MARSBUGS:  The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter

Volume 2, Number 10, 20 July 1995.



Co-editors:



David Thomas, Life Sciences Department, Belleville Area College, 

Belleville, IL 62221, USA, thomasd@basenet.net (basegrp.com).



Julian Hiscox, Microbiology Department, BBRB 17, Room 361, 

University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-2170, 

USA, julian_hiscox@micro.microbio.uab.edu.



MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted 

by the number of articles and announcements.  Copyright exists 

with the co-editors, except for specific articles, in which 

instance copyright exists with the author/authors.  E-mail 

subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either 

of the editors.  Contributions are welcome, and should be 

submitted to either of the two editors.  Contributions should 

include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along 

with the author(s)' correspondence address. Subscribers are 

advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, 

ordering goods etc.

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INDEX



1)	NASA LIFE SCIENCES RESEARCH GOES ON LINE

	NASA press release.



2)	SHUTTLE MISSION HOME PAGE GOES ONLINE WEDNESDAY

	NASA Internet advisory.



3)	NASA'S LEGACY OF MARS EXPLORATION

	NASA backgrounder.



4)	MARINER 4 ANNIVERSARY MARKS 30 YEARS OF MARS EXPLORATION

	NASA press release.



5)	NASA NAMES FIRST ROVER TO EXPLORE THE SURFACE OF MARS

	NASA press release.



6)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FAQ INQUIRIES WANTED



7)	ELECTRONIC JOURNAL CONFERENCE

	Zsolt and Csaba Orczan.



8)	THE INTERSTELLAR PROPULSION SOCIETY

	Society Announcement.



9)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR-THERMAL EMISSIONS SPECTROPHOTOMETER T-

SHIRTS AVAILABLE



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1)	NASA LIFE SCIENCES RESEARCH GOES ON LINE

NASA press release



Beginning today on the Internet, computer users will be able to 

access the first stage of a NASA data archive that eventually 

will provide the wealth of scientific knowledge developed from 30 

years of space-based research into the effects of microgravity on 

living systems, including the human body.



The Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) contains overview 

information on the 18 experiments conducted on the Spacelab Life 

Sciences-1 mission that flew on board the Shuttle in June 1991.  

As the system grows and matures, information from other life 

sciences research conducted on other missions, such as the 

International Microgravity Laboratory flights, Spacelab-Japan and 

Spacelab Life Sciences-2, will be included.



"We have a great deal of valuable information in our life 

sciences archive," said Gerry Taylor, Project Manager of the Life 

Sciences Data Archive and staff scientist in the Life Sciences 

Program Integration Office at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), 

Houston.  "Now, people will be able to learn about the research 

we have done and how it has direct applications to their own 

quality of life here on Earth."



The information is housed at the National Space Science Data 

Center (NSSDC) with active links to a number of other NASA-

related home pages.  Internet users can access the information 

at:



http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/life/nssdc/life_home.html



The archives are designed for easy use by researchers, educators 

and students.  The Master Catalog will serve as a top-level 

directory describing each completed life science space flight, 

and provide an overview of each experiment conducted during the 

flight.  Beginning in the Fall of 1995, users also will be able 

to order several CD-ROM products from the NSSDC for more detailed 

information about a single mission or single experiment.  The 

Mission CD-ROMs will provide information about the mission 

itself; the available LSDA Experiment CD-ROM will contain 

fundamental, analyzed and summarized data for any particular life 

sciences experiment conducted on a flight.



"We are very excited about the prospect of sharing this wealth of 

knowledge with the American public," Taylor said.  "With the 

archives available through the Internet, researchers will be able 

to stay current with space life science research and results, and 

will benefit from having a central location where they can find 

this information."



Taylor also stressed that the information available on the 

Internet will be valuable to students and educators in preparing 

research papers or class lessons, and in proposing student 

experiments to NASA.



The Life Sciences Data Archive was developed jointly by the 

Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications at NASA 

Headquarters; JSC; Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA; and 

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; with support from 

Martin Marietta Services Group, Houston, TX; Futron Corp.  and 

the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, 

MD; Lockheed Engineering and Science Group, Houston, TX and 

Sunnyvale, CA; Hughes STX, Greenbelt, MD; Mains Associates, 

Berkeley, CA; and Universities Space Research Association, 

Washington, DC.

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2)	SHUTTLE MISSION HOME PAGE GOES ONLINE WEDNESDAY

NASA Internet advisory



With the countdown underway for this week's planned launch of the 

Shuttle Atlantis, NASA is unveiling a permanent home on the 

Internet for Shuttle mission information.



"On Board STS-71," focusing on the Atlantis-Mir docking flight, 

will be the maiden voyage of the official NASA source for World 

Wide Web information about all Space Shuttle missions.



