Destination Mars

by Rod Pyle

  So…is there life on Mars? The answer is unclear, but Crisp can hazard a guess: “We believe it's more likely that there was life in the past than life today because of the harsh environment today, but we're still going to go and…drill into a rock five centimeters [(two inches) to see if we] find organic compounds preserved in the rocks. We're trying to use techniques that we use on the Earth to look at the rocks and say ‘which one of these are most likely to preserve evidence of organic materials?’”

  To collect these samples, MSL will use traditional, tried-and-true techniques, such as a sampler arm with a scoop and rock brush. But there is a new wrinkle in the mix: the rock drill. And getting powdered rock from the drill to the onboard lab in the rover will be yet another challenge: “This is a huge new challenge that we have not tackled before. We did a little bit of this with Phoenix, where they had us scoop and deliver material into an instrument with the wind blowing. We learned a lot of lessons from [that mission], but we're trying something even harder with the rock drill.”

  It's natural to assume that it must be frustrating for geologists like Crisp to work from so far away. To this, she responds: “Well, I'm a geologist, so I like to go out with a rock hammer and hit rocks and look at them. I want to know things like how did this rock form, what was it like when this rock was forming or altering, and so on. MSL is just the kind of mission that excites me; it's as if I could be there, because I'm drilling in the rocks, and then I'm finding out what minerals are in it and looking at it with a close-up camera. And this time it will be in color and higher resolution! In all of our sites we have layers of rocks so we can move through and see how things changed over time in Mars, so that's going to be interesting too.”

  But still…commanding a machine millions of miles away is far tougher than doing it yourself. And the team must be trained extensively for this: “We had a science team test where we sent some people out to Arizona. It was a site that the team didn't know [the location of], and we set up a bunch of equipment that was like what we were putting on the rover. We started out by taking pictures and we put it into their planning tools. Everybody was working from their home institution around the world, and they started out with a bunch of pictures, and we told them, “here's your picture from orbit, you are here, it's day number 235; now start planning tomorrow and here's what you were thinking of doing.” Many of them have never done this before. A few of them were from the Spirit and Opportunity missions, but many of them had no idea what it would be like.

  “One of the lessons learned was that we had no idea how frustrating and challenging it would be to do field geology so slowly. When you are planning the next day's work, you have to argue with your peers on what steps to take. For instance, will the rover drive this way or that way, put up its arm or not, and so forth. We wanted those kinds of lessons to sink in so that they start getting used to it. Personally, after so many years of doing it myself, I just mentally accept that this is how it works. I'm very patient.”

  So, given all this, would she prefer to go do it on-site?

  “I wouldn't want to go to Mars myself yet because I'm just not ready to do that, it would be way too difficult right now. So I'm willing to do it this way, slowly, via computer. It's a different kind of challenge…can you work with your scientist friends to come up with the best plans to get the rover to do things, and then sift through that precious data to get the most out of it that you can. It's just a different kind of challenge. Like I said, I'm a patient person.”

  And, as we know, patience is a virtue rewarded in planetary exploration. The secrets of Mars await.

  Jet Propulsion Laboratory is seventy-five years old as of 2011. In that time, the campus has seen jet- and rocket-engine experimentation; construction of America's first satellite, Explorer 1; missions to the moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, as well as the asteroids Vesta and Ceres and the comets Tempel 1 and Hartley 2. And, with the passage of the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft out of the solar system's boundaries, JPL is now officially in the business of interstellar exploration as well.

  Of course, no one institution could do these things alone. JPL is funded by NASA and managed by the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. The many missions it operates are done in cooperation with institutions all over the country and beyond. Notable among them have been Stanford, Cornell, the University of Arizona, the University of Colorado, and many others. Space is too vast, the job too huge for one agency to go it alone.

  With the Opportunity rover still operational, Mars Odyssey, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Express still sending home data, and the Mars Science Laboratory on its way to the Red Planet, what lies ahead?

  Currently, besides MSL, the lab is involved with parts of the James Webb Space Telescope and other Earth-orbiting observation platforms and is cooperating with the European Space Agency on other planetary missions. A lone Scout-class mission, MAVEN, is scheduled for a possible 2013 launch. It is a small and inexpensive orbiter to study the Martian atmosphere. Beyond this…no other funded Mars programs exist.

  There have long been plans for a sample-return mission, but this is a far larger funding requirement than mere landers and rovers, and so far NASA has not allocated the dollars necessary to design and build such a spacecraft. JPL is also working with NASA and ESA on the ExoMars mission, with an orbiter planned for 2016 and a rover for 2018, but the fate of this European mission is uncertain. And the United States would be a junior partner at any rate.1

  So a reasonable person might ask: what does an agency like JPL need to do, beyond racking up decades of brilliant successes, most of which have far outperformed their designers' wildest fantasies, in order to secure future projects and funding? Said reasonable person might be stunned to find that such performances are not enough. The public at large, and Congress and the executive branch in particular, seem to feel that these bravura performances are the minimum expectation. They do not ensure future funds. And major failures, such as the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander debacle, could bring down the whole show. The American public seems to have a short memory for success…ask any Apollo astronaut other than Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin.

