The Joint Newsletter of
The Seattle Area Chapters of
The National Space Society
NSS Seattle
And
The Mars Society Puget Sound
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» October 1999 «««««««««««««««««««««
Volume 1, Issue V
Go Metric!
The apparent culprit on the crash landing (or at least burn up) of the Mars Climate Orbiter was due to necessary conversions along the line of either metric to standard (English) or vice versa. Here is a very good reason to switch to metric…No more conversion errors! Too illustrate the problem, take 1 meter. It is composed of 100 centimeters, or 1000 millimeters. However, to convert from feet, 1 meter equals 3.2808399 feet. Is that enough decimal places for you? For targeting a spacecraft, which is going millions of miles to Mars, and must nail its orbit precisely, seven places aren't enough. If this number were used, the error would probably be large enough to do the boo-boo.
Try to explain the logic of our standard system to someone who grew up with metric. Explain that 1 foot has 12 (not 10) inches to it, inches are divisible by fractions (and didn't we all love them in school), and a mile is 5,280 feet (what a fun number). Temperature in Fahrenheit (with the freezing point of water at 32.2°, not 0, a gallon divisible by fractions again into quarts and pints and ounces. Enjoy explaining all that.
Hopefully this won't be a problem in the future. The Mars Polar Lander has to be even more precise in its approach to Mars. It has to land in a narrowly defined area on the surface. No room for error.
NSS SEATTLE Proceedings
The National Space Society is an international membership
group
dedicated to furthering the exploration and development
of space. The Seattle
chapter mission is to facilitate Space Activism and
all pro-Space activities; and to provide
a gathering place for space enthusiasts to meet, exchange
information and ideas.
President:
Vince Creisler
vincelc@galaxy-7.net
Vice President: Chris
Vancil
CLVANCIL@aol.com
Secretary/Editor:
Randy Rumley
rjrumley@juno.com
Treasurer:
David Stuart
DSTUART@prodigy.net
Special Projects Manager:
Christopher Erickson
aster@wolfenet.com
----------Board of Directors---------
Kelly Caviezel Gary Harrison Christopher Erickson
Susan Harrison Toni Rusi
------------Advisors------------
Terry Burlison
Chapter meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the second Sunday of each month, at the
Museum of Flight; parking is available in the lot North of the museum. To receive
information regarding upcoming events please send your name and addresses
to: Randy Rumley; 12008 S.E. 223rd Drive Kent, WA 98031
so·journ(sò jûrn), to stay for a time in a place; live temporarily.
President's Message
1999 has been a rough year for Space: failed rockets and probes, the Shuttle fleet grounded, NASA's budget under attack--all examples of human error. Add to these problems trouble in the commercial satellite business: bankruptcies and new restrictive export regulations. A gloomy way to approach the 21st century for Space enthusiasts with expectations of great accomplishments in the coming Millennium.
Yet, somehow, humanity does overcome and move forward, albeit with fits and starts, thanks to a dedicated minority of visionaries great and small, taking the risks or rooting from the sidelines. We can get past this bumpy spot and look forward to smoother sailing, provided lessons are learned from current setbacks and applied to future efforts.
Still, the year isn't over yet, and a critical component of the International Space Station is due to be launched by Russia, whose own Space record hasn't been exactly sterling of late. Let's keep our fingers crossed...
Vince Creisler
President NSS Seattle
September 12, 1999 Meeting
Last month, Forrest Bishop talked to us about a sneak preview of "Machines Alive", a television series about nanotech, biotech, machine ecosystems, space development, etc. Then he discussed a project of his called "Venture Mars":
Check his site at: http://www.speakeasy.org/~forrestb
His talk is airing at the same time as our meeting today.
October 10, 1999 Meeting
This month we have Gus Frederick, a member of the Oregon L-5 chapter. He will be talking about Mars Lavatubes and other germane topics. Oregon L-5 have been working on detecting the Moon's possible lavatubes for some time. Maybe we could get him to also tell us about that research as well.
We will also have our 'Let's go to the new world' T-shirts available, and The Mars Society Puget Sound Chapter will have a couple of interesting books on Mars available for sale.
What else is up…Elections!
Candidate statements are needed for anyone wishing to become or continue as officers.
The following is the first of these for the office of President:
As always, we will continue discussion of various space-related subjects until we are kicked out of the room.