The page also will feature five spectacular new images of 

Russia's Mir Space Station, available to the media from NASA 

Headquarters and to computer users via the Internet on Wednesday, 

June 21.  The pictures are being released to help illustrate the 

upcoming docking of the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the Mir space 

station.  The high resolution images show Mir over the Pacific 

ocean and were recorded using the IMAX Cargo Bay Camera during 

the STS-63 rendezvous mission on February 6, 1995.



The IMAX images and other information on STS-71 can be accessed 

at the following URL:



http://shuttle.nasa.gov



The Shuttle mission home pages are designed to give visitors the 

opportunity to experience a Space Shuttle mission through access 

to detailed, up-to-the-minute multimedia information during each 

flight.  The first effort to provide this kind of information to 

the public drew interest from tens of thousands of computer users 

all over the world during the STS-67/Astro-2 mission earlier this 

year.



For this and subsequent missions, the NASA Shuttle home page will 

provide real-time data that originates with the actual stream of 

telemetry between the Atlantis and Mission Control, Houston.

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3)	NASA'S LEGACY OF MARS EXPLORATION

NASA backgrounder



In the decade between mid-1964 and late 1975, the United States' 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched 

nine robotic spacecraft--seven Mariners and two Vikings--to 

explore Mars.  All but two reached the planet and sent the first 

close-up pictures and scientific observations back to scientists 

on Earth.  Mariner 9 and the Vikings went into orbit around the 

planet and the Vikings placed two landing craft on the surface of 

Mars.



During roughly the same time frame, the former Soviet Union 

launched eight spacecraft to Mars.  Unfortunately, few of them 

returned useful scientific data about the planet, although a 

number of spacecraft achieved orbit or delivered surface 

capsules.



The Mariner spacecraft were relatively small scientific 

explorers, launched by the Atlas rocket with either the Agena or 

Centaur upper stages.  They weighed less than half a ton (without 

onboard rocket propellant).  The Viking Orbiter spacecraft were 

scaled-up Mariners, each carrying a lander sealed in a sterile 

atmospheric-entry capsule plus enough rocket propellant to place 

the compound vehicle in orbit and then send the capsule into the 

atmosphere and then to the ground.



The design of these missions was based on the developing 

communications capability of the Deep Space Instrumentation 

Facility--later renamed the Deep Space Network--and the concept 

of an attitude-stabilized, solar-powered spacecraft that could 

orient solar panels at the Sun, a communications dish antenna at 

the Earth and a camera or other sensors at the target planet.  

The Mariners and the Viking Orbiters were developed by NASA's Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory.  The Viking project and its lander 

development were managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in 

Hampton, Va.



Mariners 4, 6 and 7 flew by the planet, spending less than an 

hour in close proximity.  Mariner 4, equipped to measure the 

interplanetary environment as well as Mars, continued to send 

useful scientific data for three years.  Mariner 9 spent 11 

months mapping the planet from orbit.  The two Viking orbiters 

lasted two and four years, respectively, in orbit.  The pair of 

landers operated for almost two years and more than four years, 

respectively, on the surface of Mars.



The Mariner series actually began with a 203-kilogram (446 pound) 

spacecraft developed in 11 months for a flight to Venus.  Mariner 

2 carried no camera, but made important measurements at the 

planet and in interplanetary space.  Mariner 4 then was launched 

in November 1964 on an eight-month odyssey to Mars, where in July 

1965 it collected the first close-up photographs of another 

planet.



The pictures, played back from Mariner 4's small tape recorder 

over a long period of time, showed impact craters like those on 

the Moon, some of them sprinkled with frost in the chill of a 

Martian evening.  After its encounter with Mars, Mariner 4 flew 

behind the planet from Earth, letting scientists use its deep-

space radio link as a probe to measure the density of the Martian 

atmosphere right down to the surface.



In 1969, Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 completed the first dual mission 

to Mars, flying by the equator and south polar regions and 

analyzing the atmosphere and surface with remote sensors, as well 

as recording and relaying hundreds of pictures.  By chance, both 

flew over cratered regions and missed both the giant northern 

volcanoes and the equatorial grand canyon.  Their approach 

pictures did, however, show the dark features long seen from 

Earth (and named "seas" and "bays"), but no canals.  Indeed, the 

three early Mars Mariners changed the perception of the planet 

from one that could possibly harbor life to a frozen, cratered, 

moon-like world--a perception that soon changed again.



The first spacecraft to orbit Mars was Mariner 9, launched in May 

1971.  Achieving orbit that November, Mariner 9 observed that a 

great dust storm had obscured the whole globe from view.  Since 

1969, Mariner spacecraft operations such as science sequencing 

and pointing had been programmable, using simple flight computers 

with limited memory, and the spacecraft used a digital tape-

recorder rather than film to store images and other science data.  

Two Soviet Mars orbiters, arriving right around the same time, 

were controlled by fixed clocks and recorded pictures on 

photographic film.  They helplessly shot all their pictures of 

dust clouds.



