Each according to his gifts: Analogues, A Canadian Contribution

This beautiful image taken by U of T's Tim Barfoot shows the ROC-6 Rover that will be used to simulate a Lunar Rover this summer as part of an Analogue Mission. It is shown here at one of the CSA's 10 Analogue Sites: Lake Orbiter, Devon Island.

How can Canada best contribute to Planetary Science and the development of Space Missions? Should we launch our own superior spacecraft? Develop our own cadre of scintilating supporting scientists? Engineer the finest quality instruments? Well, we do currently do all of these things. But while we do posess high quality in each domain and make valuable contributions to missions, it is unlikely that we will become the largest source of either.

However, there is one domain in which we have a distinct advantage. Ours is a large country with many different environments. These provide excellent places to check-out landed spacecraft equipment and develop techniques to command them. If this testing is done in what we call a "flight-like" manner (that is to say that we force upon ourselves the constraints which would exist were the mission actually occuring on another planet) then we have a special name for the exercise: an Analog Mission.

Such a Mission should have all the necessary simulated pieces in place to mirror an actual mission. These include a realistic instrument platform (i.e. a lander, rover or other spacecraft simulator), realistic instrumentation, realistic communications and a remote mission operations team which works on a schedule that is itself suitably "flight-like."

Martian Fog Update

Disney's vision of a plant on Mars via Paleo-Future. I can only hope that I'm growing the Martian version of our tree of knowledge.

By design, one of the main jobs of a Scientist is to add to our body of knowledge. Typically, we're all working away quietly on this tiny piece or another of a very large tree. Often, the particular leaf that we are adding is esoteric and may therefore be of interest only to a small group or even just ourselves. But sometimes, we get the chance to work on a finely-filigreed golden leaf of a project, or on a major branch. It is on those projects that a wider swath of the world takes note.

Space & Politics in Canada: Fallout from the 41st General Election

I, like many others, watched a generational sea-change in the politics of Canada last night. As Maclean's Magazine's Colby Cosh aptly put it this morning "Four Parties enter, Two Parties leave." The leftmost of the mainstream parties, the NDP saw huge gains in an "orange wave," bringing them up to official opposition status with 102 seats in the house of commons, more than double their previous high of 43. Meanwhile, the Liberal party - above 50% in popular vote and dynastically described as Canada's "Natural Governing Party" just ten short years ago - fell to third place for the first time in 144 years. But for those of us involved with space the real story is that after a 5-year test drive of conservative minority governments, the electorate has handed over the keys of the country to the Conservatives with a majority likely to last at least until 2015.

LPSC Notebook: A Special Note on Risk Mitigation

In my experience, no federal agency is better at marketing and public relations than is NASA. They have to be. Unlike most of the other divisions of the government, NASA survives on its ability to inspire the nation and to involve them in the exciting work that it does. And while everyone can see the economic sense of keeping air travel safe, building roads and protecting the border, NASA is something of a luxury that a rich country can afford as an investment in its future. If people stop believing in what NASA is doing and supporting it, the agency will disappear or at least contract down to its directly justifiable parts.

How does such an organization deal with risk? Unfortunately, not very well. This is particularly true when it comes to human space flight. This has always been a risky business. Eight astronauts died in the lead-up to the moon landing, all on training missions. It was a different time, with higher stakes and these losses were accepted. The astronauts themselves were test pilots and it was widely known that they understood the risks and took them in stride.

But by the 1980s, I think the agency made a fundamental mistake by changing course and attempting to appeal to taxpayers on a more mundane level. The pre-Challenger posters are still up in some places around the country, describing a shuttle flight as "Going to work in space." Moving the bar like that means that when a fatality happens, it isn't just a tragedy, it is an outrage*.

Knowledge of that kind of a response means that space systems designed today are much more risk-averse than were systems designed back in the 1960s. In many ways that is a good thing, but it also adds enormously to the cost of these systems. There's a reason that repeating Apollo with a return to the moon is economically beyond the ability of NASA to complete within a decade, despite the fact that we have much more knowledge and much better technology than was available in 1961.

Bob Richards' PSERF, March 25, 2011

Bob Richards, a "Space Dragon" who wants to expand the reach of the human race... 

and make a profit doing so!

In his talk last Friday, Bob Richards, a silicon valley space entrepreneur referred to the folks that blog about him. By virtue of this entry in my PSERF handbook, I suppose that now includes me. I cannot admit that I know the man well*, but he is an interesting fellow and his heart seems to be in the right place. For this special speaker, we met in a special location; not in the Biological and Geological Sciences Building, but over in the Ivey school of business. This was an appropriate choice, as Bob's expertise is in the area of space business. His primary goal these days? Expanding the economic sphere of the Earth from Geosynchronous orbit out by a factor of ten to encompass the Moon.

