MARSBUGS:  
The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter
Volume 4, Number 3, 4 February, 1997.

Editors:

David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of 
Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu.

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 of this 
compilation exists with the 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.  Back issues may be 
obtained via anonymous FTP at:  ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs.

The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of 
information for scientists, educators and other persons 
interested in exobiology and related fields.  This newsletter is 
not intended to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement 
them.  We, the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which 
people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions 
about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events.  
Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may 
come out of the most unexpected places.  Subjects may include,  
but are not limited to:  exobiology proper (life on other  
planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), 
ecopoeisis/ terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, 
primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support  
systems, and human habitation of space and other planets.
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INDEX

1)	LIVE FROM MARS UPDATE #18 

2)	SAGAN PLAYED KEY ROLES IN JPL MISSIONS, FRIENDS RECALL
	From the JPL Universe
3)	THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES SURROUNDING SPACE EXPLORATION AND 
DEVELOPMENT
	Colloquium announcement

4)	MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
	JPL release

5)	FUTURE LIFE ON MARS
	NSS lecture announcement


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LIVE FROM MARS UPDATE #18 

January 23, 1997

PART 1:  Upcoming WebChat
PART 2:  Mars Expert to Appear on Kids' TV Show
PART 3:  Next LFM Broadcast
PART 4:  Student Stumpers
PART 5:  Help From Other Teachers
PART 6:  Meeting LFM Teachers & Staff
PART 7:  Mars Global Surveyor Flight Status


Upcoming WebChat

***Tuesday, January 28, 9 a.m., PST***

Next week's Live From Mars chat will feature Anita Dodson, a 
graphics communicator (also known as a graphic artist or graphic 
designer).  Anita figures out the best way to put words, images 
and colors together so that it grabs your attention and sends a 
specific message.  She does this by designing and producing 
brochures, flyers, mission decals, posters, presentations, 
exhibits, articles and even pages on the World Wide Web.  She 
especially enjoys being creative and trying new things.

Weekly WebChats offer an opportunity for your students to 
virtually meet the people on the front lines of the Mars 
exploration adventure.  This includes the entire spectrum of 
people that it takes to make the Mars team work-- from 
scientists, engineers and programmers to data librarians, 
photographers and graphics communicators.  Teachers have reported 
that the chats really enliven students' enthusiasm.

To best prepare, please have your students read Anita's biography 
before the WebChat:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/team/dodson.html

To join in the fun, point your Web browser to
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/events/interact.html to follow the 
links to the moderated chat room for experts.  If you plan to in 
this event, please RSVP to Andrea by sending a brief e-mail note 
to andream@quest.arc.nasa.gov telling her that you plan to join 
the session.  This RSVP is very important, as it will allow us to 
ensure that the chat room does not become overly crowded.


Mars expert to appear on CBS kids' show

LFM expert and WebChat guest Mary Urquhart will appear on a 
nationally broadcast CBS television show called "News for Kids" 
on Saturday morning February 1.  Teachers, be sure to tape this 
segment for your students! Many of your kids "talked" with Mary 
during her January 15 WebChat.  Mary is also featured on "The 
Team" page of the LFM Web site at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/team/urquhart.html


Next LFM broadcast

NASA-TV plans to broadcast the next Live From Mars broadcast, 
"Cruising Between the Planets," on April 24 from 1-2 p.m., EST.  
If you depend on your local PBS station you should check your 
local listings or call your local station for coverage 
information.


Student Stumpers:  Kid-Centered Challenge Questions 
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/kids/stumpers.html

Here is an easy activity that you could do with your students 
tomorrow!

You may remember Challenge Questions, the series of puzzles we 
asked in the fall.  They'll be back in March, before our live TV 
program.  But for now, a great series of student-centered 
questions has risen to the top.

Student Stumpers challenge kids to make riddles for other kids to 
solve.  Whether students create a question or e-mail the author 
with a proposed answer, Student Stumpers can be a terrific way 
for students to meet like-minded kids all over the world.  This 
activity includes safe e-mail tips for students and teachers.

Real examples include Taylor, who queries:  > Can Mars be viewed 
from Earth with the naked eye?

> When is the best time to look for it?

Or Thabet from Egypt, who asks a really hard one:
> Within a couple of million of years, Mars the Red Planet might 
have another name, maybe the 5th ringed planet in the Solar 
System or the "asteroid-like" planet.  Why will it be called 
these uncommon names?

Please consider involving your students in the Student Stumper 
festival happening now.


