helpful. It may be possible togenerate a feature, an inclinationdisplay, based on processing the datathe rover gathers to aid the operator.In addition a future survey of MDRSarea is highly recommended based onthe limitations we found in this

exercise although the primary goal willbe to enable the rover to classifysome of the obstacles itself [7].

Both rovers handled quite well ondifficult lava terrain at moderatespeed.

The larger lava rocks wereparticularly difficult to climb over andthe rover would frequently get stuck"bottoming out" on rocks over 10 cm.Driving the rover at full powergenerally had more success forcingitself over rocks, but this was veryhard on the rover and caused a coupleof rollovers. It was also responsible forlosing a carter pin holding thebatteries in. We conclude that this taskwould have been much more difficultwhen driving by camera. At the lavabed we ran both rovers to test toughterrain capability. The ability totraverse this terrain between the twowas striking. While the 5R wascontrolled by MSRS from the van thedrivers had limited situationalawareness. Despite this they wereable to traverse about a few metersbefore getting stuck on the lava rocks.Alternately, the other rover was

operated visually on top of the mesaand very successfully driven aroundthe surface - even able to rescuehimself out of tough spots withoutdamage to the rover. The rover did apretty amazing job of rock traverse ona terrain which is even hard to walkthrough.

Important to note for field work: Thebetter the awareness the operator hasof the rover surroundings the betterthey will be able to successfullynavigate the terrain.

Two things to note for futuredevelopment of the controlpackage. In order to clearsome of the tougherobstacles the power levelhad to be set to amaximum. Having moretorque at a lower powersetting would helpsignificantly clearing outobject while maintaining alower speed resulting inless risk to the vehicle.While we have proven therover's ability to traverseareas covered with large

rocks this should generally be avoidedfor safe rover operation in thisconfiguration. If the rough

terrain is limited to a few meters, itis probably safe enough to passthrough. But for longer traverses weneed to develop a more robust controlmechanism and power characteristic.

The Ames team tested the VMOconfiguration rover and gatheredimagery and operational data. Whilethe current version of the camera hasstability limitations the rover managedto collect imagery at the desiredmillimeter resolution in a real worldsetting. The team gathered valuableexperience for further designimprovements of the camera boom. Inaddition, We need a planning sessionto identify and acquire a small set offield service parts for the rovers tohave handy on future field trips.

Control network performanceWe had several different setups for

the control network; standard wifi withsector antenna and narrow fieldantennas, the Meraki mesh network.The primary means of controlling therover was the standard wifi setup. Its


performance was adequate, the sectorantenna easily covered the fewhundred meters we needed for testingcoverage. The narrow field was testedat the A course and distance-wideperformed better than the sector asexpected, though we did note a dropof the signalwhendescendingthe roverinto thegully terrainwhich putthe roverthrough aloss ofvisualcontactsituation at the level of its wifi whip.Out of visual range should not berecommended for future expeditions,furthermore, may need to consider ahigher whip on the rover to obtainbetter range when traversing lowerspots. Towards the end of the testingwifi range was tested with the narrowfield antenna on flat terrain. The roverstopped responding to control inputsat the distance of about 1.2 kilometer(3/4 of a mile).

The Meraki nodes were powered upand came online in their basicconfiguration. They need to be setupbefore any field work as theirconfiguration requires internet accessin order to boot up the network.

ConclusionThe majority of tests and field

documentation we intended to collectwere addressed. Logs, imagery andvideo were collected on which we willcontinue analysis in the comingweeks[8]. Enough material wasrecorded to cover properly thedocumentation which will accompanythe rover to the MDRS and othermissions. We decided to skip thesetup imagery and video in favor offield sequences as the former areeasily recorded in the Bay Area. Roverperformance was as expected and wedid try out a number of important realworld scenarios which should aid usgreatly in providing the right level ofdocumentation and field support. TheSenseta rovers are very capable ofcarrying out science tasks in the field.

Their setup and operation is not toocomplex and it is user friendly. It canbe easily handled by scientists orteacher and students who are notnecessarily robotics experts. It takes areasonably short time to get themprepared and going so the bulk of it

can beallocated toscience orteaching.Startingfrom scratchwe had therovers andnetworkgoing in 30minutes, ina teaching

laboratory environment with a presetwifi, it should take about 5-10 minutesto prepare the rover and controlconsole for operation.

The rovers handled well terrain ofvarying degrees of roughness, and areresilient to rollover over obstacles ofmoderate size, up to 20 cm on onewheel and up to 15 cm on both. Onflat terrain the rover cleared alluvialterrain features up to a meter in heightwith slopes of up to 35 degrees at ahigh power setting.

We also recorded accelerometerlogs on various terrain configurationsto aid in planning what kind of sciencepackages can be safely deployed onthe rovers and on what terrainconfigurations. On flat terrain we didnot observe forces in excess of 2 g,however on the rough lava they didclimb several times into the 3.5 grange. This should be a considerationwhen planning missions on difficultterrain. In addition we gained valuableexperience with the new kernelsoftware, the initial observation is thatit is much more responsive and itgives us a level of control whichsurpasses the previous versions.Planned future improvements to thecontrol console in terms of visibility,the display of additional navigationaland situational factors, and theaddition of certain autonomous modeswill greatly add to the controlcharacteristics of the rover. This willundoubtedly increase further thereach and usefulness of the rovers as

scientific platforms. The Sensetarovers proved their worth as versatilescience platforms on the scientificallyimportant type A terrain, in additionthey can traverse shorter stretches oftype B terrain greatly increasing theirfield value and range.

AcknowledgementsMany thanks to all NASA Ames staff

and students, Norcal Mars Societymembers and Senseta staff, who withtheir various contributions made thisexpedition possible. Also I wish tothank Scott Davis, Jon Cox, AndrewKlofas and Eric McGuire for theirreport contributions. This expeditionwas made possible by support fromNASA's Spaceward Bound program,Google Inc., Senseta Inc. and the MarsSociety.

References:1. Mars Society Northern California

chapterhttp://chapters.marssociety.org/usa/ca/northca/

2. Spaceward Bound programhttp://quest.nasa.gov/projects/spacewardbound/index.html

3. Senseta Information for the Max5 Jand Max5 R rovershttp://www.senseta.com/

4. Endolithic Cyanobacteria in HaliteRocks from the Hyperarid Core ofthe Atacama Desert, Wierzchos,Ascaso, McKay, Astrobiology,Volume 6, Number 3, 2006

5. Extremophiles for ecopoiesis:Desirable traits for and survivabilityof pioneer Martianorganisms.,Thomas, Boling, Boston,Campbell, McSpadden, McWilliams,Todd, Gravitational and SpaceBiology 19(2), August 2006

6. The Ecology of Cyanobacteria:Their Diversity in Time and Spaceby B.A. Whitton and M. Potts,Springer, 2000

7. MDRS Expedition Guidehttp://planetologia.elte.hu/mdrs-geo.pdf

8. Mojave 2009 Photography galleryhttp://picasaweb.google.com/MarsNorCalRover/Mojave2009NASASpacewardBoundAndMSNorCalFieldScienceTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCLTAj7mXqKuzbw&feat=directlink#


IInntteerrvviieeww wwiitthh WWiillll WWhhiitteehhoorrnn,, PPrreessiiddeenntt ooff VViirrggiinn GGaallaaccttiicc

by Chris Carberry [November, 2009]

Carberry: Thank you for speakingwith me today. We thought it wouldbe interesting to do an edition onprivate sector space exploration andthe implications for Mars exploration.

Whitehorn: I think that is relevantin the context of the AugustineCommission. Obviously the initialconclusions of the Augustine Reporton human space flight clearly laid outsome of the issues in the NASAbudget for space exploration outsideof orbit.

Carberry: Yes, and it seemed tofocus a lot on private sector options.

Whitehorn: I was in Washingtonlast week meeting a lot of people inthe US administration and on CapitolHill, and also met with the CommercialSpace Flight Federation Board. I got acopy of the Augustine Report and I

thought the conclusions wereinteresting in one respect. It was veryhonest about reality. If you are goingto run any large, long-term project -and I have never run a project quiteon the scale of say the ShuttleProgram or the Apollo program - butwe've done some pretty significantones at Virgin where we have a 10-15year time scale and a lot of technologyintroduced and a lot of infrastructurework. I can think of one in particularthat I worked on which was theintroduction of a train into the UK inthe private sector, funded by thepublic and private sector. When youget into a project with that kind ofscale, you've got to be incrediblyrealistic about budgeting. It is quiteclear that the budget availabilitydoesn't match the ambition at themoment of what the shareholder or

the stakeholder or the owner - if youwant to call the US government that inthe case of NASA.

Carberry: It is true that the pastadministration didn't provideappropriate funds for the program andperhaps underestimated what it wouldcost. However, I think the AugustineCommission may have overestimatedwhat it would cost, which could alsohinder the overall program.

Whitehorn: I do think, the morethat I have learned about it over thepast decade, is you look howindustries develop - how aerospacedeveloped. There will come amoment when there are certain thingsthat the private sector can regularizeand do better than an exploratory,research and developmentorganization, which is what NASA was


originally established to do. I thinkthat a lot of low Earth orbit functionscan be taken over in a cost effectivemanner by the private sector over thenext decade or so.

Carberry: So where do you seeVirgin Galactic in the next 10 years aswell as the private sector in general?

Whitehorn: From our point of view,we have a real opportunity on ourhands. Virginbegan thisproject with apiece oftechnology. Avision of what atechnologicalapproach to aproblem couldyield.SpaceShipOneand White Night1 are anexample. Inaddition to usingcarboncomposites,some extremelyingenious ideasby Burt like thefeathering devicefor suborbitalreentry. Andthey gave theprospect of a safe operating system toallow people to get up in space andget a taste of seeing the planet Earth,experiencing weightlessness, andmany of the elements that we'vegenerally regarded traditionally as thehuman experience of going to space.The exciting thing was that with thistechnology we could do quite a bitmore than that. So, from the verybeginning, we planned our approachto being: let's look at the spacetourism market, let's look at what thatmarket would really want as opposedto what people are going to try to givethem, and let's do some real work onmarket research - let's go out and selltickets and find out what people want.Some people told us, back in 2004-05,that they weren't prepared to put their$200,000 down unless they get theexperience of weightlessness. Thatreally sealed for Virgin that we were

going to need to take a technologydevelopment project to a new scalefrom what we had originallyenvisaged.

The original plan was to rebuildSpaceShipOne and get it intocommercial operation quickly andthen build a more sophisticatedsystem later. But, it was quite clear tous we needed build a moresophisticated system to start with. If

people wanted toexperienceweightlessness,we needed a bigenough cabinthat we couldcarry more thanjust a couple ofpeople thatSpaceShipOnewould havecarried. And weneeded to build aspaceship andspace launchsystem for it inWhite Knight 2,which would becapable of doingmore. So wedesigned SS2with features thatwould make it avery useful

human in-the-loop space sciencevehicle. And we designed WK2 with agreater carrying capacity for weight toaltitude than our SS2 design required.That extra bit - 35,000 pounds ofweight - or 17 tons in metric terms -We could get a satellite of up to 200kg into LEO.