  But there are plans. Which of them will be funded and developed remains to be seen; what follows are some of the more likely candidates for future Mars exploration.

  The most exciting for most observers is the Mars sample-return mission. Long a twinkle in NASA's eye, a sample return will incorporate all the experience gained from the last twenty years of Mars landers and more. This craft must descend to a pinpoint landing, discharge a smart rover with the ability to handle larger samples, be capable of acting as a stable launch platform and then launch a rocket able to depart Mars with a load of rocks and soil and navigate back to Earth, including atmospheric reentry and landing. It's a huge and daunting undertaking, and may require international partners such as Europe, Russia, and perhaps newcomers such as India or China to succeed. But in the end, it seems likely that a successful sample return will be funded primarily by NASA and run, of course, by JPL. A Martian sample studied on Earth, with all the luxuries of a fully equipped laboratory, will yield answers to long-held questions about chemical composition, the existence of organic molecules and much, much more than could ever be accomplished robotically on-site.

  NASA is also still considering a series of ongoing smaller missions. These include ideas such as Mars airplanes, large instrument-toting balloons, and more landers similar in scope to Phoenix. Both the balloon and the airplane proposals are for craft that would stay aloft in the Martian atmosphere for weeks, if not months. These airborne platforms would allow for a close-in observation of the many points of interest spotted from orbit. Originally, many such plans had fallen under the now-canceled Scout program.2 Some may be reclassified into NASA's ongoing Discovery program.

  An astrobiology-laboratory rover has long been on the drawing boards. Building on experienc
e gleaned from MSL, such a rover would represent the first true search for life on Mars since Viking. But it would be far more sophisticated than Viking or even MSL, and would likely be tightly focused on microbial life. If MSL is successful, look for this advanced rover sometime late in the decade.

  More orbiters will doubtless follow MAVEN, as there are always increases in imaging and sensory capability to exploit in a new mission. Once sufficient improvement builds up, there comes a point of critical mass that drives a new Mars orbital project. Before long, Mars orbiters should match the capabilities of current Earth-orbiting spy satellites.

  Finally, further exploration of the poles and deeper Martian soils is expected. The one major class of geological investigative tools that has not been included on a flight to date is a deep-soil drill. This will be another leap in mass delivered to the Martian surface, as rock and soil drills are heavy. The technologies explored in MSL should aid in the design of this unit.

  But these are in the future, and the future of space exploration is a fragile thing. It is tempting to consider JPL and NASA to be forever; to be eternal institutions. But this longevity is far from assured. With financial crises rocking the globe, and the US federal government seeking ever more ways to cut spending, there are few sacred cows. Science is never safe from funding cuts. NASA is still struggling to recover from the loss of the Constellation project to return to the moon. The space agency is left with a crew capsule, Orion, but currently has no rocket to place beneath it. All plans for a replacement launch vehicle are, at press time, far from reality. And even if funded, all NASA projects are subject to cancellation at the whim of an ever-fickle Congress.

  As regards the continued investigation of the solar system, one major failure on the order of a mission such as MSL could, in the opinion of some, spell the end of JPL and unmanned exploration. More measured consideration sees darker times in such an event, but an eventual return to space by JPL in some form. But it would be a tortuous path.

  Of course, this is all conjecture. But if the short history of space exploration is any guide, it is a seemingly easy item to trim, if not outright cancel, from the national agenda. And this is a shame, because the exploration of space is something the United States has consistently done better than anyone else, and it is one of the few programs in which the money spent is returned, at a rate of almost 100 percent, into the American economy. Jobs and education benefit; engineering and science are enhanced. It's a classic win-win scenario, but one that is increasingly hard to sell to the American public at large.

  Time will tell.

  As compelling as the robotic exploration of Mars is, sometimes it takes “boots on the ground” to decipher the secrets of a new world. With human flights to Mars still in the future, some intrepid researchers have taken matters into their own hands. They have organized expeditions to Mars…on Earth.

  As our understanding of the Red Planet has expanded, it has become clear that there are places on Earth that mimic Mars in some important ways. If this discussion were taking place in 1904, we might discuss the Mojave Desert in California or the canals of Holland. But in the twenty-first century, we understand far more about Mars and there are some surprising parallels on our own planet. Devon Island in the Arctic…the Atacama Desert in Chile…the dry valleys of Antarctica. There are more, but these are some of the primary research targets of scientists seeking a so-called Mars analog on Earth, usually to study primitive forms of life, soil conditions, or research techniques.