Help from other teachers
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/news/mentors.html

A favorite part of Live From Mars is meeting the wonderful 
teachers who are doing this project.  Many people who are 
currently active in LFM have done similar projects here before.  
They know the ropes and have learned how to make these projects 
work in real classrooms.  So if you are a bit confused or feeling 
alone or struggling to make LFM work, please consider our Live 
From Mars mentors.  Their friendly experience can help you over 
the hump.

As well, we welcome additional LFM mentor volunteers.

Please visit the LFM mentors' page for more details.


Other ways to meet teachers & LFM staff

Live From Mars is special because of the connections that form 
between people.  Not only connections between students and NASA 
experts, but bonds between teachers and LFM staff.  If you are 
not a part of these conversations, you may be missing something 
of great value.  Not only can other teachers help you figure out 
things, they can be a sounding board for your brainstorms.  As 
well, the LFM team is easily influenced.  Your ideas may sway the 
entire direction of the project (as past history demonstrates).

There are two different ways to participate:  chats and discuss-
lfm.

Every week, two, hourly chats are scheduled.  Each Thursday at 
either noon or 3:00 p.m., Pacific (schedule alternates), folks 
gather in the chat room for an hour.  Also, each Wednesday at 
11:00 a.m.  Pacific, a special home-school forum is hosted by 
master home schooler Gayle Remisch, from London, Ontario, Canada.  
For more info, see the WebChat section of
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/events/interact.html

In addition, discuss-lfm offers teachers an opportunity to send 
more composed messages.  Last month, LFM people contributed over 
120 gems in the vigorous discussion.  Many people channel this 
information directly to their mailboxes.  If 200+ messages are 
too many for you, an option exists for a digest.  The digest 
sends just one daily message with all of the day's traffic 
gathered together.  To participate, send an e-mail message to:
listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
In the message body, choose one of the lines below to send:  
subscribe discuss-lfm
subscribe discuss-digest-lfm

If you prefer, you may also take part in the discuss-lfm group 
via the Web.  In that case, point your browser to:  
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/discuss-lfm-lwgate.html

Please do consider joining us.  You may learn a bit and make some 
new friends.


[LFM Editor's note:  This status report on the Mars Global 
Surveyor mission was prepared by the Office of the Flight 
Operations Manager, Mars Surveyor Operations, Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory.]

Mars global surveyor flight status report
Friday, 17 January 1997

On Monday of this week, Surveyor's flight team activated the Mars 
Orbiter Camera in preparation for four days of star imaging.  
Once per afternoon from Tuesday through Friday, the spacecraft 
turned to point the camera at a cluster of stars called the 
Pleiades.  Over the course of one hour on each imaging day, the 
camera observed stars within the cluster in order to perform 
focus checks.

Communications with the spacecraft during star imaging was not 
possible because the star-pointed orientation resulted in 
pointing the high-gain antenna away from the Earth.  
Consequently, all of the data from the camera were stored on 
Surveyor's solid-state recorders.  These data were transmitted 
back to Earth approximately three hours after the conclusion of 
each day's imaging.  The daily playback of camera data required 
49 minutes.  During that time, Surveyor transmitted 250 megabits 
of data at a downlink rate of 85,333 bits per second.

Next week, the onboard flight computer will activate heaters in 
the camera that will bake the epoxy structure of the camera to 
remove residual moisture.  A set of four more star images will be 
taken after the bakeout period ends in late March.  The star 
images taken this week will serve as a reference to assess the 
focusing capability of the camera after the bakeout.

Other activities this week included a two-hour radio-science 
calibration that occurred late in the evening on Wednesday.  This 
test involved using the spacecraft's ultra-stable oscillator to 
control the frequency or "tone" of Surveyor's radio transmissions 
to the Earth.  Normally, the spacecraft listens to a signal 
transmitted from the Earth as a reference to set the tone of the 
signal transmitted to Earth.  The oscillator functions as an 
electronic clock that can precisely control the tone of 
Surveyor's signal without listening to the Earth- based reference 
signal.

Future tests of the oscillator will occur approximately every 
other week until the spacecraft reaches Mars.  These tests are 
important because a stable radio signal as controlled by the 
oscillator will be critical toward the collection of scientific 
data at Mars.

After a mission elapsed time of 71 days from launch, Surveyor is 
16.05 million kilometers from the Earth, 136.00 million 
kilometers from Mars, and is moving in an orbit around the Sun 
with a velocity of 30.85 kilometers per second.  This orbit will 
intercept Mars on September 12, 1997.  All systems on the 
spacecraft continue to be in excellent condition.