With Virgin Galactic, we've movedahead in the space tourism business.We embarked on work on the spacescience market with humans mightlook at with a cheap enough vehicle -with regularity and safety of flight.Then, in this last six months as aresult of with the new investmentsthat have come in, we have beengiven a budget to produce a businessplan to look at developing a satellitelaunch vehicle. So a lot has happenedto Galactic in the last six or sevenmonths. It's allowed us to refine whatwe're doing and also bring forth our

planning as to we'll be able to do it.So certainly, what we envision overthe next 8-10 years is that we willestablish the space tourism businesssuccessfully.

We'll operate at our main base,Space Base America in New Mexico.We'll experiment with that systemoperating out of different locations -places we could conduct occasionalflights from such as Kennedy SpaceCenter or Kiruna in Sweden, or AbuDhabi, subject to regulatory approval.We will also embark in the next sixmonths - and we've actuallyundertaken in the last week or two tobring this forward - to develop anunmanned satellite launcher. We'veactually recruited a Dr. Adam Bakerfrom Surrey Satellites to be themanager of that project for us.

In the longer term we clearly have avision that this approach of air launch,using the new materials technologiesnow available in aviation - the kind ofreally good power-to-weight ratioturbo fan jet engines for a mother shipto launch. With increased use ofcomposites, we believe we candevelop an even bigger White Knightin the future so that we could use anair launch system very flexibly to gethuman beings into orbit.

What this system can't do - butthere's another ambition for us in thefuture - is the right type of engines bedeveloped that could be thebeginnings of hypersonic flight aroundthe planet. But for the next decade,our ambitions at VG are not to gobeyond that type of scenario.However, having said that, I stillbelieve there still is a vision for theprivate sector doing deep space. Butthat is really is the place where NASAreally needs to lay its next generationof vision on. I do think it is going tobe quite possible for companies suchas SpaceX and VG and other launchvehicles that exist to take up a lot ofthe work that is currently undertakenby NASA in LEO.

Carberry: Can programs like COTSor similar future programs stimulatethis process?

Whitehorn: I think the need forthese programs to stimulate it - there

...they gave theprospect of a safe

operating system toallow people to get up

in space and get a tasteof seeing the planetEarth, experiencingweightlessness, andmany of the elementsthat we've generally

regarded traditionallyas the human

experience of goingto space.


is no doubt. I think the analogy thatwas made by several people about thebeginnings of the airmail system in theUS in the 1920s, and what happenedto air and space generally - andlooking at aviation in Britain - manythings are similar in the way that thegovernment often ended up as thecustomer. A very good example,actually, is the first transatlantic airservice between Southampton inEngland and New York. The first non-stop flights were undertaken with anaircraft called the Boeing 214 Clipper.Pan Am purchased that - the earlyImperial Airways purchased thataircraft. They used a guaranteedminimum number of governmentseats to kick the service off in early1939. And besides the fact the ticketswere an equivalent price to $70,000-$80,000 U.S. dollars, they managed tofill all the rest of the seats withentrepreneurs, bankers, businesspeople, etc. who just wanted to flyacross the Atlantic. Of course thebeginning of WWII ended that service,but did help the beginnings of realaviation industry that kicked off after1945.

It was during WWII that there was agovernment incentive to build longrunways all over the world that reallyallowed aviation to move from itsflying boat era into an era ofinfrastructure, which had been largelyfunded by the military during WWII.So, there are analogies and I think thatNASA could take that role. But I dothink - and I'm a huge NASA fan - Ithink that NASA has a potential vision,but it needs to be given theparameters for that vision. If youwanted a personal view of what I thinkwould be exciting for the generalpublic, I am a believer that the Mooncan eventually be commerciallydeveloped if there is a real demand forit - like for Helium 3 for example. Ifthere is a reason to do it's not beyondthe commercial sector to be suitablyincentivized to go after that kind ofrole.

I find it quite intriguing that if youlook at one of the ideas for NASAwhich is to do a deep space project,such as [hooking] up with an asteroidand doing science around an asteroid,

it is something that would capture thepublic's imagination in a major way -then to go to Mars based on thatexperience as well. I think just havingone plan of just going back to theMoon when it can't be funded, andthen go to Mars isn't necessarily -there needs to be an awful lot of out-of-the-box thinking. I'm sure that isbeing undertaken at NASA as wespeak.

I personally think, and I was askedjust last week, that you have to giveback to the public that ultimately fundsspace, be it in Europe, the UnitedStates, the Far East, or Japan. Thepublic/the taxpayers ultimately fundspace work. They need to believe thatwhat is being done is really exitingand really relevant. It is quite difficultto believe that going back to theMoon. If you ask a decent survey ofpeople in the United States or the UK,something tells me - and I have a bitof a marketing background in my past- that there is huge interest globally inthe science of our planet and NASAhas been at the forefront of thatscience, which we now understandmuch better. But it is generallyaccepted because of the study ofpaleontology all the way to Earthscience - archaeology, that we sufferextreme risk on the planet fromincursions from space objects - wehave a much better understanding ofthat than we even did a decade ago. Itwould really inspire the public that wewould create a mission to dosomething like that. My personal viewis that NASA undertaking a mission ofthat nature would be of great interest.

I am a great believer that humanshave to go to Mars. I've becomeconvinced of that not only through thepolemic of individuals who haveargued for it for many years, but alsojust because I think when you getpeople like Prof. Stephen Hawkingsaying that this is essential - not amaybe - and you get other leadingscientists of many different disciplines- some of whose predecessors wouldhave said that we could do thisthrough robotics. But when you getthe generation that is saying we knowenough about the planet - we knowenough about civilization now in 2010

to know that we will suffer severe risksto our civilization structure if we justremain on this planet. And then youtake the emotional polemic argument -we also need to dream - we need tohave a place to go. If we say we'restopping right here and we are neverleaving this place, it doesn't exactlycreate the enthusiasm for thegenerations to come. I think if youcombine those arguments - learninghow to get off this planet is somethingthat mankind needs to undertake. Alogical way to do that is to go to Mars.That's the way we will learn to get offthis planet. And we'll developtechnologies to do so.

I do think one other thing in theAugustine Commission summarywhich I've seen - which I hope will befleshed out a lot more in the largerdocument - is that NASA also needsto be an R & D organization - to getback to its R & D roots which it doesn'tdo much anymore. That is not aneasy role for the private sector. Thereare very few people who will take thekinds of risks that Richard Branson hastaken and is prepared to back what iseffectively a commercializing R & Dproject with SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnight 2. It is thanks to his vision thatwe've been able to build that businessplan and show that we can make thiswork commercially. But, without theinitial money to undertake this project,it would never have gotten anywhere.R & D at that level - when you arereally looking at a new type of motorfor the future - is not best for theprivate sector. NASA needs to bethere, and going to Mars will help todo that, but I think it should also beundertaking much more serioushypersonic engine work.

We need to find after forty yearsthat Holy Grail - that we're going to dothings in very low Earth orbit aroundthe planet. We need to find the motorthat can breathe air and work outsidethe atmosphere as well. It has beenone of the tantalizing things wherethere have never been sufficient seedcore investments in those concepts.And yet, what the aerospace worldcan now give is that we can createvehicles with composite technologynow - which can benefit and provide a


lot of industrial work in space - muchmore efficiently, with an engine of thatnature. There was something thatBurt Rutan said to me many years agowhen we first started on this projectwhen Sir Richard asked him if it waspossible - why can't we flySpaceShipTwo around the planet?Burt said that he thought that the mainthing holding us back - reentry is anissue but initially can be overcome - isthat kind of vision from the 1960swhere you could leave London or NewYork or Washington and two hourslater be in Australia. Some of the LEOstuff can only really get the righteconomics if we can find a new kindof motor. NASA should be looking atR & D in some of those areas and ofcourse a well-funded, well thought outdeep space project that leads to Mars.

Carberry: With Virgin pursuing thistype of R & D, have you found that ithas inspired other companies to dosimilar R & D projects?

Whitehorn: Certainly there are ahandful of companies that havesufficient funding to really take thingsforward in the private sector, but Ithink the three that have had sufficientfunding to do a proper job at this havebeen Bigelow, SpaceX, and VirginGalactic. Interestingly, none of us arecompeting with each other in anysense, shape, or form. SpaceX wouldprobably never go into the satellitemarker below 200 kilos, but with thetechnology we are developing, wedon't intend to go above 200 kilos.We certainly would look at thetechnology that they are developing -the rocket motor technology forFalcon 1 - in terms of what we mightdo with a launcher. I think thatBigelow has done an inspiringly goodjob with the project that they havedeveloped. One day SpaceX couldhave a good start at fulfilling amarketplace for that if they candevelop a commercial crew vehicle forthe ISS - they can certainly do thesame for Robert Bigelow. We, one day,might even be able to take a secondversion vehicle from that with an airlaunch system, which could lowerlaunch costs yet again. I think someof the other private sector space

companies have got some really goodideas and really good technologies.

Carberry: Would you collaboratewith any of those companies in futureprojects?

Whitehorn: Sierra NevadaCorporation is doing a lot of work withus on rocket motor two at themoment. XCor, we're not doinganything with right now, but one dayin the future you can envisage - WhiteKnight 2 could launch other vehiclesas well. They've got some interestingmotor technology there, but wehaven't collaborated with them yet. Alot of the otherprivate sectorspace companieshave beenlooking forsomething out ofNASA projects.That's one of thethings that hasn'theld back VirginGalactic, SpaceX or Bigelow.Interestingly enough, I'm speaking toyou about the Augustine report, butit's directly relevant to our company.We may be able to provide services toNASA, but if the AugustineCommission report had come here orthere about human space flight, itwouldn't have affected the work wemight be doing with NASA in thingslike suborbital space science orastronaut training in the future. So,we're not relying on the outcome ofthe deliberations of NASA's budgetover the next year, but there areprobably a few private sector spacecompanies are relying on that.

One of the things that I think is socrucial at the moment is that the restof the world's space industry doeslook to NASA for leadership, and thecurrent NASA leadership is waiting forleadership from Congress - whereNASA finally tells them, 'Tell us whatto do and we'll find a way to do it -and tell us how much money we'rereally going to have and give us achance to plan and give us certainty.'I've got a feeling that's what is needed.There has been a long period wherethere just hasn't been that certainty. Itthey have certainly of purpose, I think

they can find a way to fund it withinthe budget constraints of the realworld of 2010.

Carberry: Yes, it is difficult to makeany progress if you are in constantthreat that the goals may keepchanging every 4-8 years.

Whitehorn: Indeed. If this report istaken in exactly the way that I think itwas intended, I think it could be anopportunity for NASA. If it is just usedin a way, in very difficult economiccircumstances, to make an excuse forrestricting budget or simply cuttingbudget, then it probably would not

have succeeded,but I don't thinkthat was theintention of thepiece of work.

Carberry:When do youexpect to startservice?

Whitehorn: The current time tableis that we are unveiling SpaceShipTwoin December. We will start test flyingsoon after that starting with [captive]carry and then glide in flights. Thenwe start into the rocket motor fired up- then it goes supersonic. It will beone of the biggest test flightprograms. When you takeSpaceShipTwo and White Knight 2together, it actually has a bigger testflying program than Concorde had interm of number of flights. Then we'llfly SpaceShipTwo to space a little overyear after that. Then, of course, weneed to get our license from the FAA.So, I think the year that we will beflying commercially will be 2011.

Carberry: I assume that you areplanning on going up?

Whitehorn: I would love to go upon one of the last test flights ifpossible. That will all depend on thecircumstances and what is needed atthe time, but I would definitely fly onit. The question is when.

Virgin Galactic unveiledSpaceShipTwo at the MojaveSpaceport on December 7, 2009.www.VirginGalactic.com.