We will also have our 'Let's go to the new world' T-shirts available, and The Mars Society Puget Sound Chapter will have a couple of interesting books on Mars available for sale.
Candidacy Statement for the Office of President
of NSS Seattle
Christopher Alan Erickson
The foundation for NSS Seattle is laid, and an identity is forming. I feel that the hard work is done, and what is to be done now will be the fun part. We have established connections with local people and companies involved in the established space community, and we have a large pool of people working on projects that are largely unknown. We have been able to give them an audience.
Providing a Monthly presentation to Public Access Television has been the major success of NSS Seattle, and we can do more. We speak of projects within our group: educational, technical, and political, that deserve our attention, and the attention of NSS at large, and it is my desire to put some push behind them.
As the President of NSS Seattle, I would direct efforts aimed at getting us known better. I would define the resources that we offer, and those at our disposal, and match needs with solutions. I would make contacts that would strengthen our position in the Media, with Professional Organizations, and Academia; and I would expand our influence to a larger section of the Pacific Northwest.
There are great resources here, and there is a great resolve within NSS Seattle. Tomorrow does come, and there is work to be done.
Sincerely,
Chris Erickson
Mars Society Puget Sound Proceedings
The Mars Society was founded in August 1998 and is an international organization dedicated to furthering the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
This will be done by:
*Broad public outreach to instill the vision of pioneering Mars.
*Support of ever more aggressive government-funded Mars exploration programs
around the world.
*Conducting Mars exploration on a private basis.
Officers of Mars Society Puget Sound
Jim Burk, President
Dustin Green, Vice President
V Mark Tye, Secretary
David Stuart, Treasurer
Randy Rumley, Editor, Sojourner
From the Founding Declaration of The Mars Society
From the Founding Declaration of The Mars Society
The time has come for humanity to journey to Mars.
We must go for the youth. The spirit of youth demands adventure. A humans-to-Mars program would challenge young people everywhere to develop their minds to participate in the pioneering of a new world. If a Mars program were to inspire just a single extra percent of today's youth to scientific educations, the net result would be tens of millions more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors. These people will make innovations that create new industries, find new medical cures, increase income, and benefit the world in innumerable ways to provide a return that will utterly dwarf the expenditures of the Mars program.
We must go for the opportunity. The settling of the Martian New World is an opportunity for a noble experiment in which humanity has another chance to shed old baggage and begin the world anew; carrying forward as much of the best of our heritage as possible and leaving the worst behind. Such chances do not come often, and are not to be disdained lightly.
We must go for our humanity. Human beings are more than merely another kind of animal, -we are life's messenger. Alone of the creatures of the Earth, we have the ability to continue the work of creation by bringing life to Mars, and Mars to life. In doing so, we shall make a profound statement as to the precious worth of the human race and every member of it.
Please check out the Primary Mars Society Web site: http://www.marssociety.org
President's Report
October 1999
The past couple of weeks have been a sad time for those of us who follow space exploration. While NASA now appears to be clearing the last few hurdles to restoring its hard-earned but meager budget to promised levels, the agency has suffered another embarrassing failure which the public is chuckling about: engineers working for the Lockheed Martin subcontractor for the Mars Climate Orbiter mission made an error when sending critical data which would ultimately steer the probe during its four trajectory correction burns. They used English units instead of metric (which JPL has always used but most US Government contractors do not). Because of the error, the probe dipped down to an altitude of 60km above Mars, instead of 160km. It was too much for the probe to handle and it burned up. JPL engineers and managers were also responsible for the mission loss since the units error was not detected and other data indicating the navigation error was ignored.
The Climate Orbiter mission failure is somewhat ironic. The mission and most of the science instruments of the Climate Orbiter were inherited from the ill-fated Mars Observer mission. Back then, controllers lost contact with the Observer at the same time in the mission -- just as the probe arrived at Mars and attempted the tricky Mars Orbit Insertion burn. But Observer went off course because of a mechanical failure; Climate Orbiter was working fine; the controllers just had it heading on a collision course with Mars's atmosphere, which it wasn't prepared to handle. So, we know how to build them; we're just having a little trouble steering them.