The presentation was free-flowing and Bob stayed afterwards to chat with several of us at the University's Graduate Club. While he spoke without slides, his talk was not unusual fare for PSERF which has attracted interesting speakers of all types, from experts on Space Weaponry through discussions of early cartography and the "inside baseball" story of science-driven space missions. Largely, I'm getting the impression that PSERF exists mainly to expand our concept of what we can do with these planetary science degrees of ours. In that vein, Bob had a great deal to offer us by describing in detail his experience with the emerging field of private space exploration.

Conversations at the LPSC: Dr. Michael Bland

Dr. Michael Bland surveys the landscape
in this photograph taken in 2006 in Death Valley, CA by Catherine Neish.

Tonight we move a little bit away from the Decadal survey on Astronomy.fm 's Live from York U. While the topic still comes up in reference to EJSM/JEO I focused on speaking with Dr. Michael Bland about his work studying the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. Mike is a tectonics expert who looks at the geophysics and geomorphology of surface features to glean information about the interiors of these satellites. His specialty is the Jovian moon Ganymede, the largest of all satellites in our solar system and really a world in its own right with a diameter almost 400km larger than that of Mercury. Ganymede may not be the first body you think of when tectonic features come to mind. Certainly, the cracks formed on the surface by internal stresses are less dramatic than they are on Europa and less explosive than on Enceladus. But the terrain is more varied and perhaps less understood on this world.

Conversations at the LPSC: Dr. Ross Beyer

Dr. Ross Beyer has always been at home on the surface of a Planet. He's shown here at Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, CA in this undated photo taken by Jason Barnes.

Kicking off our latest series of interviews on Astronomy.fm is the SETI Institute's own Dr. Ross Beyer. He and I briefly attended the University of Arizona together before he graduated with a PhD in Planetary Science way back in 2004. Since that time, Ross has been keeping busy with significant mission involvement including working with the HiRise camera on MRO, as well as on LRO and one of the most exciting missions of the upcoming decade: New Horizons to pluto. Because of this latitude of space mission experience, which cuts across NASA's boundaries, I felt that Ross would be an excellent subject with which to discuss the recently released planetary decadal survey. I had the chance to speak with him last Thursday, and I have to thank him and my editors Michelle Parsons and Michael over at AFM for getting this interview to air so quickly! Tonight you'll get the chance to listen in at 8PM EDT / Midnight UTC over at Astronomy.fm on the "Live at York U" radio show.

I do owe Ross an apology: we didn't get to speak much about his varied experience in Planetary Science, so I plan on asking him for a full and proper interview at a later conference!

Programming Note: Over the next four weeks, we'll be bringing you interviews with young planetary scientists on the Live at York U radio program. This series, "Conversations from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference" mirrors the "Conversations from the Division for Planetary Science" series that we conducted last year. Queued up after Ross are Washington University's Dr. Michael Bland on March 21, who will speak with us about Icy Satellites, University of South Florida's Dr. Matthew Pasek on March 28, a meteorite man and astrobiologist extraordinaire, and finally the NRC's Dr. Abigail Sheffer on April 4, who will chat with us about things you can do with a Planetary Science Degree that you might not have thought possible! These last two will be appearing LIVE on air, so if you have any questions for them, you can leave those in the comments below, and I'll be sure to ask.

"Conversations from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference" runs Mondays through April 4th on Astronomy.fm 8PM EDT for the first three interviews and moving to 9PM EDT starting in April.

LPSC Notebook: Participating Scientist Programs

Now that I'm back in Toronto, it's time to clear out some of the backlog! I had a good time at LPSC, but it was a much busier schedule than DPS and ultimately was a conference with a much different feel. I'll get to that in a few posts. But today I wanted to give a brief note prior to Ross Beyer's blurb.

When you're at a conference, your work doesn't stop or go on hiatus. Indeed, when you consider networking and meeting with colleagues and collaborators you could argue that conferences represent a heavier workload. In that vein, I want to mention a task being carried out behind the scenes by many of the conference attendees. Specifically, the preparation of applications for the upcomming Participating Scientist Program (PSP) opportunity for the Mars Science Laboratory. Without a doubt, this is one of the largest opportunities in years (and perhaps one of the few this decade) for members of the "Mars Chapter" of the Planetary Science Community. As such, many of us were scurrying to put together our documents over the last week. As the Canadian Space Agency recently decided to support Canadian researchers to play along, I can count myself in that group.

