Blogs / Bad Astronomy

NASA is looking for a name for the next Mars rover, officially called the Mars Science Laboratory. They’ve decided to have a contest, and it’s open to school children up to 18 years of age.

The rovers so far (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity) have all had serious names, so I doubt they’ll go for Marvin, which would really just be perfect. How about Wells? I suppose John Carter is out. Ray Walston?

Of course, given how over-budget MSL is, and how it’s threatened other missions, they might want to name it Gilligan. Somehow, I doubt they’d go for that, either!

Anyway, if you’re a teacher or a school kid, check that site out and give it some thought. Your idea may wind up traveling millions of kilometers to another planet, and that’s pretty cool.

In the next weird thing found on — or below — the Red Planet, a ground-penetrating radar on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found vast glaciers under the rocky surface. These glaciers are at the bases of mountains and cliffs, and are covered with rubble that may be protecting them from sublimating away. The even cooler thing is that these are at lower latitudes (nearer the Equator) than ever seen before.

“Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is not in the polar caps,” said John W. Holt of the University of Texas at Austin, who is lead author of the report. “Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick. And there are many more. In addition to their scientific value, they could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars.”

This older image shows a glacier that flowed from one Martian crater at the base of a mountain to another crater. Courtesy ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).

I still advocate going to the Moon for a while before heading off to Mars, but Mars does have one big advantage: that water locked up in the glaciers is not that hard to tap into. It can be used for drinking, farming, breathing, and even as protection from solar radiation (the hydrogen in water makes a pretty good radiation shield).

These underground glaciers also answer a question that’s puzzled scientists for years: the existence of aprons, or gently sloped regions surrounding tall features on Mars. Now it seems clear that the ice at the base of these cliffs and mountains lubricated rubble descending from higher up, so instead of getting big piles, the rubble forms a smoother decline. The radar reflections from aprons indicates they are indeed a thin layer of rubble on top of thicker ice.

We’ve known for decades that Mars has water ice. What we’re learning now is the extent of it, how deep it goes, how it’s placed across the surface, and even how wet Mars was in the past. All of this builds us a picture of a once-dynamic planet, and one that still has lots of surprises waiting for us, literally just below the surface.

Last week, I wrote about NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, and how he may be replaced when Obama takes office. Given that he was a Bush appointee, I imagine he must be thinking he’s on his way out as NASA’s top banana. That may explain why he made a public statement aimed at Obama about NASA’s future.

Basically, he said that the incoming Administration needs to stick with going back to the Moon, and that backing down from such an endeavor would be a mistake. After commenting that he would be honored to continue on with NASA if asked, he said:

“Two successive Congresses - one Republican and one Democrat - have strongly endorsed the path NASA is on. I think it’s the right path,” Griffin said.

“For 35 years since the Nixon administration, we’ve been on the wrong path. It took the loss of (space shuttle) Columbia and (the accident investigation) report to highlight the strategic issues to get us on the right path,” he said.

“We’re there. I personally will not be party to taking us off that path. Someone else may wish to, but I do not.”

That’s a pretty strong statement, and makes clear his thoughts (refreshing from someone in charge of a government agency). I happen to agree with him; going back to the Moon is what NASA should focus on, as long as the science is not sacrificed.

The caveat here is the economy. If we lapse into a depression, then NASA may be the first on the chopping block. But I hope that’s not the case; NASA employs many thousands of people, and letting them go would be a huge mistake, both economically and for the future of the nation.

Also, the rockets that take us to the Moon will be capable of vastly larger payloads than we can currently loft, making solar system and deep space science easier. Look at what the Cassini Saturn probe is doing, and then imagine launching much larger probes with far more capabilities than we have now… going back to the Moon can benefit all of space exploration and science if done properly.

Personally, I think Griffin will be replaced, and I don’t have a clue who might be the person to take over. But I do hope they listen carefully to what Griffin has to say. Some of what Griffin has done in the past needs to be forgotten (or maybe even apologized for), but on other topics he’s right on the money.

First things first: The Shuttle is scheduled to liftoff for the Space Station at 19:55 EST today (00:55 GMT). As I write this, the Endeavour’s crew is getting strapped in and readied to go. You can watch the launch online at NASA TV. They have a camera on the command deck! Awesome.

Update: Launch was right on time, and looks good so far. There was an issue with a door not being latched in the White Room, the retractable room where the techs batten down the Shuttle’s hatch before launch. That was not on the Orbiter itself, so it posed no danger. I suspect they’ll need a new White Room, though. Can’t wait to see the pictures of it!