Maybe some good can come out of the failure. JPL will pay a lot more attention to the navigation of future missions, including the Polar Lander. JPL may try to add an additional orbiter to the 2001 or 2003 opportunity to replace the lost science & data relay capability, and the new orbiter will undoubtedly be more capable than MCO would have been.
In local news, our chapter's current big project is preparing to hold an event for the December 3rd Mars Polar Landers arrival on Mars. Chris Vancil (clvancil@aol.com) is acting as organizer of the event. We hope to have NASA TV on a big screen during the landing as well as speakers, displays, the media, and much more.(The event will be at the Museum of Flight ...online Ed)
Until next month, on to Mars!
Jim Burk
President, Mars Society Puget Sound
September 10 Meeting minutes
V. M. Tye, Secretary
Happy birthday Mars Society Puget Sound. We celebrated our one-year anniversary by having a combined lunch/meeting at Chang's Mongolian Grill,1827 Broadway, in Seattle, reenacting our founding meetings at that location. Eight members were present including the four chapter officers.
David Stuart, Treasurer, distributed the latest copies of Sojourner, the combined Newsletter of MSPS and the Seattle Chapter of the National Space Society, skillfully assembled, edited and printed by Randy Rumley. Randy is always looking for short articles and news briefs so please send him any interesting items you run across. We don't all monitor the same web sites and what may be old hat to you could be of great interest to someone else. So flood him with info and let him sort it out and make the appropriate choices.
Jim Burk, President, brought a lot of photographs of the founding Chapter meeting and also of the Johnson Space Center, which he toured earlier in the year. The immense size of some of the old heavy lift rockets was really impressive.
We had extensive conversation on how we might travel to Toronto next August for the third annual convention. This is going to be more expensive and time consuming than past trips to Boulder, CO., and any thoughts/plots/schemes on how we might approach the problem need to be explored and discussed well in advance. Think about it and post your comments on marspuget@egroups.com.
Chris Vancil (clvancil@aol.com) is trying to organize an event for Dec. 3rd Mars Polar Landers arrival, possibly at the Museum of Flight. Contact him if you can assist in any way.
Ares CD Project. Jim Burk has sent out a list of needed information for the next CD so please revue it and go hunting for anything that might be useful. We need an excess of material and if it isn't used on this CD it may be of use on a later one with a different focus.
Chris Vancil discussed issues on the working committee progress (of the National) which deals with local representation at the National Mars Society so be sure to give some feedback either to the committee or to Chris.
At 15:15, since Chang's was closing, we moved outside to the sidewalk and continued (loudly) discussing (in competition with the Metro bus noise) possible public outreach projects and methods of raising money. Some possibilities were: a float in the Freemont Solstice Parade, partnering with the Pacific Science Center, booths at movie theaters, and calls to radio talk shows.
Finis
Local Interest:
Space Station Commercialization Will Take Center Stage in Seattle
Seattle, October 5, 1999Space Station commercialization will be a major focus at the Space Enterprise Symposium, which will take place on Saturday, November 13 at Seattle¹s Museum of Flight. Five speakers will discuss commercialization of the International Space Station at the day-long event, which is sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation, the Northwest Venture Group, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest, the Museum of Flight, and ProSpace America.
This focus has special significance given recent statements by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, who says the agency¹s ultimate goal is to turn its portion of the International Space Station over to a "non-governmental organization." In a recent policy address delivered before a Space Frontier Foundation conference in Los Angeles, Mr. Goldin said that organization could be "an entrepreneur, an institute, or even a corporation."
Symposium chairman Edward Wright announced the five speakers who will take part in the session on Space Station Commercialization and Business Opportunities:
o Bob Werb, partner in Orbital Properties, LLC, which originated and is promoting the concept of space industrial parks.
o Dennis Wingo, president and CEO of SkyCorp, a company that plans to use the station as an assembly site for commercial communications satellites.
o Charles Lauer, partner in Spacevision, which plans to use the station as a base for free-flying commercial cameras.
o John Cassanto, president of Instrumentation Technology Associates, and Dr. Lawrence DeLucas, director of the University of Alabama¹s Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, who will discuss the use of the space station for commercial biotech research.
At the Space Frontier Conference, Mr. Goldin said, "We believe there are some real opportunities for companies to grow through products, processes, and services they develop on and from the Station."