  One of the most compelling of these endeavors is the Flashline Research Station, or FMARS, set up on Devon Island, about one thousand miles south of the geographic north pole. Run by an organization called the Mars Society, it is a cooperative venture between the society, NASA, and academia. The effort to build the station was spearheaded by Dr. Pascal Lee, an accomplished research scientist with NASA at the Ames Research Center, and Dr. Robert Zubrin, a brilliant aerospace engineer formerly at Lockheed Martin and a founder of the Mars Society, a space-exploration advocacy group. Zubrin has long been an advocate of finding cheaper and more effective ways of traveling to Mars, for both robots and human beings. The Flashline Station has proved to be an excellent exercise in what such a mission, once landed upon the Red Planet, might entail.

  Zubrin was a cofounder of the Mars Society, which has funded, has built, and operates the station. It was not a simple task. Many years of intense fundraising, multiple design studies, fabrication, and the transport of the prefab materials to Northern Canada were just the beginning. Much of the prefab elements were severely damaged before final construction, and a lot of repair work had to be done on-site on the remote, frozen landscape of Devon Island. Then a crane failed, and the final assembly needed to be carried out via old-fashioned block and tackle. The construction crew had departed, and it was up to Mars Society volunteers (including Zubrin himself) and a film crew from the Discovery Channel (who set down their cameras and joined the volunteers) to complete the structure. It was chilly, exhausting work. But by 2000, the habitat was complete and ready for the first crew.

  Since 2000, crews picked from academia and industry have spent rotations at Flashline Station. This is a true simulation; the six or seven crew members must don simulated pressure suits when they work outside during EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activities), including a timed depressurize-pressurize cycle upon leaving or entering the station, or habitat, as they refer to it. Communications with the outside world are typically delayed by twenty minutes to simulate the one-way travel time of radio from Mars to Earth. The station itself is a large cylindrical unit, perched upon supports that hold it just off the icy surface. Inside are basic accommodations for a small crew, including bunks, a galley, research stations, a satellite computer link, and other common areas. The only real concession to Earth-bound logistics is the single crew member armed with a shotgun, as well as nonlethal deterrents, to guard against polar bears that might take an interest in a space-suited snack.

  Once outside in the cold Arctic air, crew members either perform experiments and maintenance duties near the station or climb aboard small gas-powered ATVs to traverse to specific targets, usually for meteorological, biological, or geological activities. Daily logs are kept by each member.

  The entire effort is designed to mimic as closely as possible (on a limited budget) a stay on Mars of up to a month or more. Participants have ranged from NASA scientists to university grad students to journalists.

  Data from these stays have provided valuable information on psychological and logistical problems, research and experimentation techniques, and more. Of particular interest have been their studies of the region itself. The station overlooks the Haughton Impact crater, a fourteen-mile-wide site where a large extraterrestrial object slammed into the Earth some thirty-nine million years ago.

  Crew members continue to serve rotations at the Flashline Station, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Interested? Laypeople are now being encouraged to apply…

  There are other ways to research Mars on Earth, however. Dr. Chris McKay is behind such an effort. After earning a doctorate in astro-geophysics from the University of Colorado in 1982, he went on to become a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. McKay has spent time at most of the Mars analog sites, but one of the more remarkable trips, especially in terms of results, has been a journey to the Atacama Desert, one of the driest, most desolate places on Earth. McKay was prompted to explore the region by the discovery of perchlorates by Mars Phoenix in 2008. The results of the probe's experiments reopened the lingering question of the confusing life-science results from Viking, some thirty-two years earlier. And since a trip to Mars was out of the question for the time being, the Atacama was the next best thing.

  The desert lies at an altitude of three thousand feet and is blocked from rainfall by two bordering mountain ranges. The soil is virtually sterile and is fifty times more arid than the Mojave Desert. Misty rain drizzles onto the region an avera
ge of once every ten years. Items implanted in the soil—whether plants or microbial—die quickly. Other than atmosphere and temperature conditions, it is a near twin of Mars, and has apparently been since its formation over fifteen million years ago. It is officially the “deadest place on Earth” in its dry core region.

  McKay had been to the Atacama a number of times. He took some soil from the region and repeated, as closely as possible, the Viking life-science experiments—and the controversy over Viking's results was reignited almost overnight.

  Earlier research efforts had shown that the few organic substances present in the soil were so dispersed and were released at such high temperatures that, had Viking landed in the Atacama instead of Mars, the results of the experiments would have been the same: no life would have appeared, despite the fact that it existed.

  In 2003, McKay discussed the results of another repeat of the Viking life-science experiments. He tested the microbial nutrient broth in the coastal region of the Atacama, where there is a bit more microbial life, and the nutrients were consumed. A variant of the broth from the Viking experiment was prepared that was not designed to support life, but was still consumable, and it was not metabolized by the microbes. But in the drier, deader inner core, both the microbe-friendly and non-microbe-friendly broths were used up equally. It appeared that the majority of the Viking scientists had been right—something else, possibly a strong oxidant like perchlorate, was reacting with the liquids.