Mariner 9 was able to wait until the storm abated, the dust 

settled and the surface was clearly visible to compile its global 

mosaic of high-quality images of the Martian surface.  For the 

first time the giant shield volcanoes of the Tharsis region, the 

4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) grand canyon named for Mariner and 

many river-like channels became visible.  Mariner 9 also 

transmitted the first close-up photographs of Mars' two small, 

irregular moons, Phobos and Deimos.  A detailed Mars globe was 

created from more than 1,500 images of Mariner 9's 7,329 images.



The Viking Orbiters deepened the global view presented by Mariner 

9, especially in the case of full-color images or high- 

resolution studies of selected surface features.  The Viking 

landers sent back horizontal landscape panoramas from the landing 

gear to Mars' horizon during every season of the Martian year, as 

well as long-term climate records, surface chemical analyses, 

studies of physical properties and searches for Martian life at 

the two landing sites, Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia.



From orbit, Mars displayed a greater variety of terrains than was 

found on the Moon or Mercury and appeared to still be evolving 

and changing, with winds driving the erosion process and playing 

a powerful role in surface changes.  Many areas revealed the 

effects of flooding and volcanic activity that had occurred in 

Mars' distant past, at least 50 million years ago and, perhaps, 

more like several billion years ago.  Where the floodwaters came 

from and what happened to them remained a puzzle.  No liquid 

water and almost no atmospheric water were found; the deeply 

layered north polar cap, with dust and permanent ice layers under 

seasonal carbon-dioxide dry ice deposits, was almost the only 

Martian water observed.



The local weather at the landing sites was uniformly cold and 

dry.  Viking 1 measured high and low temperatures of between 

minus 30 degrees and minus 86 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees 

and minus 123 degrees Fahrenheit) the day after landing.  Winds 

reached 29 kilometers per hour (18 miles per hour) with gusts up 

to 52 kilometers per hour (32 miles per hour).  Soil analysis 

found almost 100 times as much sulfur present in the Martian 

terrain as was the case in either terrestrial or lunar soil, with 

iron and magnesium found in abundance among other expected 

chemical elements.  The biology and organic chemistry experiments 

discovered chemical activity in surface samples and some other 

surprising results.  But the mission uncovered no evidence of 

organic chemicals and or other clear evidence that life had ever 

existed at the Viking landing sites.



The next logical step in the exploration of Mars was a mission 

that could provide scientists with a global profile of the 

planet's surface and atmosphere over the course of a full Martian 

year, the equivalent of two Earth years.  Mars Observer was to 

take that next scientific step.  The spacecraft was launched on 

September 25, 1992, atop a Titan III launch vehicle and spent 11 

months cruising to Mars.  But after a 71l-million-kilometer (442- 

million-mile) journey, and just three days short of entering 

orbit around Mars, the spacecraft fell silent.  One black-and-

white approach picture of Mars had been taken before the 

spacecraft was lost, showing clear skies over the planet.



To recover from this loss, NASA quickly set in place a decade-

long program of Mars exploration that would fulfill the science 

objectives of the Mars Observer mission and take scientists much 

further along in their knowledge and studies of this planetary 

neighbor.  In 1996, NASA plans to launch two spacecraft to Mars:  

Mars Global Surveyor, a scaled down version of Mars Observer, and 

Mars Pathfinder, a lander and rover designed to demonstrate new 

ways of landing and exploring the surface.  Every two years after 

that, another pair of landers, orbiters or combinations of the 

two will be launched to Mars.   NASA's new 10-year-long program 

is called the Mars Surveyor program.



US AND USSR (*) MARS EXPLORATION MISSIONS LAUNCHED



Title, Launch Date, Mission, Description (LOS - Loss of Signal)



*Mars 1, 11/1/62, Mars probe, LOS at 65.9 million miles Mariner 

3, 11/5/64, Mars probe, shroud failed.

Mariner 4, 11/28/64, Mars flyby 7/14/65 w/photos, LOS 12/20/67.  

*Zond 2, 11/30/64, Mars probe, failed to return planetary data.  

Mariner 6, 2/24/69, Mars flyby 7/31/69 w/photos, lasted to 12/70.  

Mariner 7, 3/27/69, Mars flyby 8/5/69 w/photos, lasted to 12/70.  

Mariner 8, 5/8/71, Mars orbiter; launch vehicle malfunctioned 

shortly after

liftoff.

*Mars 2, 5/19/71, Mars orbiter/lander arrived 11/27/71, no useful 

data returned.  

*Mars 3, 5/28/71, Mars orbiter/lander, arrived 12/3/71, data & 

few photos.

Mariner 9, 5/30/71, Mars orbiter, operated in orbit 11/13/71 to 

10/27/72.  

*Mars 4, 7/21/73, failed Mars orbiter, flyby 2/10/74.

*Mars 5, 7/25/73, Mars orbiter, arrived 2/12/74, few days.

*Mars 6, 8/5/73, Mars orbiter/lander, arrived 3/12/74, little 

data return.

*Mars 7, 8/9/73, Mars orbiter/lander, arrived 3/9/74, little data 

return.

