SPACE: WHERE ARE WE GOING? : HOUSTON WORKSHOP: FINDING WAYS TO EXPLORE THE RED PLANET

Sunday, July 1, 2012

HOUSTON WORKSHOP: FINDING WAYS TO EXPLORE THE RED PLANET

Photo:  The Famous Face On Mars.  Credit:  NASA.

FROM:  NASA
WASHINGTON -- A recent workshop conducted for NASA by the Lunar and 
Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, marked a key step in the 
agency's effort to forge a new Mars strategy in the coming decades. A 
report that summarizes the wide range of cutting-edge science, 
technology and mission concepts discussed is available online. 

Held in Houston June 12-14 and attended by scientists and engineers 
worldwide, the meeting was held to seek ideas, concepts and 
capabilities to address critical challenge areas in exploring the Red 
Planet. Discussions provided information for reformulating NASA's 
Mars Exploration Program (MEP) to be responsive to high-priority 
science goals and the challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in 
the 2030s. 

Participants identified a number of possible approaches to missions 
that can be flown to Mars in the coming decade that would make 
progress toward returning Martian samples -- a top priority of the 
Planetary Science Decadal Survey -- and make significant advances in 
scientific understanding of the planet, developing key technologies 
and advancing knowledge necessary for human exploration on and around 
Mars. 

NASA's Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG), tasked with developing 
options for a reformulated MEP, will consider the workshop inputs in 
addition to budgetary, programmatic, scientific and technical 
constraints. 

"Scientists and engineers came together to present their most creative 
ideas for exploring Mars," said John Grunsfeld, an astronaut, 
astrophysicist and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Great ideas come 
from challenging the best and brightest and igniting their passion 
and determination to succeed." 

The MPPG reports to Grunsfeld, who chairs the agency-wide Mars 
reformulation effort along with William Gerstenmaier, NASA's 
associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission 
Directorate, Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati and Chief Technologist 
Mason Peck. The official draft MPPG report is expected to be 
delivered to NASA for review at the end of the summer. 

Concepts put forth tapped into significant benefits that could be 
gained from technology investments by NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, 
and Office of the Chief Technologist. The participants also stressed 
the importance of establishing international collaboration early in 
the planning process and sustaining it throughout future missions. 

"Future Mars exploration missions will require new concepts and 
technologies," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space 
Technology Program. "There were many innovative and transformational 
concepts presented at the workshop. With continued investments in 
cutting-edge technology, these will lead to increased capability, 
reduced mission risk and lower mission costs." 

Workshop attendance included almost 200 scientists, engineers and 
graduate students from academia, NASA centers, federal laboratories, 
industry, and international partner organizations. More than 1,600 
people participated online as the workshop proceedings were streamed 
live on the Internet. 

"The LPI workshop provided a broad set of ideas for Mars exploration, 
including synergies between science, human exploration and technology 
development," Gerstenmaier said. "The number of workshop participants 
demonstrates the broad interest in Mars exploration." 

The workshop provided a forum for broad community input on near-term 
mission concepts. Ideas for longer-term activities will be used to 
inform program architecture planning beyond the early 2020s. Workshop 
results represent individual perspectives from members of the 
scientific and technical community. 

"The scientific and technical community has given us quite a range of 
ideas to consider in reformulating the Mars Exploration Program," 
said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at 
the agency's headquarters. "Many concepts presented are highly 
relevant to the challenges the MPPG must address." 

NASA will land its most advanced rover, Curiosity, on the surface of 
Mars in August. This mobile science laboratory will assess whether 
the past or present environment on Mars could support life. In 2013, 
NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, 
the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper 
atmosphere.

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STAR FLASH

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash. In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter. Image Credit: NASA, ESA

THE SPIDERWEB GALAXY

Looking like a spider's web swirled into a spiral, Galaxy IC 342 presents its delicate pattern of dust in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Seen in infrared light, faint starlight gives way to the glowing bright patterns of dust found throughout the galaxy's disk. At a distance of about 10 million light-years, IC 342 is relatively close by galactic standards, however our vantage point places it directly behind the disk of our own Milky Way. The intervening dust makes it difficult to see in visible light, but infrared light penetrates this veil easily. IC 342 belongs to the same group as its even more obscured galactic neighbor, Maffei 2. IC 342 is nearly face-on to our view, giving a clear, top-down view of the structure of its disk. It has a low surface brightness compared to other spirals, indicating a lower density of stars (seen here as a blue haze). Its dust structures show up much more vividly (red). Blue dots are stars closer to us, in our own Milky Way. New stars are forming in the disk at a healthy rate. The very center glows especially brightly in the infrared, highlighting an enormous burst of star formation occurring in this tiny region. To either side of the center, a small bar of dust and gas is helping to fuel this central star formation. Data from Spitzer's infrared array camera are shown in blue (3.6 microns), green (4.5 microns) and red (5.8 and 8.0 microns). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

JUMPING TO WARP SPEED

This cockpit view of a hypothetical spacecraft traveling at eight-tenths the speed of light shows the visual distortions that would be experienced at such high speeds. The star field is actually being wrapped toward the front of the craft in addition to being significantly blue-shifted. NASA Glenn leads the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, NASA's primary effort to produce near-term, credible, and measurable progress toward the technology breakthroughs needed to revolutionize space travel and enable interstellar voyages. NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

OBSERVATION FROM THE SPACE STATION