I would definitely fly on it.

The question is when.


BBRRSSKK MMaarrssoonnaauunntt MMeecchhaanniissmm:: PPrrooppoosseedd PPllaanneettaarryy BBiiooeennggiinneeeerriinngg

by: Marsonaunt - Dr. Balwant RaiFounder of Aeronautic Dentistry, India

Jasdeep Kaur, BDS, MS, SC-ADACorresponding authors: Balwant Rai, [email protected]

From the perspective of biology,planetary engineering is the ability toalter the environment of a planet sothat terrestrial organisms can surviveand grow1. The feasibility of alteringplanetary environments is clearlydemonstrated by mankind's activitieson the Earth and it is increasinglyapparent that in the near term futuremankind will gain the technologicalcapability to engineer the climate ofMars. Current proposedexperiments/proposals for theplanetary engineering of Mars differ intheir methodology, technicalrequirements, practicality, goals andenvironmental impact1-44The planetaryengineering of Mars may be dividedinto two distinct mechanistic steps,ecopoiesis followed by terraforming.Ecopoiesis in which the creation of aself-regulating anaerobic biosphereand terraforming refers to the creationof a human habitable climate 6.Whether the creation of suchbiospheres are possible is not known8,10,12,14. However, the majority of theseplanetary engineering models invokethe use of biological organisms, bothduring alteration of the planetaryenvironment and in the regulation ofthe resulting biosphere. To best of ourknowledge, no literatures publishedabout planetary dental or oral micro-organisms of human model forcreating earth-like environments or totest these micro-organisms' in bothEarth and Mars environments. Thisarticle will briefly review theimplications of the current Martianenvironment and assets for biologyand then discuss the relationshipbetween biology and planetary dentalbioengineering.

I. Possible environmentalevidences for no Humanestablishment

1. Low pressure. The atmosphericpressure on Mars is mostly due tocarbon dioxide , and varies fromapproximately 7.4 to 10 millibar(mbar) 1 .

2. Low temperature. The averagediurnal temperature ranges fromapproximately 170 K to 268 K. Thesetemperatures would completely freezeany organism and depending on thefreezing process would cause cellulardamage through the formation of icecrystals. Low temperatures wouldraise the activation energy for enzymecatalyzed processes and thus inhibitbiochemical/metabolic reactions.Biochemical reactions occur insolution and the transport ofmetabolites would not occur efficientlyin ice crystals 2.

3. Water. Liquid water which is aprerequisite for life (McKay, 1991;McKay and Stoker, 1989), under thecurrent Martian atmospheric pressureis unstable. Such extreme dryconditions would cause dehydration,for example damaging DNA (Dose etal. 1995) and leading to mutation andcell/organism death.

4. Radiation. The main source ofradiation at the Martian surface isultraviolet (UV) radiation between thewavelengths of 190 and 300 nm. In theabsence of an ozone layer, organismscan only escape the lethal affects ofUV-radiation by living in protectedhabitats.

5. Oxidants. Due to UV-radiation thetopmost layer of the regolith isthought to contain strong oxidantswhich are damaging for cellularcomponents.

6. Oxygen and Carbon dioxide.Oxygen on Mars is 0.02%. The majoratmospheric component is carbondioxide. In organisms, the relativelyhigh concentration of carbon dioxidewould cause a low intracellular pH.

This may lead to damage for cellularproteins, cellular components andcellular metabolism3. Also, free radicalinduced damage is likely tobiomolecules and cellularcomponents.

7. No organic material. Because ofthe continuous bombardment of UV-radiation and oxidizing conditions, noorganic material will be present on theMartian surface4.

II. Possible environmentalevidences for Humanestablishment

1. Mars does contain sufficientvolatiles to enable some form ofcolonization and perhaps planetaryengineering, biomedical engineering,aeronautic dentistry and aviationmedicine to render environmentalconditions more clement for terrestriallife to survive and grow. Oxygen onMars is 0.02% and free radicalinduced damage is likely tobiomolecules and cellularcomponents. Relative anaerobicenvironment will make bioengineeringlittle difficult.

2. Analysis of Martian soil andshergottites, nakhlites andchassignittes (SNC) meteorites hasshown that all of the elementsnecessary for carbon based life onEarth are present on Mars5-6.

3. It is evident that Mars oncepossessed the liquid water and adense carbon dioxide atmosphere7.

4. A number of compounds andelements are absolutely required forlife; liquid water, carbon, hydrogen,nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous andsulfur are the main elements whichconstitute amino acids andnucleotides and various minerals arealso required. All of theseelements/compounds are believed tobe present on Mars 8-9.


Going by evolutionary theories oflife on earth that methane andnucleotides were first to evolve andwater evolved much later, it is likelythat similar mechanisms will bepossible on Mars. What is important isconsideration of existence ofanaerobic environment for anaerobicflora and possible oxygen andnitrogen free radical attack.

Water. Currently, the surface of Marsis devoid of liquid water and theatmosphere only contains minuteamounts of water vapour2,

Buried organic material6. It has beenreported that organic material, eitherdeposited by meteorites and/orremains from an earlier biosphere,maybe between 3 and 40 meters fromthe surface or perhaps be present inPolar Regions. These deposits couldtherefore be utilized by plants thathave long root systems and/or bysubsurface micro organisms.

Carbon. On first inspection the twomain sources of "trapped" carbondioxide are as a solid in the polar capsand adsorbed in the regolith 8.

Nitrogen. No direct analysis of thenitrogen content on the surface ofMars has yet been conducted, theabundance of nitrogen on the surfaceof Mars has been estimated fromanalysis of SNC data and it wouldappear that there is proportionally lessnitrogen on Mars than on the Earth 5.

Minerals. Minerals are also essentialfor biological process, for example asco-factors in enzyme catalyzedreactions and components of vitamins.All of the elements necessary tosupport terrestrial life are thought tobe present on Mars, although as withthe CHNOPS elements theirconcentration compared to Earth areeither slightly higher, lower or thesame5.

Initial planetary biomedical anddental bioengineering-a newperspective

For Mars to be less hostile forpioneer organisms initial planetaryengineering will be required toincrease the atmospheric pressure.This will have a number of effects,including an increase in surfacetemperature; liquid water will be

stable (at least at equatorial latitudes)and an increase in ozone abundancethat will reduce the amount of UV-radiation reaching the surface.Numerous of mechanism of warmingof Mars such as runaway greenhousemechanisms and greenhouse gases,Ammonia (NH3) mechanism,Nanotechnology mechanism, Nuclearmining and alternative planetaryengineering mechanisms, Ozonemechanism1-18.

Planetary biomedical and dentalbioengineering - This proposedmechanism is termed as BRSK(Balwant Rai Simmi Kharb)Marsonaunt Mechanism:

Great claims are made to thepotential exponential growth of nano-robots. We suggest that nano-robotscould contain structures similar tothose found in the human mouthbecause the mouth contains millionsof types of bacteria such as Bacillussubtilis, microbacterium andArthrobacter sp. In common withmouth microorganisms, nano-robotsmay have a huge growth capacity, i.e.doubling time, which for somebacteria, growing under idealconditions, can be as little as 5minutes. Ideal growth conditions fornano-robots are therefore likely toresemble those found formicroorganisms. However, conditionson Mars will not be ideal for grow ofeither microorganisms or nano-robots.Nutrients/substrates may vary inabundance, there may be competitionfor resources etc. Therefore, growth islikely to be linear rather thanexponential.

Oral cavity micro-organisms -1. Biodiversity2. Almost all types of bacteria3. Easy available.

Candidate biological methodsand mechanisms for adaptingoral micro-organisms to growon Mars

A number of pioneer microorganisms and plants have beenproposed for introduction onto apartially altered Mars12-14. The firstorganisms will of necessity be

photoautotrophic, it means that theyutilize sunlight as an energy sourceand do not require complex organicmaterial for metabolism. In order toaid organisms to survive and moreimportantly grow as soon asphysically possibly on a partiallyaltered Mars, two main mechanismsof adaptation can be utilized eitherindividually or in concert, that ofgenetic manipulation and/or directedselection under simulated Martianconditions12,16,18.

1. Genetic engineering on Mars.Genetic engineering is now commonplace and the ability to manipulateorganisms for Mars, especiallyprokaryotes and also eukaryotes isentirely feasible1. Such oral micro-organism would then be termedrecombinant, or in this case agenetically engineered Mars organism.Exploitation of genetically engineeredMars organisms for industrial productscould be another promising field.

2. Genetic selection. Alternatively,organisms could be adapted forgrowth on a partially altered Mars bygrowing them under simulatedenvironmental conditions thatincreasingly resembles the climate onMars at the proposed time of theirintroduction. In genetic terms, thisprocess is called direct selection andis a well known Darwinian concept. Inwhich adaptation results from thesystematic relationships betweengenotype and phenotype and betweenphenotype and reproductive successin a given environment.

There are limits to increases in bothphysiological and metabolic processesusing selection, and thus geneticengineering could be used to increasesome of these. Because of their fairlyrapid generation time, micro-organisms would best leadthemselves to this type of adaptation.

Ramifications for the Martianenvironment of planetary dentalbioengineering

During planetary dentalbioengineering, geological featureswill change. Another important pointto emphasize is that biology on Mars,at least during the initial stages ofplanetary engineering must always be


used to add CO2/O2 /N2 /greenhousegases to the atmosphere. It would beundesirable to reach a point whereoral micro-organisms initiate a globalfreezing because all of the CO2 hasbeen re-sequestered as organiccarbon. Plus artificial oxygenenvironment will influencebioengineering and principles ofbioengineering can be different overMars.

The introduction of terrestrial micro-organisms into the Martianenvironment, whether in greenhousesor for planetary engineering willobviously affect the search for anyextinct, but especially existent Martianlife.

Before planetary dentalbioengineering commences, andduring the initial stages, the verysurface of Mars will be sterilizing forall forms of terrestrial life, whethergenetically modified/adapted or not.However, if an oasis of life does exist,then such enclaves may be overrun byterrestrial organisms. Or perhaps ifenvironmental conditions becomemore clement during planetaryengineering such organisms willcompete with terrestrial organisms.Therefore, a thorough search for "life"on Mars will perhaps be necessarybefore the wide spread introduction ofterrestrial organisms.

Proposed model The BRSK Hypothesis to explore

that oral microflora can evolve theability to survive and proliferate underlow pressure atmospherecharacteristic of the surface of Mars.And genetically modified MartianMicroorganisms will have a promisingrole in bioengineering and geneticengineering. We will test thishypothesis using Mars atmosphericsimulations and microbial communitysamples obtained from extreme "Marsanalog" Earth environments.

Objectives: 1. Growth of oral and other

microorganism on earth and Marsanalog environments.

2. Cultivate selected model andenvironmental oral and other bacterialisolates from Objective 1 for multiple

generations under simulationsapproaching the defined Mars low-pressure limits, and selected variantsthat are able to survive on Mars.3. To study the metabolic profile ofthese microorganisms grown underMartian environment and theirbiotechnological potential at Mars andon earth. These micro organisms willhave diagnostic, therapeutic capabilityand dental bioengineering andbiomedical engineering potential.

Balwant Rai did his BDS at Govt.Dental College, Rohtak, India, and isnow working on his MS. He is Editor-in-Chief of four journals, and haspublished more than 100 articles innational and international journals, aswell as five books. He is the Founder ofAeronautic Dentistry and the BRformula, and is an invited Jury memberof NRF. Balwant was a member ofMDRS Crew 78, and is a contributingeditor of The Mars Quarterly.