If this is your first message from the updates-lfm list, welcome!

To catch up on back issues, please visit the following Internet 
URL:  http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/updates

To subscribe to the updates-lfm mailing list (where this message 
came from), send a message to:
listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
In the message body, write these words:
subscribe updates-lfm

Conversely...

To remove your name from the updates-lfm mailing list, send a 
message to:
listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
In the message body, write these words:
unsubscribe updates-lfm

If you have Web access, please visit our "continuous 
construction" site at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars
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SAGAN PLAYED KEY ROLES IN JPL MISSIONS, FRIENDS RECALL
From the JPL Universe

Dr. Carl Sagan and his long history of contributions to space 
missions conducted by JPL were remembered by his scientific 
colleagues following his death December 20.  Sagan had key roles 
in shaping the course of exploration of the planets with robotic 
spacecraft since the 1960s to the present.  At the time of his 
death, he was an interdisciplinary scientist on JPL's Galileo 
mission to Jupiter.

JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone, who also served as project 
scientist on the Voyager mission, commented,	"The world's science 
community, and the field of planetary exploration in particular, 
have lost one of its most gifted minds and eloquent voices in the 
passing of Dr. Carl Sagan.  As a team member on various planetary 
missions, Carl repeatedly demonstrated a special capability to 
understand the significance of a finding and place it in context.  
His contributions to the Voyager program, over some 20 years, 
were significant in making it the very successful exploration of 
the outer planets that it was.  I personally shall miss his wise 
counsel.

"The entire JPL staff joins me in mourning his loss and extending 
our deepest sympathies to the Sagan family."

Dr. Torrence Johnson, Galileo Project Scientist, who also worked 
with Sagan as a fellow member of the science team on the Voyager 
missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, recalled, "Carl 
was one of the greatest intellects behind the genesis of space 
exploration generally and specifically the Galileo mission.  He 
was part of the original group that got together to promote the 
mission to NASA and he served as an interdisciplinary scientists 
on the mission team from the beginning.  He was a great human 
being who shared with everyone his excitement about the 
exploration of the universe."

Galileo Project Manager Bill O'Neil expressed the team's grief at 
Sagan's passing, "The Galileo mission team is heartbroken with 
the loss of Carl Sagan.  Carl was one of our most esteemed 
interdisciplinary scientists on the Galileo Project Science 
Group.  But more than that, Carl was a wonderful colleague and 
dear friend to us all.  Carl is very well known for his 
tremendous success in engaging the public in space exploration.  
Not so well known is that Carl was extremely effective in helping 
save Galileo from the budget ax many times in the early years of 
the project.  We are greatly indebted to Carl for his support and 
inspiration through the years."

Dr. Carolyn Porco of the University of Arizona heads the imaging 
team for JPL's Cassini mission to Saturn.  She attributes much of 
her success in science to early mentoring she received from 
Sagan, "Of all the people I have met in the course of my 
scientific career, no one was more gracious, understanding, 
respectful and encouraging towards me than Carl.  From my very 
first professional presentation at the age of 21, to my current 
position as the Cassini imaging team leader, Carl was there, 
always, with a kind, gentle word of support.  I believe that he 
cared for people, genuinely, in that special way that 
distinguishes great humanitarian leaders.  And I believe that 
underlying his life's work was a bedrock faith in the fragile 
dignity and goodness of all humankind.

"His passing is a heartbreaking loss-for his family, for the 
community of scientists that he walked among, and for the world.  
We who remain on Earth have lost our guardian angel.  He is part 
of the cosmos now."
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES SURROUNDING SPACE EXPLORATION AND 
DEVELOPMENT
Colloquium announcement

New York University's Environmental Law Journal is sponsoring a
colloqium on Friday, February 21 entitled "The Environmental 
Issue Surrounding Space Exploration and Development." It will be 
held at NYU School of Law, located at 40 Washington Square South, 
NYC, beginning at 9:00 am and ending at 6:00 pm.  Students and 
faculty with valid ID will be admitted free.