Viking 1, 8/20/75, Mars orbiter/lander, orbited 6/19/76-1980, 

landed

7/20/76-1982.

Viking 2, 9/9/75, Mars orbiter/lander, orbit 8/7/76-1987, landed 

9/3/76-1980.

*Phobos 1, 7/7/88, Mars/Phobos orbiter/lander, LOS 8/89 en route 

to Mars.

*Phobos 2, 7/12/88, Mars/Phobos orbiter/lander, LOS 3/89 near 

Phobos.  

Mars Observer, 10/25/92, LOS at Mars arrival 8/21/93.



Sources: TRW Space Log, On Mars (NASA SP-4212).

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4)	MARINER 4 ANNIVERSARY MARKS 30 YEARS OF MARS EXPLORATION

NASA press release



Three decades after Mariner 4's flyby of Mars on July 14, 1965--

the first spacecraft ever to reach the planet and take close-up 

photographs of the Martian surface--NASA is preparing a whole new 

decade of Mars missions that will rely on revolutionary new 

technologies and smaller, cheaper, faster spacecraft to continue 

robotic exploration of the Red Planet.



Kicking off this new decade of discovery are two missions 

scheduled for launch in the fall of 1996: Mars Global Surveyor, 

an orbiter to map the surface and atmosphere of the planet; and 

Mars Pathfinder, a Discovery program mission designed to deliver 

a lander, camera and instrumented rover to the Martian surface on 

July 4, 1997.



As NASA prepares for these missions, the community is also 

celebrating the roots of Mars exploration, which reach back 30 

years to one tense day in the summer of 1965 at the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.



It was on July 14, 1965, that scientists and engineers waited 

anxiously for radio signals from NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft, 

near Mars, to tell them that the spacecraft was successfully 

photographing the Red Planet close up for the very first time.  

With a round-trip communication time of 24 minutes, they could 

not remotely control the spacecraft.  Mariner 4 was following a 

primitive onboard computer program and a sequence that engineers 

had started earlier that morning.



The signal arrived at the communication site at Goldstone, 

Calif., right on schedule at 5:30 p.m.  Pacific Time.  After 26 

minutes of television recording, slightly more than 21 pictures 

filled the recording tape.  The camera was switched off and 

Mariner's other instruments came on again to monitor the space 

environment around Mars.  A few minutes later, the spacecraft 

flew within 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) of Mars, 

then continued on its course to become one more object orbiting 

the Sun.



Mariner 4's flight past Mars was just the second successful 

interplanetary mission in history for the U.S.  space program, 

preceded by Mariner 2's flight to Venus in 1962.  The Mariner 4 

mission had been developed, built and tested at the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory in just two years time.



The Mariner team had to be ready for launch in November 1964 in 

order to reach Mars in July 1965, and the spacecraft could only 

weigh about 260 kilograms (575 pounds) in order to achieve the 

velocity needed to get to Mars.



With very little experience in interplanetary space travel, 

engineers did not have much of an idea about the space 

environment that Mariner 4 would encounter during its eight-month 

trip to Mars.  The ability of the spacecraft and its parts to 

survive eight months in space was an open question--one that only 

the mission itself would answer.  The sheer distance alone--

nearly three times the range of the first interplanetary flight--

challenged the telecommunication system.  Even the precise 

location of Mars and the lighting conditions on its surface were 

unclear.



Mariner 4's sister ship, Mariner 3, was launched three weeks 

earlier, but was doomed when the launch rocket's nose fairing 

failed to jettison properly.  This trapped the spacecraft and 

forced NASA, JPL and the contractor for the upper-stage rocket, 

Lockheed Corp., into a race to design and build a new fairing in 

time to launch the second spacecraft while the Earth and Mars 

were still in proper alignment with each other.



They won the race.  Mariner 4 lifted off Earth on an Atlas/Agena 

rocket on November 27, 1964.  After about a week of radio 

tracking on the way to Mars, the spacecraft was commanded to 

perform a rocket-thrust maneuver, refining its course toward 

Mars.  Then it coasted the rest of the way.



Throughout its flight the spacecraft kept its four solar panels 

oriented toward the Sun to generate electric power to run its 

equipment and keep the battery charged.  It kept up a constant 

two-way communication link with the Earth, providing for radar-

based navigation and the receipt of commands from the ground, as 

well as sending science data to six teams of scientists and 

engineering health and performance measurements to engineers.



Between February and June 1965, Mariner 4 detected the effects of 

five separate solar flares, significant increases in the solar 

wind and its spiral flow of charged particles from the Sun.  

These events showed up in the magnetometer, several charged- 

particle sensors and the cosmic-ray telescope.  During the flight 

to Mars, the cosmic dust detector indicated an irregular increase 

in the number of micrometeorites, counting a total of about 200 

particles.