"Dan Goldin laid out a broad vision for station commercialization," Mr. Wright said. "In Seattle, we will fill in some of the details. If ISS is going to pay its own way, these are the type of ventures that must begin now."
In addition to Space Station Commercialization, the symposium will feature sessions on Reusable Launch Vehicles, Spaceports and Space Tourism, Commercial Space Exploration and New Technologies, and Financial and Policy Aspects of New Space Ventures.
About two dozen companies and organizations are expected to participate in the symposium, which will take place at the Museum of Flight. Admission to the event is $50 through November 1, and $55 thereafter. An optional catered gourmet luncheon, with speaker, is $25. Registration is available through the Foundation web site, www.space-frontier.org, or by calling (800) 78-SPACE. Press Registration inquiries can be sent to press@space-frontier.org.
AT THE EQUATOR, Oct. 9, 1999 Sea Launch, the multinational, ocean-based launch services company, officially began commercial operations today with a stellar launch of the new DIRECTV 1-R direct broadcast satellite.
From the equatorial launch site at 154 degrees West longitude, the Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off from the Odyssey launch platform at approximately 8:28 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. All systems performed nominally during flight and the 7,600-pound DIRECTV 1-R satellite, built by Hughes Space & Communications (HSC), was successfully delivered to geostationary transfer orbit approximately 62 minutes after lift-off.
"Today's successful launch culminates an outstanding year for everyone involved with the Sea Launch program," said Allen B. Ashby, Sea Launch president. "Having our first commercial launch go as successfully as our demonstration launch speaks volumes for the teamwork and dedication that have helped bring the Sea Launch system to fruition. We are now undisputedly in the launch services business."
"This was a landmark mission the 50th launch of an HS 601 satellite, and the fourth successful HSC launch this year," said Tig H. Krekel, President and CEO of HSC. "It provides our customer, DIRECTV, with much-needed extra capacity. And it establishes Sea Launch as a viable launch vehicle, one that we plan to use for at least 13 more satellites."
Following liftoff, the Russian- and Ukrainian-built Sea Launch rocket rose from the Odyssey and headed downrange to the east, before disappearing from view on its ascent to geostationary transfer orbit. Sea Launch mission control, and flight and ground data, indicated that all systems onboard the three-stage Sea Launch rocket performed nominally, with successful separation of the DIRECTV 1-R payload from the Block-DM upper stage occurring at approximately 9:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
The Sea Launch concept provides commercial satellite customers such as DIRECTV, with the most direct and cost-effective route to geostationary transfer orbit without requiring a change in flight inclination. Launching from the equator also affords value-added operational benefits including increased performance, high launch availability and reduced launch infrastructure costs. From the ocean-based launch site, the robust Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket can lift a heavier spacecraft mass or place a payload into a higher perigee, helping satellite operators to attain a longer satellite service capability.
Building on proven performance and flight-tested hardware, Sea Launch combines the world's best aerospace and marine capabilities to provide satellite and end-user customers with superior value, performance and fully integrated commercial launch service capabilities. The Sea Launch global partnership includes Boeing Commercial Space Company, Kent, Wash., (provides spacecraft integration and the payload fairings); Kvaerner Maritime a.s., of Oslo, Norway (the vessel builder); RSC Energia of Moscow, Russia (provides the Block-DM upper stage and its integration with the launch vehicle); and KB Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Ukraine (provides the first two stages of the launch vehicle and launch support operations).
With the successful launch of DIRECTV 1-R, the Sea Launch manifest currently stands at 18 confirmed launches.
Find more information at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_470000/470408.stm
And at: http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/sealaunch/index.html
.
International Space Station Status Report
October 1, 1999
While the International Space Station orbits in excellent health, technical representatives from NASA and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency held a series of Technical Integration Meetings over the last two weeks culminating in a Joint Program Review to discuss issues related to the International Space Station Program. During the meeting, the status of the shuttle fleet, the Zvezda Service Module, and U.S. elements were reviewed.
It was agreed that it is no longer prudent to proceed with the current service module schedule, considering the integrated status of all elements. Accordingly, it was agreed that the projected launch window for Zvezda has moved to a period ranging from December 26 to January 16. A precise launch date will be announced after the General Design Review in a few weeks.