References1. Hiscox, J. A.. Modification of

microorganisms for Mars. TheTerraforming Report .1995;2:136-150.

2. Hiscox, J. A., Thomas D. J..Modification and selection ofmicroorganisms for growth on Mars.Journal of the British InterplanetarySociety 1995;48: 419-426.

3. Schaefer M. W. Volcanic recycling ofcarbonates on Mars. GeophysicalResearch Letters. 1993;20: 827-830.

4.Bullock, M. A., C. R. Stoker, C. P.McKay and A. P. Zent. 1994. A coupled-soil-atmosphere model of H2O2 onMars. Icarus 107, 142-154.

5.Banin, A. and R. L. Mancinelli. 1995.Life on Mars? 1. The chemicalenvironment. Advances in SpaceResearch 15, 163-170.

6. Bada, J. L. and G. D. McDonald.1995. Amino acid racemization on Mars:Implications for the preservation ofbiomolecules from an extinct Martianbiota. Icarus 114, 139-143.

7. Carr M. H. Mars: A water richplanet? Icarus 1986;68: 1887-216.

8. McKay C. P. , Stoker. C.. The earlyenvironment and its evolution on Mars:Implications for life. Reviews ofGeophysics 1989;27: 189-214.

9.McKay, C. P., Meyer T. R,. Boston P. J,Nelson M., Maccallum T. , Gwynne. O.1991a. Resources of near-Earth space.(Eds J. Lewis, M. Matthews and M. L.Guerrieri). University of Arizona Press.

10. Fogg, M. J.. The creation of anartificial dense Martian atmosphere: A

major obstacle to the terraforming ofMars. Journal of the BritishInterplanetary Society .1989;42: 577-582.

11.Andersen, D. T., McKay C. P.,Wharton Jr. R. A. ,. Rummel J. D. AnAntarctic research outpost as a modelfor planetary exploration. Journal of theBritish Interplanetary Society 1990;43:499-504.

12. Clifford, S. M. 1993. A model forthe hydrologic and climatic behaviosr ofwater on Mars. Journal of GeophysicalResearch 98, 10973-11016.

13. Boston, P. J., Ivanov M. V. ,. McKayC. P. On the possibility of chemosyntheticecosystems in subsurface habitats onMars. Icarus. 1992;95:300-308.

14. Birch, P. Terraforming Mars quickly.Journal of the British InterplanetarySociety 1992;45:331-340.

15. Farmer, J., Des Marais D., GreeleyR., Landheim R. , Klien H. Site selectionfor Mars exobiology. Advances in SpaceResearch 1995;15: 157-162.

16.Dose, K., Stridde C., Dillmann R.,Risi S. , Bieger-Dose A. Biochemicalconstraints for survival under Martianconditions. Advances in Space Research.1995;15: 203-210.

17. Fanale F. P., Cannon W. A. Marscarbon dioxide adsorption and capillarycondensation on clays: Significance forvolatile storage and atmospheric history.Journal of Geophysical Research.1979;84, 8404.

18. Fogg, M. J.. Terraforming: A reviewfor environmentalists. The TerraformingReport 2,1995a. No.2., 92-111.


From February 21-23, 2010, theSpace Exploration Alliance (the "SEA")will be holding its annual LegislativeBlitz. The February 2010 Blitz comes ata crucial moment in the formulation ofspace policy. The Final Report of theAugustine Commission stated thatNASA simply can not accomplish thegoals with which it has been taskedunless it receives an additional $3billion in annual funding.

Whether this is true or not,there is a strong possibility,given the current economicclimate, that the UnitedStates will decide to choosefar less ambitious goals.

The SEA firmly believes that it is avital national interest for the U.S. to setambitious goals that will free us fromlow Earth orbit and send us todestinations such as the Moon andMars. According to Rick Zucker, Chairof the SEA Legislative Blitz, "More thanever before, it is absolutely critical thatthe voices of the space advocacycommunity be heard in the debateover the future of our nation's spaceprogram." Chris Carberry, Chair of theSEA Steering Committee, states, "Weneed to demand a space program thatwill captivate the public and will get usout of low Earth orbit as quickly aspossible. We should never doubt how

much impact a small group ofdedicated people can have."

Come join space advocates fromaround the country to let Congressknow that there is strong constituentsupport for an ambitious spaceprogram. The SEA will provide aninformation/training session plusmaterials that you will need for themeetings. Please register for theLegislative Blitz online by going to theSpace Exploration Alliance homepage(www.spaceexplorationalliance.org)and following the links.

For more information, contactRick Zucker - [email protected] 508-651-9936.

SSppaaccee EExxpplloorraattiioonn AAlllliiaannccee AAnnnnoouunncceess FFeebbrruuaarryy 22001100 LLeeggiissllaattiivvee BBlliittzz OOnn CCaappiittooll hhiillll

...join space advocates from around thecountry to let Congress know that there

is strong constituent support for anambitious space program.

THE MARS SOCIETY is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profitorganization with headquarters in Colorado, USA, committed tofurthering the goal of the exploration and settlement of the RedPlanet, via broad public outreach to instill the vision ofpioneering Mars, support of ever more aggressive governmentfunded Mars exploration programs around the world, andconducting Mars exploration on a private basis.

THE MARS SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Buzz AldrinPenny BostonJonathan ClarkePatricia CzarnikTamarack Robert

CzarnikGary FisherGus FrederickJames HarrisRichard HeidmannRt. Rev. James

HeiserJean LagardeLucinda (Weisbach)

LandDarlene S.S. LimBruce MackenzieBo MaxwellSteve McDanielGuy MurphyAnthony Curtis

Muscatello

Gabriel RshaidShannon M. RupertGus SheerbaumFrank ShubertKevin F. SloanPeter SmithSara SpectorArtemis

WestenbergRobert Zubrin

THE MARS SOCIETY STEERING COMMITTEE:

Robert Zubrin Declan O'Donnell

Richard Heidmann

Scott Horowitz Penelope Boston


It seems like ages ago, but onceupon a time, it was the Soviet Unionwhich took the early lead in man'sexploration of outer space. The Moon,Mars and Venus were, among othercelestial bodies, their main target. Ofthe three, it was Mars that became theUSSR's biggest obsession. More thantwo dozen remotely controlled probeswere sent to the Red Planet betweenthe fall of 1960 and the summer of1971. Most of them either failed toreach the planet or malfunctionedonce they achieved their orbitaldestination. Their program began withthe launching of the 1M-No.1 probeon October 10, 1960, and unofficiallyended the morning of July 12, 1988with the launch of the Phobos 2spacecraft.

Back in the early 1980s, Russianplans for the exploration of Marscalled for the use of orbital platformsfeeding robotic systems or rovers, in asurface analysis and data collectioneffort. The blue print also stated that acomplex Mars sample return projectwould be on the drawing boards bythe early part of the '90s. Even theexploration of the Martian moonPhobos was conceived. Unfortunately,the Soviet economy collapse and achanging political climate placedenormous pressure on the countriesunder-funded space program. Withinweeks of conceiving the Phobosmissions, Moscow discontinued thesample recovery project - the roversnever happened, but the plan to studyPhobos survived.

The Phobos spacecraft had a newdesign and the project reflected theSoviet Union's new sense ofcooperation. When all was set anddone, three European nations,Sweden, France and Germany, wenton to collaborate on the project. Eventhe once hated Americans wereincorporated on the adventure. In oneof the first acts of glasnost, the UnitedStates allowed the Soviets the useNASA's advance Deep Space Networkto communicate with the probes.

Each Phobos spacecraft carried up

to 24 different science instruments tostudy the atmosphere and surface ofMars, and to investigate Phobos, thebigger of the two Martian moons. Atthe time, this was the most advancedexperimentation package the Soviet'shad ever deployed on any spaceprobe. The elaborated sciencepackage included a first generationphoton laserintended tovaporize materialfrom the surfaceof the satellite foranalysis. Phobos1 and 2 alsocarried a smalllander aimed atcruising Phobos'surface. Therover was fittedwith a mid-resolution cameraand instrumentsto search forsigns of seismicactivity, as well as study soilcomposition. Phobos 2 was fitted twoa landers.

Structurally, the Phobos platformswere rather similar. Both crafts werebuilt with the same pressurizedtoroidal electronics sectionsurrounding a modular cylindricalexperiment section. Below these weremounted four spherical tankscontaining hydrazine for attitudecontrol and, after the main propulsionmodule was to be jettisoned, orbitadjustment. A total of 28 thrusterswere mounted on the spherical tankswith additional units mounted on thespacecraft structure and solar panels.Attitude was maintained through theuse of a simple, three-axis controlsystem aligned with sun and starsensors. Power was generated viasolar arrays.

The Mars orbit insertion maneuverwas performed by a dedicatedpropulsion module utilizing used nitricacid and an amine-based fuel, with a9.86-18.89 kN variable thrust chamberand eight helium pressurized

aluminum alloy tanks. After achievingthe final orbit, the orbit insertionmodule was jettisoned, exposing thedownward viewing instruments on themain structure. Mass was 2600 Kg inMartian orbit weight standard.Computer transaction capability was30 MB memory of storage. Downlinkwas via a two degree-of-freedom

parabolic high gainantenna at 4 kbits/sec.The larger Phoboslanders would havetransmitted data directlyto Earth at a higher rateof 4-20 bits/sec on 1.672Ghz to 70 m.

The payload includeda television imagingsystem, a thermalinfrared spectrometer/radiometer with 1-2 kmresolution; a near-infrared imagingspectrometer; a thermalimaging camera;

magnetometers; gamma-rayspectrometers; an X-ray telescope;radiation detectors; and radar andlaser altimeters. The lander wasdesigned to make chemical, magneticand gravity observations at differentlocations on Phobos' surface. Phobos1 carried the Lima-D laser experiment,designed to vaporize material from thePhobos surface for chemical analysisby a mass spectrometer, and imagingradar. Phobos 2 had the 'DAS' platformlander, which carried a panoramicstereo TV system, seismometer,magnetometer, X-ray fluorescencespectrometer, alpha particle scatteringdevice, and penetrator.

In the end, neither probe gatheredmuch information. One, Phobos 1, didnot even reach Mars as an incorrectdigit command sequence transitioncut short the life of the spacecraft. Theerror cost mission control the ability topoint the probe's high energy solararrays toward the sun. Without solarpower, the batteries were soondrained and Mars orbit insertion wasimpossible. The spacecraft was lost.

PPhhoobbooss II aanndd IIII,, RReedd RRuussssiiaa -- LLaasstt AAtttteemmpptt oonn MMaarrssBy: Raul Colon

The newest Russian initiative is Phobos-Grunt scheduled for launch in 2011


Her sister ship enjoyed just a tad more success.It did manage to orbit the Red Planet and wasable to study the planet and its moon for twomonths, but it never was able to deploy its prizedlanders. Another costly error ended thepromising mission. The control center sentPhobos 2 a command to take photographs of theMartian moon. In order for the spacecraft to turnits camera toward Phobos, it had to turn itsantenna away from Earth. When it was time forthe spacecraft to return its signal, there wassilence. It is assumed that a computermalfunction left Phobos 2 unable to rotate back tothe correct position to communicate with Earth,but the exact cause of the failure was neverdetermined.