Seven and a half months after launch the spacecraft approached 

Mars.  On command it switched from "cruise science," carried out 

during the flight, to "encounter science," the observations of 

Mars.  Another command aimed the camera and seven hours later a 

Mars detector started the camera shutter clicking.  After 

recording its pictures, the spacecraft passed behind Mars and its 

radio signal faded into silence for nearly an hour.  Scientists 

measuring the fadeout and return of the radio signal were able to 

measure the ionosphere and atmospheric density of Mars, similar 

to the way astronomers measure planetary atmospheres through the 

fading of starlight.



The next day, Mariner 4 began more than a week of playback of the 

recorded pictures of Mars.  Very slowly the cratered, cold, 

hostile new world crept into view.  Interpreting the dim gray of 

the Martian images was made far easier by a new photographic 

tool: the computer.



Taken for granted today, digital imaging and image processing 

were the state of the art in the early 1960's.  In fact, 

scientists developed image processing to help solve the 

anticipated difficulties in reproducing pictures of Mars taken by 

spacecraft, though the technique was first tested on spacecraft 

pictures of the Moon.  Removing "noise" on the image from 

spacecraft circuits and the space environment, and smoothly 

improving the contrast of the dim Martian scenes were just the 

beginning of an art that now pervades medical, forensic, 

scientific and commercial images.



Looking at the densely packed craters in the image of the small 

swatch of the Martian plains, the Mariner scientists could hardly 

believe that almost no Earth-based astronomers had predicted that 

Mars might resemble Earth's Moon.  But the impact craters were 

the dominant features of the scenery.  Small craters lay on the 

rims of large ones and scientists judged that the topography was 

very old and little changed in contrast to Earth.



No mountains, valleys, ocean basins or canals were visible.  The 

first picture revealed the edge or limb of the planet.  Image 

processing brought out an atmospheric haze above the horizon.  

The last few pictures were dark, showing the night side of Mars, 

but just before the edge of night, what appeared to be frost 

glistened on crater rims.



The Mariner 4 atmospheric team estimated the Martian surface 

pressure to be 4 millibars to 7 millibars, compared to about 

1,000 millibars on Earth.  That made the air on Mars about 150 to 

200 times thinner than on Earth.  They concluded that it was 

mostly carbon dioxide.  Other instruments searched in vain for 

indications of an Earth-like magnetic field or radiation belts.



After the Mars encounter and playback were finished, the 

spacecraft resumed its observations of the interplanetary 

environment.  However, Mariner 4 and Earth soon moved in their 

orbits so that telemetry could no longer be detected.  In 1967 

the spacecraft returned to the vicinity of Earth, approaching as 

close as 29 million miles, and sent back data from a few months 

of solar wind and solar flare measurements.  On December 20, 

1967, after three years in flight, Mariner 4 finally ran out of 

the propellant used to turn and orient it, thereby ending the 

first mission to Mars in U.S. space exploration history.

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5)	NASA NAMES FIRST ROVER TO EXPLORE THE SURFACE OF MARS

NASA press release



On the 30th anniversary of Mars exploration, NASA has selected 

the name "Sojourner" for the first rover to explore the planet.  

The 11.5-kilogram (25-pound), six-wheeled robotic explorer is now 

being readied for launch, and will roam across an ancient Martian 

flood plain after its companion lander, Mars Pathfinder, touches 

down on the surface on July 4, 1997.



The U.S.  spacecraft Mariner 4 ushered in the beginnings of 

humanity's detailed exploration of the Red Planet 30 years ago 

today when it flew by Mars at a distance of about 10,000 

kilometers (6,000 miles) on July 14, 1965, taking the first 

close-up images of another planet.



The name Sojourner was chosen for the Mars Pathfinder rover after 

a year-long, worldwide competition in which students up to 18 

years old were invited to select a heroine and submit an essay 

about her historical accomplishments.  The students were asked to 

address in their essays how a rover named for their heroine would 

translate these accomplishments to the Martian environment.



Initiated in March 1994 by The Planetary Society of Pasadena, 

Calif., in cooperation with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the 

contest got under way with an announcement in the January 1995 

issue of the National Science Teachers Association's magazine 

"Science and Children," which is circulated to 20,000 teachers 

and schools across the nation.



Valerie Ambroise, 12, of Bridgeport, Conn., submitted the winning 

essay about Sojourner Truth, an African-American reformist who 

lived during the tumultuous era of the U.S.  Civil War.  An 

abolitionist and champion of women's rights, Sojourner Truth, 

whose legal name was Isabella Van Wagener, made it her mission to 

"travel up and down the land," advocating the rights of all 

people to be free and the rights of women to participate fully in 

society.  The name Sojourner was selected because it means 

"traveler."



JPL scientists and engineers working on the Mars Pathfinder 

project and Planetary Society staff members reviewed the 3,500 

total entries received from all over the world, including essays 

from students living in Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, 

Poland and Russia.  Nearly 1,700 of the essays were submitted by 

students aged 5 to 18 years old and met all of the qualifying 

criteria.