The delay in the service module launch in no way impacts the overall launch and assembly schedule for the station since the launch dates for downstream flights likely will be adjusted because of the ongoing wiring inspections on all of the Space Shuttle orbiters and the recent work delays caused by Hurricane Floyd. Assembly sequence adjustments also will be presented to the International Partners for discussion and concurrence at the next Space Station Control Board meeting.
Meanwhile, station workers will continue to work toward the most current assembly schedule with the next shuttle mission to the ISS scheduled for no earlier than January to deliver all remaining supplies necessary for the first crew to use when it arrives in the first half of next year.
On orbit this week, the normal spin checks were performed as was battery cycling of the five units being used to store solar energy for use by station systems. The Early Communications System in Unity was switched to the second of two antennas as a routine procedure to periodically test the command link. As is the case each Thursday, a test command was sent from the Mission Control Center in Korolev outside Moscow to the Zarya control module using Unity's early communications system through Mission Control in Houston.
The ISS is orbiting in a 247 by 230 statute mile orbit and has completed more than 4,900 orbits of the Earth. Space Station viewing opportunities worldwide are available on the Internet at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/
The next International Space Station status report will be on October 7. For further information, please contact the NASA Public Affairs Office at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, 281-483-5111.
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NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter Loss
Likely Due to a Navigation Error.
From JPL Releases September 23 - 30, 1999
Early September 23 at about 2 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time the orbiter fired its main engine to go into orbit around the planet. All the information coming from the spacecraft leading up to that point looked normal. The engine burn began as planned five minutes before the spacecraft passed behind the planet as seen from Earth. Flight controllers did not detect a signal when the spacecraft was expected to come out from behind the planet.
"We had planned to approach the planet at an altitude of about {140 kilometers}. We thought we were doing that, but upon review of the last six to eight hours of data leading up to arrival, we saw indications that the actual approach altitude had been much lower. It appears that the actual altitude was about {57 kilometers (35 miles)}. We are still trying to figure out why that happened," said Richard Cook, project manager for the Mars Surveyor Operations Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We believe that the minimum survivable altitude for the spacecraft would have been 85 kilometers (53 miles) {to 100 kilometers (62 miles)}."
"If in fact we have lost the spacecraft it is very serious, but it is not devastating to the Mars Surveyor Program as a whole. The program is flexible enough to allow us to recover the science return of Mars Climate Orbiter on a future mission. This is not necessarily science lost; it is science delayed," said Dr. Carl Pilcher {September 23rd}, science director for Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. "We have a robust program to explore Mars that involves launching on average one mission per year for at least a decade. It began with the launch of Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor in 1996, continued with Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander and will be followed by more missions in 2001, 2003 and 2005. In fact, Mars Polar Lander will arrive in just over two months and its mission is completely independent of the Mars Climate Orbiter. The science return of that mission won't be affected."
A failure to recognize and correct an error in a transfer of information between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California led to the loss of the spacecraft last week, preliminary findings by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory internal peer review indicate.
"People sometimes make errors," said Dr. Edward Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science. "The problem here was not the error, it was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft."
The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation. This information was critical to the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft in the proper Mars orbit.
"Our inability to recognize and correct this simple error has had major implications," said Dr. Edward Stone, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We have underway a thorough investigation to understand this issue."
Two separate review committees have already been formed to investigate the loss of Mars Climate Orbiter: an internal JPL peer group and a special review board of JPL and outside experts. An independent NASA failure review board will be formed shortly.
"Our clear short-term goal is to maximize the likelihood of a successful landing of the Mars Polar Lander on December 3," said Weiler. "The lessons from these reviews will be applied across the board in the future."
Mars Climate Orbiter was one of a series of missions in a long-term program of Mars exploration managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Mars Images:
No Evidence Of Ancient Ocean Shorelines
JPL Release October 1, 1999
Scientists studying high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have concluded there is no evidence of shorelines that would have surrounded oceans that may have once existed on Mars.
One argument that such a body of water once existed was suggested by features in images from the NASA Viking missions taken in the 1970s, which were interpreted by a number of researchers as remnants of ancient coastlines. The images from Mars Global Surveyor, taken in 1998, have a resolution five to 10 times better than those that Viking provided. With this closer inspection, none of these features appears to have been formed by the action of water in a coastal environment.