Before data transmission ceded, one of Phobos2's last images relayed to earth showed anelliptical form shadow on the surface of Marsestimated to be between 25-27 kilometers inlength. The size of this object ruled out thepossibility that it was a reflection of thespacecraft itself, as it has been suggested yearsafter the event. Because of its position, itssymmetrical shape, its size and its movement, nofeatures on the surface of Mars in the area infront of the probe, or the satellite moons ofPhobos and Deimos, nor the Phobos 2 spacecraftitself could account for this shadow patternoccurring in the very last frames of datasuccessfully transmitted to earth.

The newest Russian initiative is Phobos-Gruntscheduled for launch in 2011.

For more information, please visit:http://smsc.cnes.fr/PHOBOS/.

Raul Colon is a writer, sport reporter andcolumnist known for his practical research andinsight. He has published over 400 articles andthree major Current Systems Papers. He is thefounder and chair of the Caribbean Chapter ofthe Cold War Museum, a non-profit organizationthat promotes a better understanding of theevents and stories of that profound period. He isalso the director of the Puerto Rico Chapter of theMars Society, an organization that promotes theconquest of the Red Planet in our generation.

Currently, he is putting the finishing touches onhis first book, titled: The Air War over TheSomme, due for release on October 2010. Raul isa member of the Military Writers Society ofAmerica and the Football Writers Association ofAmerica. His work can be found on manyinternet sites as well as in trade magazines. He isPresident of the Puerto Rico Chapter of The MarsSociety. Fax this form to 307-459-0922, or donate online at

www.MarsSociety.org


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).It explores what such an ancientlifeform would think about...

She woke to the bitter tang of blackColombian perking in the pot, thescent mingling with a buttery aroma ofpancakes, the sizzle of bacon in itslake of fat, all lacing in their steamycollaboration to make a perfect moistmorning--

And then she snapped awake, reallyawake --on the hard rover bunk,hugging herself in her thermoelectricblanket. Once all her waking dreamshad been about sex; now they wereabout food. She wasn't gettingenough of either, especially not sincePiotr's ankle.

The break would heal by the timethey were on the long glideEarthward; their rations would notimprove until they were back eatingsteak. She pushed the thought ofmeat out of her mind and sat up. Firstfeelers of ruddy dawn laced a wisp ofcarbon dioxide cirrus high up; good.Today she got to burrow, at last.

"Hey Marc! I'll start the coffee."No dallying over breakfast, though

the hard cold that came through therover walls made her shiver. A ruddysunup was just breaking, giving themone final day of exploration. Shepeered out the viewport as shemunched. They would run on in-suitrations today, no returning to theSpartan comforts of the rover.

They had set up the cable rig at theedge of the vent before sundown. Byearly light it still looked secure,anchored to three boulders. Marcdidn't trust the soil here to hold sothey had arranged cross-struts of theirmonofilament-based cabling to taketheir weight as they went down thesteep incline. Metal cable was muchtoo heavy to fly to Mars, and not

necessary under the lighter gravity. The first part was easy, just backing

over. The rock was smooth and ofcourse dry. Even if vapor had spoutedlast night, it would never condense forlong. The Martian atmosphere was aninfinite sponge.

The vent snaked around andsteepened as the pale light of latedawn from above lost out to thegloom. The rock walls were smoothand still about ten meters wide. Theyreached a wide platform and thepassage broadened further. Every tenmeters down they checked to be surethe cable was not getting fouled. Theywere both clipped to it and had totime their movements to keep fromgetting snarls.

They edged along the ledgecautiously, headlamps stabbing intothe darkness. She was trying to peerahead but her eyes were cloudy forsome reason. She checked her faceplate but there was no condensate onit; the little suit circulators took care ofthat, even in the cold of full Martiannight. Still, the glow from Marc's suitdimmed.

"Marc, having trouble seeing you.Your lamp die?"

"Thought I was getting fogged.Here--" He clambered over on thesteep slope of the ledge and shone hishandbeam into her face. "No wonder.There're drops of something all overyour faceplate and helmet. Looks likewater drops!"

"Water...?""We're in a fog!" He was shouting.She saw it then, a slow, rising mist

in the darkness. "Of course! It couldbe a fog desert in here."

"A what?""Ever been out in a serious fog?

There's not much water falling, butyou get soaked anyway. There aredeserts where it doesn't rain for years,like the Namib and the coast of BajaCalifornia. Plants and animals livingthere have to trap the fog to getwater." She thought quickly, trying to

use what she knew to think about thisplace. In fact, frogs and toads in anydesert exploited a temperaturedifferential to get water out of the aireven without a fog. When they cameup out of their burrows at night theywere cooler than the surrounding air.Water in the air condensed on theirskin, which was especially thin andpermeable.

Ann peered at the thin mist. "Areyou getting a readout of thetemperature? What's it been doingsince we started down?"

He fumbled at his waist pack for thethermal probe, switched it to readoutmode. "Minus fourteen, not bad." Hethumbed for the memory and nodded."It's been climbing some, jumped afew minutes ago. Hm. It's warmersince the fog moved in."

They reached the end of the ledge,which fell away into impenetrableblack. "Come on, follow the evidence,"she said, playing out cable throughher clasps. Here the low gravity was abig help. She could support herweight easily with one hand on thecable grabber, while she guided downthe rock wall with the other.

"Evidence of what?" Marc called,grunting as he started down after her.

"A better neighborhood than we'vebeen living in."

"Sure is wetter. Look at the walls."In her headlamp the brown-red rock

had a sheen. "Enough to stick!""I can see fingers of it going by me.

Who woulda thought?"She let herself down slowly,

watching the rock walls, and that waswhy she saw the subtle turn in color.The rock was browner here and whenshe reached out to touch it there wassomething more, a thin coat. "Mat!There's a mat here."

"Algae?""Could be." She let herself down

further so he could reach that level.The brown scum got thicker beforeher eyes. "I bet it comes from below."

She contained her excitement as

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

© Abbenford Associates, 1997


she got a good shot of the scum withthe recorder and then took a samplein her collector rack. Warmer fogcontaining inorganic nutrients wouldsettle as drops on these cooler mats.Just like the toads emerging from theirburrows in the desert? Analogies wereuseful, but data ruled, she remindedherself. Stick to observing. Everymoment here will get rehashed amillion-fold by every biologist onEarth...and the one on Mars, too.

Marc hung above her, turning in aslow gyre to survey the whole vent."Can't make out the other side realwell, but it looks brown, too."

"The vent narrows below." Shereeled herself down.

"How do they survive here? What'sthe food source?"

"The slow-motion upwelling, like theundersea hydrothermal vents onearth?"

Marc followed her down. "Thoseblack smokers?"

She had never done undersea workbut was of course aware of the sulfur-based life at the hydrothermal vents.Once it was believed that all life onEarth depended on sunlight, trappedby chlorophyll in green plants andpassed up the food chain to animals.Then came the discovery of sunlight-independent ecosystems on the oceanfloor, a fundamental change in abiological paradigm. The exotic andunexpected vent communities werebased on microbes that harnessedenergy from sulfur compounds in thewarm volcanic upwelling. Meter-longtube worms and ghostly crabs in turnharvested the bacteria. The ventcommunities on earth were not large,a matter of meters wide before theinexorable cold and dark of the oceanbottom made life impossible. Shewondered how far away the sourcewas here.

In the next fifty meters the scumthickened but did not seem to change.The brown filmy growth glistenedbeneath her headlamp as she studiedit, poked it, wondered at it.

"Marsmat," she christened it. "Likethe algal mats on Earth, a couple ofbillion years ago."

Marc said wryly, puffing, "We spentmonths looking for fossil evidence, up

there in the dead sea beds. The realthing was hiding from us down here."

The walls got closer and the mistcloaked them now in a lazy cloud."You were right," Marc said as theyrested on a meter-wide shelf. Theywere halfway through their oxygencycle time. "Mars made it to the pondscum stage."

"Not electrifying for anybody but abiologist, but something better thanindividual soil microbes. It implies acommunity of organisms, severaldifferent kinds of microbes aggregatedin slime --a biofilm." She peereddown. "You said the heat gradient ismilder here than on Earth, right?"

"Sure. Colder planet anyway, andlesser pressure gradient because ofthe lower gravity. On Earth, 1 klickdeep in a mine it is already fifty-sixdegrees C. So?"

"So microbes could probablysurvive further down than the coupleof klicks they manage on Earth.They're stopped by high heat."

"Maybe.""Let's go see.""Now? You want to go down there

now?""When else?""We're at oxy turnaround point.""There's lots in the rover.""How far down do you want to go?" "As far as possible. There's no

tomorrow. Look, we're here now, let'sjust do it."

He looked up at his readouts. "Let'sstart back while we're deciding."

"You go get the tanks. I'll stay here.""Split up?""Just for a while." "Mission protocol--" "Screw protocol. This is important." "So's getting back alive.""I'm not going to die here. Go down

maybe fifty meters, tops. Got to takesamples from different spots."

"Piotr said--""Just go get the tanks."He looked unhappy. "You're not

going far, are you?""No.""OK then. I'll lower them down to

the first ledge if you'll come back thatfar to pick them up. Then I'll comedown too."

"OK, sounds fine. Let's move."

He turned around and startedhauling himself up the steep wall."Thirty minutes, then, at the firstledge."

"Yeah, fine. Oh, and bring somebatteries, too. My handbeam's gettingfeeble."

"Ann...""See you in thirty minutes," she said

brightly, already moving away. Marckept going. The slope below was easyand she inched down along a narrowshelf. Paying out the cable took herattention. Methodical, careful, that'sthe ticket. Especially if you're riskingyour neck deep in a gloomy hole onan alien world.

She felt a curious lightness of spirit--she was free. Free on Mars. For thelast time. Free to explore what wasundoubtedly the greatest puzzle of herscientific life. She couldn't be cautiousnow. Her brother Bill flashed into hermind. He took life at a furious pace,cramming each day full, exudingboundless energy. They went onexploring trips together as children,later as nascent biologists. He wasunstoppable: up and out early,roaming well after dark. There wasnever enough time in the day foreverything he wanted to see. "Slowdown, there's always tomorrow,"people would tell him.

But his internal clock had servedhim well, in a way. He was cut downat age 22 when his motorcycle slidinto a truck one rainy night whensensible people were home, warmand dry. Looking around the church athis funeral, Ann felt he'd lived morethan most of the middle-agedmourners. Bill would've approved ofher right now, she was sure.

A flicker from her handbeambrought her back. She looked down,shook it. The beam brightened again.Damn, not now.

The mat was thicker here, as she'dguessed it would be closer to theelusive source.

She landed on a wide ledge, movedbriskly across it, mindful of timepassing. The floor was slippery withMarsmat but rough enough so shecould find footing. Sorry, she saidsilently to the mat, but I've got to dothis.


Her handbeam flickered again, died.She shook it, bent her head to look atit with the headlamp, then felt asudden hard blow to her forehead,heard the headlamp shatter. She fellbackwards, in slow-motion butinexorably, nothing to grab.

Her wrist hit first as she landed andshe dropped the handbeam. She laythere for a moment, waiting for thesurprise to go away. Must've run intoan overhang. It was pitch dark. Wherewas her damned lamp? There was afaint glow to her left. That must be it.She started to get up, noticed a feebleluminescence ahead of her. Confused,she sat back down. Take this carefully.

All around her, the walls had a paleivory radiance.

She closed her eyes, opened themagain. The glow was still there.