Hope and a Call to Action: Planetary Decadal Survey Released

Steve Squyres (left) and Jim Green (right) answer questions Monday Night at LPSC following the unveiling of the Planetary Decadal survey. Image is a screen capture from the live feed recap (I attended in person).

I can remember when I first met Steve Squyres. It was way back in May of 2004 when I was unbelievably green and doing a two week internship on MER at the behest of my advisor, Peter Smith. I was in the microscopic imager room in Pasadena with Nicole Spanovich (now at JPL) and he stuck his head in to see what was happening. Nicole introduced us and I remember him saying hello to me. I don't remember what I said in return, but I do recall that before I could think of something clever to say, he was off again to the next instrument room.

LPSC Notebook: Trouble Ahead

An artist's conception of a submarine exploring the Europan Ocean is shown in this NASA-JPL illustration. Currently, I'm not even 30 and the chances that I will see pictures like this in my lifetime looks like they will decrease tomorrow once the planetary decadal survey is released.

Something's in the air here in the Woodlands, and it's not pleasant. I certainly got my week off to a bad start with some hotel snafus here at the 42nd LPSC that have seen me in a different room each night. I must also report that I'm a bit disappointed in the location. Basically, we're located at a pedestrian-unfriendly high-end strip mall, though I do understand that this location is cheaper and more accessible for many. Oh, and now this: leaked details of Steve Squyres' Planetary Decadal Survey as described by Space News.

LPSC 2011 Preview

My poster for this week's LPSC Conference. 

Come by for a chat on Tuesday Evening! 

Also, you can click here for a full-sized version with legible text!

In a few hours I will depart the snowy and windy hallows of Toronto for the warmth of Houston, TX and the annual LPSC Conference. This event is the premier meeting of the year for us Planetary Scientists involved with the study of the surfaces and atmospheres of terrestrial planets, in particular the Moon and Mars (DPS tends to skew more giant planet/satellites/extra-solar planets). This will be my first visit since my return to Canada, my first at the new Woodlands Waterway Marriott and my first since 2007. The last has been troubling me a little. I had a great run going with four straight years of attendance from 2004-2007, and as readers of my DPS Notebook entries from last year know, it was LPSC that settled the question of whether I had made the right decision to pursue a PhD in Planetary Science. But I've been away so long that I have to wonder whether the conference I return to today resembles the same gathering I last saw through the eyes of an ambitious grad student. A lot has changed in the interim with me. In the next week we'll see what has changed in the world of Martian Planetary Science.
__________
As with DPS, I will be keeping a notebook of what I see. In particular, look for a post following the long-awaited-with-baited-breath Planetary Decadal Survey (TM) presentation on Monday evening. If you can't wait for my post, fear not! The formal presentation by MER P.I. Steve Squyres, followed by a response by NASA PSD Director Jim Green will be webcast live and carried on NASA TV starting at 6:30PM EST.

I should note, however, that due to the oncoming rush of the MSL Participating Scientist Program with proposals due on March 21, I don't expect to be able to write as much as I did at DPS. Here's to hoping that the CSA likes my LOI!

Irony, Courtesy of the Wayback Machine

The New York Times today published a story about actors who are also scientists. In the story they touch upon the difference in publicity between the two professions: even the most tangential actor tends to be better known than the most successful scientist. They go on to link to an article in "The Onion"  from 2001 about scientists complaining about the paparazzi. It's meant to be satirical, and it is seriously funny (at least to a scientist). However, like the best of its genre, it contains a delicious and cutting nugget of truth which comes at the end:

"If it weren't for all this publicity, it's possible that far fewer people would support our work," Heeger said. "We scientists could actually be in the position of needing to scrape pennies together to complete our vitally important research." 

Diehard science fan Jill Krause agreed. 

"These scientists are the most important people in America," Krause said. "Our very future depends on them. They are enabling us to live longer and better, discovering the history of the planet we live on, and unraveling the mysteries of the universe. There's no way we'd ever let them work in obscurity. It's laughable." 

-The Onion, August 22, 2001

As many of you know, one of the goals of this blog is to make some of the scientific research that I am involved in accessible. I was delighted to see the response from all over the world to my last article, which is already the second most popular thing that I have written, and I'd like to thank all of you who came by for a look. Still, I don't think I'll be fending off photographers any time soon. Despite that, it is interesting to look at publicity in science from the flip-side.