Three panels will be held:  "Space Debris and Other Objects
Cluttering Space" at 10:30 am; "Satellites:  An Environmental 
Tool" at 1:30 pm; and "Allocation of Space Resources and the 
Environment" at 3:30 pm.  The colloquium will provide a forum for 
discussion of the environmental law and policy questions created 
by human activity in outer space.  For more information, please 
contact Jessica Cooper at (212) 998-6560 or at the e-mail address 
listed above.
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MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS
JPL release

31 January 1997

The spacecraft continues to be in excellent health, and is now 
about 16 million km from Earth.  Key activities completed this 
week include successful completion of the K=15, R=1/6 
convolutional code tests and resolution of the attitude control 
software glitch detected last week.  Attitude control software 
has been re-enabled and is currently operating nominally.  In 
addition, we verified that the noise seen during ASI/MET health 
checks is due to the Propulsion Drive Electronics.  This noise 
appears to be radiative in nature, and will not be an issue for 
surface operations because the PDE is located on the cruise 
stage.

The Uplink Problem Tiger team has developed a plausible 
explanation for the majority of the command rejections and the 
CDU In Lock conditions.  It involves harmonics from the uplink 
sweep locking up the CDU and pulling it away from the nominal 
command frequency.  The team is developing a test plan to confirm 
this hypothesis and is also gathering information about the 
incidents where the CDU went into lock while we were not 
tracking.

An Operational Readiness Test (ORT) of the Sol 1-2 sequences was 
run on January 27 and 28.  The sequences used were identical to 
the last pre-launch surface ORT.  The ORT was successful in that 
all of the sequences were executed properly by the simulated 
lander and rover.  However, a number of relatively minor problems 
were logged during the test.  These problems were reviewed and 
action has been assigned in all cases for problem resolution.

Nineteen investigators have been selected by NASA Headquarters in 
response to the Announcement of Opportunity for selection of Mars 
Pathfinder Participating Scientists and a Facility Instrument 
Science Team for the Atmospheric Structure Instrument/Meteorology 
Package.  An "All Hands" Pathfinder Science Team meeting has been 
set up for February 5-7, 1997 at JPL to begin integrating the new 
investigators into the Experiment Operations Team.

For further information, please visit our web site at 
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov.
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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MISSION STATUS
JPL release

27 January, 1997

All systems onboard Mars Global Surveyor continue to operate 
normally.  Last Wednesday (January 22), the spacecraft's flight 
computer activated a 53-watt heater in the Mars Orbiter Camera to 
begin "baking" the instrument and removing residual moisture.  
Without this 14-day bakeout period, the moisture in the camera's 
tube-like structure would leak into space at a slow rate and 
cause a gradual shift in the camera's focus.  The bakeout will 
remove all of the moisture at once and stabilize the focus of the 
camera.

Flight controllers also performed a series of very slight 
maneuvers on Jan.  22, 23 and 24 to attempt to manipulate 
Surveyor's solar array and characterize the exact condition of 
the debris that is preventing the panel from fully deploying.  On 
January 22, the maneuver was performed with the solar panels in 
normal cruise orientation.  On the following days, the maneuvers 
were performed with the solar panels rotated to a position that 
is used during an engine firing and during an aerobraking 
procedure.  The maneuvers did not free the debris, but data from 
the tests will be studied to determine the best method to clear 
the broken damper arm that is wedged in the hinge joint holding 
the solar panel to the spacecraft.  Currently, the solar array is 
tilted about 20.5 degrees from its fully deployed position.  The 
situation poses no immediate problems for the mission and 
represents only minor adjustments in the long run if the panel is 
not fully deployed.

Today Mars Global Surveyor is about 18 million kilometers (11 
million miles) from Earth, traveling at a velocity of about 30 
kilometers per second (67,000 miles per hour) with respect to the 
Sun.  The orbiter will intercept Mars on September 12.
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FUTURE LIFE ON MARS
NSS lecture announcement

National Space Society Lecture series:
Thursday, February 6, 7:30pm
"Future Life on Mars"

What might it be like to build a settlement on Mars? Bruce 
Mackenzie explains if it can be done without bringing everything 
from Earth.  Come see photos of dozens of real buildings which 
could be built on Mars, using local materials.

Lecture will be held at MIT Lab for Computer Science, 8th floor, 
room NE43-800, 545 Tech.  Square, on Main St.  at railroad 
tracks, Cambridge.  (617)258-2828, or e-mail reply.  Free, A/C, 
refreshments.

These meetings are sponsored by the Boston Chapter of the 
National Space Society (NSS); together with the MIT chapter of 
the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS).  
NSS sponsors lectures on space related topics, usually on the 
first Thursday of every month at the location listed above.

Tom Baker
tombaker@world.std.com for information
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End Marsbugs Vol.  4, No.  3.