No, not the walls--the Marsmat.Tapestries of dim gray luminosity.

She reviewed what bits sheremembered about organisms thatgive off light. This she hadn't bonedup on. Fireflies did it with an enzyme,luciferase, an energy-requiringreaction she had done in a testtube afew thousand years ago in molecularbio lab. Glow worms --really flylarvae, she recalled --hung in longstrands in New Zealand caves. Sheremembered a trip to the rainforest ofAustralia: some tropical fungi glow inthe dark. Hm. Will-o-the-wisps in oldgraveyards, foxfire on old woodensailing ships...could there be fungihere? Unlikely. Wrong model. Sheshook her head. Waves breaking atnight into glowing blue foam duringred tides in California. Those arephosphorescent diatoms. What else?Thermal vent environments...

Deep sea fish carried luminescentbacteria around as glowing lures.That's it. The lab folks had fun movingthe light-producing gene around toother bacteria. Okay. So microbescould produce light, but why here?Why would underground life evolveluminescence?

Bing bing. the warning chimestartled her out of her reverie. Sheflicked her eyes up. The oxygenreadout was blinking yellow. Thirtyminutes reserve left. Time to go back.

As she picked herself up she

brushed against her handbeam. Shepicked it up but left it off. Navigatingby the light of the walls was like hikingby moonlight.

Pulling herself up gave her time tothink, excitement to burn in musclesthat seemed more supple than usual.Yes, it was warmer here. She turnedher suit heater down. Life hung out inthe tropics.

Before she reached the tanks, sheheard Marc's impatient voice. "Ann,where are you?"

"On my way. Pretty close." Sherounded a jut in the vent walls, intothe glare of his lights. The walls fadedinto black.

"Where were you? You're way late,damn it. The tanks were here on time --hey, where's your headlamp?"

"Ran into an overhang. Smashed it.Marc--"

"Handlamp too? What'd you do --grope your way back? Why didn't youcall?" He was clearly angry, voice tightand controlled.

"I found, I found--""Ann, calm down, you're--""Turn off your lamps.""What?""Turn off your lamps. I want you to

see something.""First we switch your tank."She sighed. It was just like Marc to

fuss over details. Looking down at thesidewalk for pennies and missing therainbow.

When she finally got the lamps offhe could see it too. There was a longmoment of utter shock and he seemedto know it was better to say nothing.

Then she heard something wrong.The faint hissing surprised her.Mission training reasserted itself.

"What's that? Sounds like a tankleaking." Automatically she checkedher connections. All tight. "Marc?--check your tank."

"I'm fine. What's the matter?""I hear something, like a leak.""I don't hear anything...""Be quiet. Listen." She closed her

eyes to fix the direction of the sound.It came from near the wall. She shoneher handbeam on the empty tank,bent down low and heard a thinscream. Oxygen was bleeding outonto the Marsmat.

"Damn. Valve isn't secured." Shereached down to turn it off. Stopped--"What?"

The Marsmat near the tank wasdiscolored. A blotchy, tan stain.

"Damn! We've damaged it." Sheknelt down to take a closer look,carefully avoiding putting her hand onthe wall.

"What happened?" Marc took onelong step over, understood at aglance. "The oxygen?"

"Uh-huh. Looks like it.""What a reaction. And fast! No

wonder there was nothing in the firstvent. You were right about that."

"Oxygen's pure poison to these lifeforms. It's like dumping acid on moss.Instantaneous death."

He looked around wonderingly."We're leaking poison at them all thetime in these suits."

She nodded. Stupid not to see itimmediately, really. Like SCUBA gear,their suits vented exhaled gases at theback of the neck, mostly oxygen andnitrogen with some carbon dioxide. Asimple, reliable system, and theoxygen was easily replaceable fromthe Return Vehicle's chem factory.

Marc shook his head, sobered."Typical humans, polluting whereverwe go."

"If the stuff is this sensitive, we'llhave to be really careful from now on."Ann straightened up carefully andbacked away from the lesion.

They stood for a long moment ininky blackness, letting their retinasshed the afterimage of the lamps.Finally Marc asked, "Where's the lightcoming from?"

"Marsmat glows. Phosphoresces, ismore correct."

"How can it do that?""Don't know. The more interesting

question is why."

#

They knew now that time andoxygen would set the limits. They hadthis day and were to return to the shiptomorrow. Team loyalty.

"Plenty of oxy up there," Marc saidas they rested and ate lunch --asqueeze-tube affair she hated,precisely described in one of her


intervideos as eating a whole tube ofbeef-flavored toothpaste.

"So we trade tanks for time.""Piotr's gonna get miffed if we don't

check in at the regular time.""Let him." She wished they had

rigged a relay antenna at the ventmouth. But that would have takentime, too. Tick tick tick.

"I don't want us to haul out of heredead tired, either."

"We'll be out by nightfall.""We won't be so quick going out." Field experience had belied all the

optimistic theories about workingpower in low gravity. Mars was tiring.Whether this came from theunrelenting cold or the odd, poundingsunlight (even after the UV wasscreened out by faceplates), or thesimple fact that human reflexes werenot geared for 0.38 gee, or some moresubtle facet--nobody knew. It meantthat they could not count on a quickascent at the end of a trying day.

"You want geological samples, Iwant biological. Mine weigh next tonothing, yours a lot. I'll trade yousome of my personal weightallowance for time down here."

He raised his eyebrows, his eyesthrough his smeared faceplate givingher a long, shrewd study. "Howmuch?"

"A kilogram per hour.""Ummm. Not bad. Okay, a deal.""Good." She shook hands solemnly,

glove to glove. A fully binding guycontract, she thought somewhatgiddily.

"Piotr's counting on using some ofyour allowance to drag back morenuggets and 'jewels,' y'know."

"It's my allowance.""Hey, just a friendly remark. Not

trying to get between you two."Innumerable nosy media pieces had

dwelled on the tensions between acrew, half married and half not,complete with speculations on whattwo horny, healthy guys would feellike after two years in a cramped habwith a rutting couple just beyond theflimsy bunk partition. All that they hadscrupulously avoided.

So far the answer was, nothingmuch. Raoul and Marc undoubtedlyindulged in gaudy fantasy lives and

masturbated often (she had glimpseda porno video on Raoul's slate reader)but in the public areas of the hab theywere at ease, all business.

There was no room for modesty inthe hab, four people in a small condofor two years. So they unconsciouslyadopted the Japanese ways ofcreating privacy without walls. Theydidn't stare at each other, and didn'tintrude on another's private spaceunless by mutual agreement.

Nobody had thought much aboutwhat the hab would be like if thenewlyweds--well, it had been wellover two years now, most of that timein space--got into a serious spat.Maybe on the half-year flight homethey would find out. She would worryabout that then; for right now--

"Hey, we're eating into my hard-bought hours."

#

They returned to the ledge whereAnn had her accident, two hundredmeters further in. On the other side ofthe fortuitous overhang they found apool covered with slime on a ledge. Itwas crusty black and brown stuff andgave reluctantly when she poked itwith a finger.

"Defense against the desiccation,"she guessed.

Marc swept his handbeam around.The mat hung here like drapes fromthe rough walls. "Open water onMars. Wow."

"Not really open. The mat flowsdown, see, and covers this pool.Keeps it from drying out. Saving itsresources maybe?"

She scooped out some of the filmypool water and put it under her handmicroscope. In the view were smallcreatures, plain as day.

"My God. There's somethingswimming around in here. Marc, lookat this and tell me I'm not crazy."

He looked through the 'scope andblinked. "Martian shrimp?"

She sighed. "Trust you to think ofsomething edible. In a pond this smallon Earth there might be fairy shrimp,but these are pretty small. And I don'teven know if these are animals."

She hurried to get some digitals of

the stuff. She scooped some up in asample vial and tucked it into herpack. Her mind was whirling inelation. She studied the tinyswimming things with breathless awe.

So fine and strange and why thehell did she have to peer at themthrough a smudged helmet? Theyhad knobby structures at one end:heads? Maybe, and each with asmaller light-colored speck. What?

Could Mars life have taken the leapto animals--a huge evolutionarychasm? These could be just mobilealgal colonies-- like volvox and otherpond life on Earth. Whatever theywere, she knew they were waybeyond microbes. She bent downover the pool again, shone herhandbeam at an angle. The swarm ofcreatures was much thicker at theedges of the Marsmat-- feeding? Orsomething else?

She couldn't quite dredge the murkyidea from her subconscious. Thearrangement with the mat was odd,handy for the 'shrimp.' What was therelationship there? Some kind ofsymbiosis? And how did theswimming forms get to the pool?

They climbed down from the ledge.As they descended, the mist thickenedand the walls got slick and they had totake more care. The cable was gettingharder to manage, too. She could notstop her mind from spinning withideas.

On Earth, hydrothermal ventorganisms kilometers deep in theocean photosynthesized using the dimreddish glow from hot magma. Theglow becomes their energy source.Could some Martian organisms usethe mat glow? Wait a minute-- the'shrimp' had eyes! Or did they?

"Marc, did you notice anythingpeculiar about the shrimp?"

He paused before answering. "Well,I don't know what they should looklike. They looked sorta like theshrimp I feed my fish at home."

"Did you notice their eyes?""Uh...""The knobby ends, those had lighter

specks, remember?""Yeah, what about them?""So you saw them too.""Why, what's the matter-- Oh."


"Right!""I see, they shouldn't have eyes.""Good for you. I'll make a biologist

out of you yet. On Earth, cave-dwelling organisms have lost theireyes. Natural selection forces anorganism to justify the cost ofproducing a complicated structure.You lose 'em if you don't use 'em."

"So if they have eyes--""On Earth, we'd say they were

recent arrivals from a lighted place,hadn't had time to become blind."

"But that's impossible. The lightedparts of Mars have been cold and dryfor billions of years. Where wouldthey have come from?"

"I agree. So my next choice is thatit's not dark enough here to lose theeyes. But the idea of some kind oftransfer with the topside peroxidemicrobes is worth thinking about."

"That glow is pretty dim.""To us, maybe. We're creatures

from a light-saturated world. Our eyesaren't used to these skimpy intensities.Closest parallel on Earth to these lightlevels are the hydrothermal vents.There are light-sensitive animals downthere, even microbes able tophotosynthesize."

"Maybe they're not even eyes.""They're light-sensitive. The critters

clustered under the beam from my'scope."

"Wow.""I need more information, but at the

very least it suggests that the glow ispermanent, or at least frequentenough to give some advantage tobeing able to see. And that meansthere should be something that canuse the glow as an energy source.Maybe the mat is symbiotic --acooperation between glowingorganisms and photosynthesizers?"

"Yeah...That suggests the glow isprimary. What's it for?"

"Don't know, just guessing here.""Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice

said.""I didn't know boys read Alice and

Wonderland.""It seems to fit what we're doing.""Down the rabbit hole we go, then."

#

Below the level of the pool ledge,there were twisty side channels to thevent. These ran more nearlyhorizontal, and they explored themhurriedly, clumping along until theceiling got too low. No time to wastecrawling back into dead ends, shefigured. They headed back to the mainchannel and then found a broadpassage that angled down. It was slickand they had to watch their footing.

The mats here were like curtains,hanging out into the steady stream ofvapor from the main shaft of the vent.Some seemed hinged to spreadbefore the billowing vapor gale. Shewas busy taking samples and had onlymoments to studying the strange,slow sway of these thin membranes,flapping like slow-motion flags. "Mustbe maximizing their surface areaexposed to the nutrient fog," sheguessed.