The selection of winners from this group by representatives of 

JPL and NASA Headquarters was based on several factors: the 

quality and creativity of the essay, taking into consideration 

the age of each contestant; the appropriateness of the name for a 

Mars rover; and the knowledge and understanding of the Pathfinder 

rover's mission conveyed in each essay.



The second place prize winner was Deepti Rohatgi, 18, of 

Rockville, Md., who proposed naming the rover after Marie Curie, 

a Polish-born chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1911 for her 

discovery of the elements radium and polonium.  The third place 

prize goes to Adam Sheedy, 16, of Round Rock, Texas, who chose 

the late astronaut Judith Resnik as his namesake for the new 

rover.



Other popular names included Sacajewea, who explored North 

America with Lewis and Clark; Amelia Earhart, one of the first 

female aviators; Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom; Harriet 

Tubman, a 19th-century African-American writer and political 

reformist; Greek goddesses Minerva and Atalanta; and Thumbelina, 

the tiny fairy tale character created by Hans Christian Andersen.



The Mars Pathfinder lander and rover will be launched in December 

1996 aboard a Delta rocket and then will spend seven months 

cruising to Mars.  The mission will demonstrate a new, low- cost 

way of entering a planetary atmosphere and landing through a 

combination of parachutes, rockets and shock-absorbing airbags 

designed to slow the spacecraft's descent and place it safely on 

the surface.  Once Pathfinder lands and opens its exterior 

petals, the solar-powered rover will be sent off to explore the 

chemistry of rocks in the area and other features of the planet's 

rocky surface.



Mars Pathfinder is part of NASA's Discovery program, a new 

generation of low-cost spacecraft designed to explore the solar 

system.  The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

for NASA's Office of Space Science and Office of Space Access and 

Technology, Washington, D.C.

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6)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FAQ INQUIRIES WANTED



On 4 November 1996 at 1:37 p.m.  EST, the United States will 

begin its return to Mars as NASA launches the Mars Global 

Surveyor space-craft on the start of a five year mission.  MGS 

will attempt the most comprehensive study of the red planet ever 

attempted in history.



A high resolution camera on-board will take extremely high 

resolution photographs of surface features, a laser altimeter 

will determine the global topography, a thermal emission 

spectrometer will measure the thermal properties of the surface 

as well as determine the composition of surface minerals and 

rocks, and a magnetometer will attempt to establish the nature of 

the magnetic field.  Other experiments will keep track of Martian 

weather patterns and atmospheric properties.



By studying Mars, the most likely planet for future human 

expeditions, scientists hope to better understand the formation 

and evolution of Earth and the inner solar system.



Currently, the MGS project is in the process of updating its Home 

Page on the World Wide Web.  We are in the process of compiling a 

list of answers to the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) 

regarding our mission, Mars exploration, and Mars science.



If you are interested in helping us out, please send questions 

about Mars or Mars exploration that you would most like to see 

answered.  Ideal questions should be worded in a few sentences or 

less.



Please e-mail your questions to: mars-faq@cranberry.jpl.nasa.gov



If you prefer, you may send your questions via U.S.  Mail to:



Wayne Lee

Mars Global Surveyor Project

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mail Stop 301-180

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109-8099



Unfortunately, personal responses will probably not be possible 

at this time.  However, we promise to post the FAQ list (along 

with the answers) to various news groups if the home page is not 

yet completed.



Thank you for your support of planetary exploration!



Mars Global Surveyor Project

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

United States of America



http://mgs-www.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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7)	ELECTRONIC JOURNAL CONFERENCE

Zsolt and Csaba Orczan



We invite owners, journalists, moderators, editors and publishers 

to Budapest, Hungary on November 9-11, 1995.



Topics:  electronic journal, newsletter writing, editing and 

publishing, public relations in the e-journal, gopher and www.



Call for papers:

Papers are invited on all subjects mentioned.  Please submit 

ASCII text and image (uuencode) [written in English] 5000 words 

containing 65 character/line and a brief abstract (at max. 5 

lines long).



Send papers to:

MET@huearn.sztaki.hu

subject: papers



Lecture Authors will be notified about the acceptance of papers 

by August 20, 1995.  The conference proceedings are intended to 

be published on floppy disc.



Conference language:  English (translation into Hungarian)



PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Csaba S. Orczan [chair]

Zsolt Orczan Dr. [co-chair) orczanz@mars.iif.hu



SOCIAL PROGRAMME

Welcome Cocktail	November 9, 1995

Excursion , Theatre, Opera...



CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

To participate in the conference please fill in and e-mail the 

attached Registration Form to the met@huearn.sztaki.hu at your 

earliest convenience.  Please note that for early registration a 

reduced fee is applicable.  You will receive the confirmation of 

your participation and the detailed program in due time.



Early Registration until August 20, 1995 FEES

before August 20,	after

$299 US		$350 US



Accompanying persons are welcome and may attend the welcome 

cocktail, the conference reception and the lunches on the 

conference days at a fee of $120 US.