Second, the Indian Moon probe Chandrayaan-1 is now orbiting the Moon! It dropped a small impactor which has reportedly smacked into the south pole crater Shackleton. I haven’t seen any images or data online yet, but check Emily’s blog; she is usually pretty quick on such things.

Update: a couple of images are now online at ISRO, but they are unlabeled– i have no idea how far up they were taken, what the scale is, nothing. But they’re cool!

I will probably talk about these events during my Second Life interview tonight at 21:00 Eastern (US) time (02:00 GMT)

With President-elect Obama coming in to shake things up — and they will get shook, don’t you fret — a lot of agencies will change. NASA is a government agency, and the head is NASA is Mike Griffin. I’ve had plenty to say about him in the past, both good and bad. I think I’ve called them like I’ve seen them.

DarkSyde over at Daily Kos has an interesting take on Griffin. Some of it is fact, other parts speculative. I know Griffin is conservative, and I know his stance on global warming is probably significantly different than mine — but I wouldn’t necessarily yell "conspiracy" without lots of evidence. However, I find a lot of what DarkSyde writes rings true.

I honestly can’t say whether Griffin has been a net positive, negative, or neutral for NASA or not. He has done some things very well, but has fallen flat elsewhere. I’ve talked to many friends in NASA, and affiliated with it, and their opinions differ about as much as anyone else’s. No help there. I guess history may tell.

I’ll add that it’s traditional that when a new President comes into office, agency heads tender their resignation. The President then decides to accept the resignation or not. We’ll see what happens with Griffin, and I expect Obama will move on that sooner rather than later.

It looks like the Phoenix Mars lander is dead. Scientists have not heard anything from it for over a week now, and they have acknowledged the inevitable: the scrappy lander is out of power, and unable to do any more experiments, and incapable of reporting them anyway. They have declared the mission operations phase of Phoenix to be complete.

Designed to only last 90 days, it actually kept going for about twice that long. It landed in late May 2008, and the last signal was detected in early November. The primary science mission was to look for ice beneath the surface of Mars and to examine the soil directly. It had a scoop that picked up samples of the "soil" and dropped them into an oven. Baking them released chemicals that could be analyzed.

What lies beneath? Ice.

As it sat near the Martian north polar cap, Phoenix did in fact find ice just below the surface (not too surprising, really, but nice to confirm). It found the soil was alkaline, and also detected perchlorates. These are oxidizers, and if concentrated enough can kill terrestrial biological organisms. However, oxidizers are also needed for life; I’ve often wondered if you could have a sophisticated biochemistry using them on other planets. Clays and calcium carbonates found by Phoenix also indicate that water was once present at the site.

The science it did was very cool, but one of the more interesting stories was the detection of falling snow in the atmosphere of Mars. Somehow, Earthlike weather on Mars brought this story home.

Weather brought down Phoenix as well. It wasn’t designed to last forever. It used solar panels, and winter was setting in. The lowering Sun and bitter cold made things difficult, but in late October a sand storm may have done the final deed.

But the mission was a success. It was a tricky landing, a difficult mission, and the science was delicate. But it delivered, and now we know more about Mars than we did before. Still, the search continues. Why did Mars die? What happened to its atmosphere, where is all the water we know was there, why did it evolve so differently than Terra Mater? And what implications do these have for our own home planet?

Phoenix itself is almost certainly dead (we might get a tiny bit more out of it if conditions are just right, though probably not), but we will continue to explore, to reach out to our sister world. Someday I’d like to see the view from an astronaut’s helmet camera. That won’t be for decades, for sure, and until then we’ll continue to send our robot proxies there. With Phoenix we’ve literally only scratched the surface of the Red Planet.

Image credit:NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute.

Update: Turns out there’s more to this story. Go see Universe Today for the scoop.

The first major flight hardware for the Ares-1 rocket arrived via barge at Kennedy Space Center this week. It’s an upper stage simulator, basically a shell with the same size and weight of an actual second stage. It’ll be mated with a lower stage and launched to test out the system.

I was amazed to see that test launch is scheduled for July 12 of next year! Then I had to smile: I keep thinking of Ares (and the Shuttle retirement) as happening some time in the nebulous future, but in fact the Shuttle retires in just a year and a half from now. And so Ares test flights need to start soon, the sooner the better. Somehow all this slipped away from my conscious mind. The Shuttle has been flying since 1981, most of my life (I remember the first launch of Columbia, back when I was in high school). It’s hard to imagine that it all ends so soon.

But I’m glad NASA is getting their act together on this. Both Presidential candidates — and I only need to write it that way until the end of the day, phew! — have promised extra cash for NASA to help get Ares on track, and I think in the end that’s a good thing.

Drawing of Ares-1 rocket courtesy NASA.