"Eerie," Marc said. "And look howwide they get. There's a lot of biomasshere --wonder if any of it's edible."

At turns in the channel the matswere the size of a man. She took a lotof shots with her microcam, hopingthey would come out reasonably wellin their lamp beams. The mats weregray and translucent. Under directhandbeam she could see her handthrough one.

How did these fit in with theperoxide-processing microbes on thesurface? Clearly these mats harvestedvapor; did they somehow trade it withthe peroxide bugs, water and methanefor the racy stim of peroxide? Shehad a quick vision of an ecosystemspecialized to use what it had:peroxides aplenty above, and icebelow, awaiting a lava flow to melt it.

Did life negotiate between theseresource beds? Oxides cooked by thesearing sun, with microbes specializedto gather their energy. Thosemicrobes must have evolved after thegreat dryness came, when UV sizzleddown and drove deeper all that couldnot adapt to it.

Yet below, where water still lurked,dwelled forms that owed their originto the warm, moist eras of the Martianantiquity.

The mats --and what else, in suchlabyrinths as this, all around the

globe? --transacted their own businesswith the peroxide eaters. They couldharvest the moisture billowing fromheat below, and perhaps melt thepermafrost nearby. At the edges ofEarth's glaciers lived plants thatactually melted ice with their ownslow chemisty.

The thermal vents and their sidecaverns could be extensive. With anexposed surface area as big as Earth's,there was plenty of room for evolutionto experiment.

Nothing like this pale ivory cavernon Earth, ruled as it was byboisterous, efficient aerobic life. Toescape the poisonous reach ofoxygen, anaerobes retreated toinhospitable niches like hot springsand coal mines. In that infertile groundthey survived, but remained asmicrobes, spawning no new forms.On Mars, any oxygen-loving formswould have died out when the planetlost its atmosphere. Here theanaerobes persisted, and evolved newforms; maybe the closest analogy wasto the marsupials in Australia.Marsupials breed more slowly thantrue placental animals, and thus wereeliminated all over the Earth except forthe huge island of Australia. Free ofcompetition, they populated an entirecontinent, evolving completely uniqueforms such as kangaroos, wombatsand the duckbilled platypus. Whatwere the equivalents on Mars?

Ann gently caressed a mat as itlazily flowed on the vapor breeze.Plants, flourishing in the near-vacuum.She could never have envisionedthese...

Yet in the edges of her vision shesensed something more. She thoughtfor a moment and said, "Turn off yourlamps."

"Mine's getting pretty low," heremarked as they plunged intoblackness.

The glow gradually built up in theireyes. "There's a lesion on the closestmat," said Marc.

She swung gently over, peered at it."It's the same shape as the damage wedid above." The mat around thewound shape glowed more brightlywith pale phosphorescence. Itseemed to be changing as she


watched. "Look at it out of the cornerof your eye," she said. "See?"

"It's spreading downwards."The mats were growing ever larger

as they went lower. She leaned overinto the vent and peered around. "Theglow increases below." They lookeddown the vent.

"It's definitely brighter down there.""Let's go." They descended

carefully, playing out line. Their lampswashed the mats in glare that seemedharsh now. Twenty meters down shesaid, "Lamps off again," as they restedon a shelf.

When her dark vision came back hereyes were drawn to a splotch of light ."Damn! How--?"

"It's the same shape again.""A mimicking image. Parrots imitate

sounds, this mat imitates patternsimposed on it, even destructive ones.Why?"

He drawled, "I'd say the question is,how the hell?"

"The mat here learned about thewound above."

"Okay, they're connected. But whythe same shape?"

She sighed. "It's a biologicalpictograph. I have no idea why, but Iam sure that any capability has tohave some adaptive function."

"You mean it has to help these matssurvive."

"Right."They descended again, quickly; time

was narrowing. The image of thelesion repeated on successively lowermats twice more, five meters apart.

She gazed back up. The blurredgleaming above had faded. So it wasnot just a simple copying, for somepointless end. "It's following us down."

"Tracking us?""See for yourself, up there--the

image is nearly gone, and the onenext to us is brightening."

"Are you implying it knows we'rehere?"

"It seems to sense what level we'reon, at least."

"This one is stronger than theothers."

"I think so too. Brighter the deeperwe go. The glow is purely chemical,some signaling response I wouldguess, and the denser vapor here

deep in the vent helps it develop." "Signaling?" Marc sounded puzzled."Maybe just mimicking. Light would

be the only way to do it here. Itcouldn't use chemical packets tosignal downwards because of theupdrafts of vapor. Sound could goeither up or down, but it doesn't carrywell in this thin an atmosphere."

His voice was strained in theblackness. "There's got to be a simpleexplanation."

"There is, but it doesn't imply asimple organism."

"Maybe it's... signaling somethingelse..."

"And if it's brighter the deeper weget, maybe that means... somethingbelow."

They went one more time down intothe darkness. Her muscles ached andher breath came in ragged gasps. Atthe next ledge down the lesion imagebegan to swell into a strong, clearerversion.

Something beyond comprehensionwas happening here and she couldonly struggle with clumsy speculationsas she worked. Somehow the matcould send signals within itself. Therewere many diaphanous flags and rock-hugging forms and somehow they allfit together, a community. They usedthe warmth and watery wealth hereand could send signals over greatdistances, tens of meters, far largerthan any single mat. Why? To sensethe coming pulse of vapor and makeready? A clear survival value in that,she supposed. Could organismsevolve such detailed response in thisharsh place?

And how did these fit with theperoxide eating microbes? Could theysomehow work together? Darwin hadhis work cut out for him here...

With their lamps off she took videoshots of the ghostly lesion imageswith her microcam, though she waspretty sure the level of illuminationwas too low to turn out. She wouldmemorize all this and write it down inthe rover. Careful notes...

"We're out of time."She gazed down and saw at the

very limit of the weak lamplight biggerthings. Gray sheets, angular spires,corkscrew formations that stuck out

into the upwelling gases and capturedthe richness...

She blinked. How much was sheseeing and how much was justillusion, the product of poor seeingconditions, a smudged helmet view,her strained eyes--

"Hey. Time."She felt her fatigue as a slow,

gathering ache in legs and arms.Experience made her think verycarefully, being sure she was wringingeverything from these minutes thatshe could. "How far down are we?"

Marc had been keeping track of themarkings on the cable. "Just aboutone klick."

"What's the temperature?""Nearly ten. No wonder I'm not

feeling the cold.""The thermal gradient here is pretty

mild. This vent could go downkilometers before it gets steam-hot.And we've just reached the cavernlevel."

"Ann...""I know. We can't go further.""It'll be a long, tough climb out. Must

be dusk up there by now."Getting deathly cold on the surface,

and fast, yes. Automatically she cut asmall sample out of the closest matand slipped it into the rack. A strangelonging filled her.

"I know. I'm not pushing for more,don't worry. Biologists need oxygen,too."

#

They got the rover back just beforethey could've been accused of beinglate, tired and cold but still elated bytheir discoveries. Over a late dinnerthey briefed Piotr and Raoul, thensquirted a summary Earthside, alongwith the digitized readout from hermicrocam. Now, whatever happenedto them at liftoff, the information wassafe.

Ann and Piotr made love one lasttime on Mars. Piotr had been worriedabout her: he held her closeafterwards long after she drifted intosleep. After a few hours they were allup again, in a hurried rush to getready. There was plenty more to dofor launch, and months to cancel the


sleep debt. As she worked alongside the others,

she was struck again at how well theyall worked together. Even underenormous time pressure theypartitioned the duties with little or nooverlap. It all went so smoothly thatby noon they were just about finished.They celebrated at lunch, finishing upwith a few saved delicacies.

Despite a mountain of last-minutedetails, Ann's thoughts kept flashingback. Something about the teamrelated to the puzzle of the vent life,but she couldn't quite get it. Oh well,she'd have six months to think aboutit, starting in just a few hours.

Piotr made her stick to their deal onmass allowance. She spent pointlesstime worrying about which of hersample racks to leave and fretted andeven begged Piotr (with no luck)...andthen thought of a last trick.

Once they had the old hab strippedand their gear transferred, she did thelast rites of sealing up the worn littleapartment they had now lived in forover two years. She would beperfectly happy to never set foot in itagain. Piotr had already set the powerreactor to low, so it could still drivethe communications with Earth. Shemade sure the TV microcameras werepointed to follow the liftoff. If theycrashed at least Earthside would seewhat had gone wrong. She broughtthe last personal gear over and then --her idea--had the men pass theirpressure suits out through the ship'slock. Leaving the suits behind saved ahundred kilos, neatly taking care of allher sample racks.

They had to lift at night to maketheir launch window. Escape energyfor Mars was less than twenty percentof Earth's, which made the entireprocess of making their fuel fromMartian carbon dioxide workable --they didn't need to make a lot. Buteven making the 5 km/sec escapevelocity took a lot, so the entire flightplan, including the final boost to Earth,cut matters fairly fine. They hadstayed the full 550 days to make thisminimum energy window.

She was strangely calm, waiting inher couch in the cramped ReturnVehicle hab when Piotr started the

engines. "Pressurizing all OK.""Flow regular.""Max it.""On profile."Cottony clouds billowed outside,

licking up past the square port. Shecould see their liftoff by turning herhead and the hills seemed close in thedeep blackness of Martian night.

They climbed quickly in a roaring,rattling rush, a feeling like beingpressed down by a giant, yet sheknew that meant it was all going well.Raoul called out altitudes, speeds,voice calm and flat.

She felt a sadness as they angledover at several kilometers up. Marslay in its frigid night below. Then shesaw it.

The entire moment lasted probablyno more than five seconds. Inmemory it became a long, stretchedsyllable of time to which she was thesole witness.

Her microcam was irretrieveablytucked away. The others were busywith the launch, shouting with reliefand joy and the boundless releasingpleasure of knowing that after twoyears they were going home. Nowitnesses.

#

She had no time to think about whatshe had seen because the troublestarted as soon as they were in orbit.It came through her earphones inPiotr's pinched voice: "Losingpressure, Tank 2."

The methane tank had a rupture."Damn plumbing again," Marc said,trying to be casual, but they all knewthis was bad.

In the end it was their teamwork thatsaved them again.

Resealing the tank using what fewtools they had left from Raoul's kit wasa tense, precise operation. She had togo outside in the light, full-vac suit andserve as general gofer while Raouland Marc blocked the venting ofmethane, then made a makeshiftrepair. Meanwhile, Piotr made orbitalcalculations.

The story of those days would makeRaoul into the true media hero of the

expedition. Not that she minded in theleast, for indeed, he had saved themall.

But they had lost a lot of methane.Calculations showed they could boostfor Earth, but would not have enoughto fully decelerate once they got there.Burning up during aerobraking, in adesperate attempt to lose theirincoming velocity, was a very realpossibility.

So they rethought, frantically. Piotrwas the first to see the only plausiblesolution: the booster fuel pre-positioned in high Mars orbit by theircompetitors, Airbus. He put togethera sequence of five burns which tookthem into a long, elliptical matchingorbit with the Airbus tanks.

Earthside was aboil withnegotiations between the Consortiumand Airbus, with lawyers angrilyslapping writs on each other, over fuelfour hundred million miles away.Airbus argued that the Consortiumteam failed if it could not get homewithout Airbus' help: they should atleast split the $30 billion prize money.This provoked a brief flurry within thegovernment. NASA announced thatthe terms of the contest only specifiedthat the first team returningsuccessfully from Mars would be thewinner. Anything else was betweenAirbus and the Consortium.