PAYMENT

Participants are kindly requested to transfer the fees to the 

following:

MoneyGram to AMERICAN EXPRESS BUDAPEST HUNGARY-1052, ORCZAN Zsolt

or POSTA BANK Budapest H-1920 account number: 131-121844 ORCZAN 

Zsolt



Please note that in case of cancellation only a 50 % of the paid 

fee will be refunded.



CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT

MET Budapest Pf.311 Hungary H-1536

e-mail: met@huearn.sztaki.hu



........................cut here................................  

REGISTRATION FORM



Family Name:...	...  male/female

First Name(s):...

Address:...

e-mail:...

Telephone:...

I intend to submit a paper ...  yes/no

Title /area of paper:...

Technical equipment required:...



I pay the fee MoneyGram ...  yes/no or Bank account ...yes/no 

transaction date:...  and number......



I register ...  accompanying persons.

Please send me information about available accommodations ...  

yes/no

I need a hotel room ...  single/double

luxus...five star(*****)...four star (****)...three star (***)... 

yes/no

Date from ......  to ......



Please inform me about Excursion, Theatre, or Opera...  yes/no



.......................cut here..................................



ABOUT BUDAPEST



In 1835, an English peer by the name of John Paget got his first 

look of Buda and Pest from the crest of Gellert Hill.  Of what he 

saw there he wrote as follows: "Buda with its blue chain of 

hills, Pest with its yellow plain, and the majestic Danube with 

its green isles were all sprawled out at our feet...  and we sat 

for some time, enthralled by all that beauty...  One hundred and 

fifty years have passed since the ousting of the Turk, and in 

this space of time, the city has risen from squalid ruins to 

become one of the great cities of Europe.  Pest owes its progress 

not to the good will of a benevolent ruler, but to its natural 

endowments and the energy of its people...  It lies on the banks 

of a river that traverses half of Europe, and may expand 

unbounded in every direction.  All this leads one to anticipate a 

splendid future for Pest-Buda."



It is interesting to compare Paget's description with the 

observation made by the geographer Kohl from Bremen just seven 

years later.  The order-loving German appraised the city with 

satisfaction: "Pest was conceived in an orderly manner, the city 

plan was elaborated with proper circumspection.  The main 

thoroughfares leading in every direction from the centre of the 

town are broad and straight." The haphazardness of Buda, however, 

was less to his liking.  "There is no sign of planning.  The 

streets are neither centralized nor straight; consequently, the 

town has no core, and in its network of streets, one will find 

nothing that resembles order.  The reason for this is the 

unfavorable soil and the fact that the roads are cut off by 

hills, preventing the population from building their houses in a 

rational manner."



Whether we think of the past or the present, the description is 

faithful.  Whether to its advantage or otherwise, Pest is 

comparable to other big cities lying on the plain.  But Buda is 

unique, like Stockholm, Istanbul, or Rio, and this is due 

precisely to its "disorderliness".  Pest may expand without 

constraint, but Buda is bound by the surrounding hill country.  

In the course of its development, Pest has smothered and devoured 

its environment, as most big cities do.  But even today, Buda is 

inseparable from it, despite the fact that the "peaceful 

coexistence" between man and nature is being increasingly 

threatened.  More and more houses are appearing on the formerly 

sparsely populated hillsides, and the tentacles of urbanization 

feel their way not only upward: they bore their way into the 

remotest hollows of the valleys.  Small plots of land are being 

congested by large houses, and even sometimes entire 

neighborhoods; the gardens are shrinking, the woods receding into 

the distance.  New roads are being built, public utilities, 

service accommodations established.



Nevertheless, Buda continued to be characterized not so much by 

its wreath of hills as by the fragmentedness of its inner area.  

It has no rational geometrical scheme.  The inner city hills--

Rozsadomb, Naphegy, Varhegy (Castle Hill), Gellerthegy and 

Sashegy--which boast perhaps the world's only big city nature 

conservation area, divide the body of the town into sections, 

thus giving the whole a diversified, exciting aspect.  The old 

sixteenth-century Italian saying according to which the world has 

three gems: Venice on the water, Florence on the plain, and Buda 

on the hill, in all probability still holds true, and so does the 

ironic saying of Hungarian architects, according to which the 

natural endowments of Buda are so beautiful that even they, the 

architects can't wipe them out completely.



Please reply as soon as possible!

Yours sincerely,

Dr.  ORCZAN, Zsolt & ORCZAN Csaba



MET Publisher: ORCZAN, Zsolt e-mail.:orczanz@mars.iif.hu

MET Chief editor: ORCZAN, Csaba e-mail: orczanc@mars.iif.hu

MET BUDAPEST PoBox.  311.  HUNGARY, H-1536  MET@HUEARN

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8)	THE INTERSTELLAR PROPULSION SOCIETY

Society Announcement



The mission of the Interstellar Propulsion Society is to 

accelerate scientific and engineering advancements in space 

propulsion, leading to manned missions to other star systems at 

fractional light speeds, relativistic velocities and beyond. The 

Society's main function is to provide a medium for scientists and 

engineers, worldwide, to join in collaborative efforts to advance 

interstellar propulsion technology.