Intense public interest greased thenegotiations. Airbus couldn't refusethe team their only chance home withthe whole world watching. And noneof the negotiators could have stoppedthe team from taking the fuel anyway.It was like piracy on the high seas twohundred years before.

Finally they agreed. Overnight, abillion dollars changed hands. Deepin the bowels of a Swiss bank, a dollyheavily loaded with gold bars waswheeled from one vault to another.

The two-bulbed booster lookedsurprisingly like a huge metal insect asthey approached. Hanging below itwas the rusty dry abyss of Mars, ripefor exploration.

Ann shot the docking sequence withher microcam, a concession to thepublicity-mad Consortium. GroundControl had wanted her to takeextensive footage of the whole


incident, but she had refused so far. Itwas too much to ask that they star in ahome movie that might end in theirdeaths, and besides, she was too busyhelping with the repairs.

The team offloaded tons of methanefrom the booster reserves. That didnot leave enough for the Airbus crewto return, which meant that Airbus hadto send a second, smaller methanetank to rendezvous --no mean feat oforbital mechanics and navigation.That drama would play out years later,of course, for the Airbus team had ayear and a half, just like theConsortium, to explore the surface ofMars before risking return.

The refueling worked, though justbarely. Bedeviling details such asincompatible couplings in the hosesand frozen joints in high vacuum costthem time and nerves. Theyalternately cursed the hardware andcajoled each other through the roughspots.

But they got the methane they couldnot live without. The entire return orbithad to be recalculated, and of coursethey had missed their optimum timeto catch the lowest-energy trajectory.That would cost them more fuel atEarth rendezvous, but at least theyhad it to burn.

When they were under way they allslept most of the first week, not whollyfrom fatigue, but from the need toescape the sense of a closing visearound their lives. Recovery wasslow. But then she had time to think,to recall those first moments of liftoff.

#

They had half a year of waitingbefore their aerobrake into Earth'sswampy air. As soon as they couldthey got the ship spinning, using thelast stage rocket as counter-weight.This brought back Mars-level gravityand in the months ahead theygradually spun it to higher angularspeeds, building up for the return toEarth.

Ann thought a lot without talking tothe others. Marc processed his datafrom the vent and they were allpleased to discover that the vaporboiling out had plenty of hydrogen

and methane--a ready resource forlater expeditions. If somehow theycould land a robot vehicle next to avent and trap its exhalations, Earthsidewouldn't even need to ship hydrogento make fuel here.

Her samples were sealed away, herequipment on the planet below, soshe could not work on the mat tissuesor the 'shrimp' or any of the rest of it.A treasure for others, though ofcourse she would get to direct a lot ofthe work. They sure as hell owed herthat; better, it was in her contract.There was no place in the ReturnVehicle hab to rig a sealed work vesselfor even simple studies. So she wasleft to her hypotheses.

#

Back to basics, she decided. Try tosee the whole planet from a Darwinianperspective.

She couldn't prove any of herspeculations, of course. Not withoutknowing more about Martian DNA.She suddenly realized what to look for,once she reached the labs of Earth.

The DNA code might just hold theanswer. Earth's code was degenerate:a mistake in the coding was like achange in spelling that didn't alwaysalter the meaning. In a sense, therewere alternate spellings for the sameamino acid. And of course proteinsthemselves have regions where asubstitution of a different amino aciddoesn't really matter. Room for error,with no consequences.

She had always thought that was aresponse to a rapidly evolving planetwith lots of mutagens: a Darwinianhotbox world. So a rich world strucka balance between conservatism andexperimentation, achieved overbillions of years on a planet whereevolution's lathe was always spinning.Climatic fluctuations changed the rulesof survival, flipping from warm to coldand back again. It led some topostulate the Red Queen hypothesis:you have to keep running to stay inthe same place: the entire biotaevolving in fast lock-step to avoidbeing left behind. The pace wasgrueling, and a species lasted onaverage only a million years or so

before running out of steam.What would happen on Mars, where

there may have been only one goldenage of evolution, and a long twilight ofone-way selective pressure? Theenvironment got ever colder, everdrier, the atmosphere ever thinner.But there were also brief eras ofwarmth, when water or at least mudflowed on the surface. What then?

#

Ten days later they finally celebratedtheir victory over lunch. They hadstopped holding their breaths andwere beginning to relax in the tinysocial room of the circular hab. Theothers had begun to write theirmemoirs. There would be four solidbestsellers out of this, no problem,already under contract with fatadvances paid.

Amateur writers all, they were tryingout titles on each other.

"I think I'll call mine Mars or Bust,"said Marc.

That got a laugh from Raoul. "Morelike Mars and Busted, don't you think?"

"I know. Mars or and Bust." Theyhowled with laughter, delayed releasefrom earlier terrors.

What about The Long Glide Home?"said Marc when they had calmeddown.

"Together on Mars," suggested Piotr,grinning at Ann.

Something about the titles caughtAnn's attention. Mars had a long colddrying out....

She sank back into her thoughts.Now that you can't grab any moresamples, let the theory lead you...

#

On Mars, maybe the DNA codewould become more conservative,simpler and more precise? After all,the direction of evolution for a billionyears had been the same: colder anddrier. Without sudden climatic shifts,the need for degeneracy disappeared.

Every error would be significant.The price was that evolution must beslower. Even on Earth, mostmutations were unfortunate, spelledgibberish, and killed the organism.

Only a very few were useful. On Mars, the chance of a successful

mutation would be much smaller.Then what would happen if Marc wasright, and there had been a few briefintervals of warmer, wetter conditions?Evolution couldn't work fast enough totake advantage of the new conditions.

So ...what else? Could cooperationhave become the winning rule? Shelooked around the tiny room at herteammates. Four tough-minded typeswith different skills, fitting togetherinto an efficient whole. They hadsurvived two near-disasters and agrueling eighteen months in afreezing, near-vacuum rustbowlbecause of that efficiency. Piotr hadfinally been picked, instead of Janet,because his range of talents, hischaracteristics, were what the rest ofthe team needed. That's what hersubconscious had been trying to tellher.

Could it work on a planet-widescale?

Find a partner with the desiredcharacteristic, instead of trying toevolve it yourself. A short period ofwet and warm brought the mats out ofthe vents and into the lake beds,where they interacted with theperoxide forms, perhaps incorporatingthem into the biofilm. Photosyntheticorganisms loosed from the mat --those 'shrimp'?--could colonize theseas, making hay in the brief summerwhile the atmosphere lasted.

Life that found partners to help itmaximize the wet-era opportunitieswould be successful. Glowing matsand photosynthetic microbes, free-swimming forms and protective films,peroxide-eaters and waterymembranes, all somehow trading theirresources.

An entire ecology, driven farunderground, none the less finding apath through the greatDarwinnowing...

She did some quick calculations andsaw that the available volume ofwarm, cavern-laced rock below Marswas comparable to the inhabitablesurface area of Earth. Room to try outfresh patterns.

But always meshed into thespreading network of organisms great

and small...evolution in concert.Organisms still died their pitifuldeaths, genes got erased...but thesystem could be more interlaced, shesaw, deep in the guts of a slumberingworld.

Maybe that explained what she hadglimpsed at liftoff.

#

Her last look down at the frigidMartian night had caught a smudge oflight toward the horizon. A pale whitecloud, linear, fuzzier at one end. Itseemed to point downward. Then shesaw that she was looking north, andthe cloud glowed. A pale ivory fingerof illumination spiked up from thesurface, broadening.

From the vent, she knew instantly--an impossibly brilliant outpouring.Then the ship took them up and awayand Mars fell into its long cold nightagain.

To poke such a glistening probe oflight into the sky must have cost thematting enormous energies, shethought. To make it, the vent wouldfirst have to be expelling a gusher ofvapor. Then the mats would all haveto pour their energy into the paleglow, coherently.

What coordination...and whatcontrol, over the venting of vaporitself? Could life have attained suchlevels?

On Earth, the anaerobic forms hadnever evolved beyond simple forms,bacteria. They had been competingwith the hefty, poisonous oxygen-users, of course. On Mars that was noissue; the creatures of methane andhydrogen had prevailed, for billions ofyears, beneath the steady, cruel pressof a world slowly bleeding its air andwater into the hard vacuum above.

Somehow, she knew intuitively, theanaerobes had done it. They hadevolved an intricate network. Peroxideeaters somehow traded with theharvesters of vapor. And theycommunicated--surely, for why elsewould they evolve light signaling?

The pearly lance, jutting up: asignal? Celebration? Mating dance?With so much energy expended, theremust be some purpose.

It was natural to see it as a pointedmessage, but there are manybehaviors in biology which defy easylogic. She knew what she would liketo believe, but... Science is asystematic way to avoid foolingyourself, after all.

So much to guess...

#

They were three weeks out beforeGround Control sent the liftoff picturesfrom the microcams she hadpositioned. One had pointed nearlynorth, along their trajectory. Therocket plume had blazed across thehard blackness and then vanishedfrom the cam's fixed view. But the camkept on recording because there wasstill something to see.

They had caught it. The ivoryplume, towering kilometers into thesky, mingling with the gleaming stars.

What's this? -- Earth wanted toknow.

She smiled. Memory was alwaystricky, unreliable. That was why theytrained you to observe and sample.

From the spectrum Earthside couldtell that the gas was methane andhydrogen, with some sulfur. Usefulstuff. But--what's this?

She knew then that she wouldreturn. Let Piotr sit in his estates, butshe was a scientist. There was awhole vast world back there tofathom.

Not the seared surface, but thekilometers-deep labyrinth of ancientrefuge.

In that last moment, she sensed,Mars had flashed au revoir, not adieu.



Join Us for The

1133tthh AAnnnnuuaall IInntteerrnnaattiioonnaall MMaarrss SSoocciieettyy CCoonnvveennttiioonn

August 5-8, 2010 • Dayton Marriott1414 S. Patterson Boulevard, Dayton, OH 45409

FFoollllooww TThhee MMaarrss SSoocciieettyy oonn TTwwiitttteerr aanndd FFaacceebbooookk!!

Who: Hundreds of Mars Experts and Enthusiasts What: Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society

Convention When: August 5 - 8, 2010 Where: Mariott Dayton, 1414 S. Patterson Boulevard,

Dayton, OH 45409Hotel info is now available:

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/Conventions/2010-annual-convention/hotel-information

Why: Your chance to hear the latest news and researchfrom Mars, and to join us in advancing the cause ofhuman space exploration!

Register Online: Be sure to register before May 31st, 2010to get the special earlybird price!

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/purchaseListSpeakers: Call for Papers

Presentations for the 13th AnnualMars Society ConventionPresentations for the convention are invited dealing withall matters (science, engineering, politics, economics,public policy, etc.) associated with the exploration orsettlement of Mars. If you wish to give a talk at the

convention, please provide an abstract of no more than300 words to [email protected]. Acceptableformats include Microsoft word, or RTF. Please includename, institutional affiliation, and postal and emailaddress on your abstract.

The Mars Society can be followed on both Facebook and Twitter. bookmark these sites now:

http://twitter.com/TheMarsSociety

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2231107150&ref=ts

the mars quarterly · director, chris carberry, with elon musk, ceo of spacex, and will whitehorn,...

Documents