While at first impression the Society may appear to be highly 

focused in a problem of broad dimensions, it is a fact of history 

that major advancements travel have been preceded by the 

invention and development of power plants and propulsion devices. 

If the same holds true for interstellar travel, the invention of 

a practical space drive will shortly be followed by the first 

robotic probe to a distant star system.



The major areas of emphasis for fulfilling the mission of the 

Society will be:



A)	Digital Library

An advanced digital library, accessible through World Wide Web 

Mosaic-style browsers, that will consolidate worldwide knowledge 

in interstellar propulsion. This "library of the future" will be 

capable of indexing and retrieving millions of documents stored 

in formats such as Postscript, Frame, Word Perfect, LATEX, Tex, 

and others. The library will offer search tools including 

Boolean, Fuzzy Boolean, Similarity Search, Quorum operator and 

technical thesauri.



B)	Member Directory

A worldwide directory of research members searchable by name, 

specialty, and

research interests.



C)	IPS Newsgroup

A private newsgroup patterned after the successful USENET News 

with

extensions for scientific and engineering articles.



D)	Collaborative Research Tools

A private FTP site containing analysis, simulation, computational 

physics, visualization, and communications software for use by 

Society Professional Members.



E)	Interstellar Propulsion Journal

A professional research journal which will publish research 

papers which

have been submitted for peer review.



F)	Quarterly IPS Newsletter

A brief newsletter summarizing recent Society developments and 

upcoming

events.



G)	IPS Calendar

A inter-society calendar of upcoming research conferences, 

meetings and

workshops.



H)	IPS Research Conferences

The Society will eventually sponsor research conferences on 

different topics in Interstellar Propulsion which will be held in 

different locations around the world.



I)	IPS Research Grants

The Society will eventually sponsor research to address specific 

problems and funding teaching/research chairs at selected 

universities and research institutes to a build stronger 

participating scientific and engineering base than presently 

exists.



J)	Public Relations

The Society will provide advocacy for advanced research in 

interstellar space propulsion and its beneficial impact on the 

course of human progress.



Advisor Roles:



a) Provide advice and ideas relative to Society operation, 

including identifying promising research objectives, identifying 

sources of funding to be explored, recommending high payoff areas 

for funding by the Society, and recommending improvements in the 

IPS worldwide information retrieval and collaborative research 

infrastructure.



b) Provide peer review and assist in the selection of papers to 

be published in the Journal of the Interstellar Propulsion 

Society.



c) Assist in the collection and review of material for inclusion 

in the Society digital library.



d) Assist in planning and conducting meetings convened expressly 

for presenting papers, conducting workshops and discussions 

relative to Society long term goals, recent progress, and near 

term challenges.



e) Assist in evaluation of proposals for research grants.



=================================================================



IPS MEMBERSHIP FORM



INTERSTELLAR PROPULSION SOCIETY



Professional Membership Application



Mail with $25.00 fee to the

Interstellar Propulsion Society

P.O. Box 1292

La Jolla, CA 92038-1292



==============================================================



NAME AND ADDRESS AS IT SHOULD APPEAR ON ALL MAILINGS





-----------------------------------------------------------------

first name			middle name			last name





----------------------------------------------------------------- 

street address





-----------------------------------------------------------------

city			state/province		postal/zip code	country





-----------------------------------------------------------------

telephone number		fax number		email address





=================================================================





BUSINESS/PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION





-----------------------------------------------------------------

occupation



-----------------------------------------------------------------

title or position





-----------------------------------------------------------------

firm/institution address





-----------------------------------------------------------------

city			state/province		postal/zip code	country





=================================================================



SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND



Summarize in 200 words or less the specialized skills that you 

offer to the IPS objective. This material will be entered into 

the Society Professional On-Line Directory.

-----------------------------------------------------------------



9)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR-THERMAL EMISSIONS SPECTROPHOTOMETER T-

SHIRTS AVAILABLE

(Communicated by Dr. Ken Edgett)



"The Arizona Mars K-12 Education Programme now has a collector's 

edition T-shirt available. The back of this unique 6-color Mars 

Global Surveyor T-shirt portrays school kids on Earth wearing 

spacesuits and looking skyward at Mars and the MGS spacecraft. 

The front page of the shirt has the following inscribed:

"Mars Global Surveyor TES K-12 Education, Arizona State 

University."



This is non-profit and further details may be obtained from:



Arizona Mars K-12 Education Programme,

c/o Ken Edgett,

Department of Geology,

Arizona State University,

Box 871404,

T#004#empe, AZ 85287-1404, U.S.A.



E-mail: edgett@esther.la.asu.edu

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End Marsbugs Vol. 2, No. 10