"The ocean hypothesis is very important because the existence of large bodies of liquid water in the Martian past would have had a tremendous impact on ancient Martian climate and implications for the search for evidence of past life on the planet," said Dr. Kenneth Edgett, a staff scientist at Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, CA, the company that built and manages the camera onboard the spacecraft. "The newer images do not show any coastal landforms in areas where previous researchers -- working with lower resolution Viking images -- proposed there were shorelines."
About 2 percent of the images were targeted to look in places that would test shorelines proposed by others in the scientific literature.
"Even on Earth, looking for ancient shorelines from the air or space is a challenge," said Dr. Michael Malin, principal investigator for the camera at Malin Space Science Systems. "Despite these difficulties, we believe these images of the proposed shorelines are of a high-enough resolution that they would have shown features indicative of a coastal environment had there been an ancient ocean on Mars."
The paper containing these new conclusions was published in the October 1 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research Letters.
One area that might have been a coastline is located northwest of the great volcano Olympus Mons. Researchers looking at Viking images have suggested that there might be a cliff separating the western margin of the Lycus Sulci uplands from the lower-elevation, smoother Amazonis plains. The proposed cliff looked like the kind that forms on Earth from erosion as waves break against a coastline.
Three high-resolution images were taken of this proposed coastline. The uplands are roughly textured, while the flat plains appear smoother. The image shows that the contact between the two regions is clearly not a wave-cut cliff, nor are there any features that can be unambiguously identified as coastal landforms, according to Malin.
"While the suggestion that Mars at one time had oceans cannot be ruled out, the foundation for the 'ocean hypothesis' developed in the 1980s on the basis of suspected shorelines appears now to have been incorrect," Malin concluded. "However, it should be understood that there is significant other evidence of water on Mars in the past, both from Mars Global Surveyor and from previous missions. Today, the camera continues to acquire new high-resolution pictures, each one helping to search for clues to the very important question of the role of water in the evolution of Mars."
More information and images about the Mars Global Surveyor mission is available at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov .
Additional details about the paper and the new Mars images are at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/grl_99_shorelines/ .
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Europa's interesting surface
(or getting burned on ice)
Sulfuric acid -- a corrosive chemical found on Earth in car batteries -- exists on the frozen surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
"This demonstrates once again that Europa is a really bizarre place," said Dr. Robert Carlson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. "Sulfuric acid occurs in nature, but it isn't plentiful. You're not likely to find sulfuric acid on Earth's beaches, but on Europa, it covers large portions of the surface."
The new findings from NASA's Galileo spacecraft are reported in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Science. Carlson, the principal investigator for the near-infrared mapping spectrometer aboard Galileo, is the lead author of the paper.
Although there is no evidence of life on Europa, pictures and other scientific information gathered by the Galileo spacecraft indicate a liquid ocean may lie beneath Europa's icy crust. Water is one key ingredient essential for life.
At first, Carlson thought the spectrometer's findings of sulfuric acid on Europa would quash any talk that life might exist there. "After all, even though we know there are acid- loving bacteria on Earth, sulfuric acid is a nasty chemical," he said. Those thoughts were quickly negated by a colleague, Dr. Kenneth Nealson, head of JPL's astrobiology unit, who was excited by the findings.
"Although sulfur may seem like a harsh chemical, its presence on Europa doesn't in any way rule out the possibility of life," Nealson said. "In fact, to make energy, which is essential to life, you need fuel and something with which to burn it. Sulfur and sulfuric acid are known oxidants, or energy sources, for living things on Earth. These new findings encourage us to hunt for any possible links between the sulfur oxidants on Europa's surface, and natural fuels produced from Europa's hot interior."
"These findings have helped solve a puzzle that has been nagging at me for a long time," Carlson said. "Data gathered by the spectrometer during observations of Europa had shown a chemical that we couldn't identify. I kept wondering, 'What the heck is this stuff?' Lab measurements now tell us that it is sulfuric acid, and we can start investigating where it comes from and what other materials might be there." For example, some reddish-brown areas on Europa might be caused by sulfur that co- exists with the sulfuric acid.
One theory proposed by Carlson is that the sulfur atoms originate with the volcanoes on Jupiter's fiery moon Io, with the material being ejected into the magnetic environment around Jupiter and eventually whirled toward Europa. Another idea is that the sulfuric acid comes from Europa's interior, beneath the moon's icy crust, ejected by sulfuric acid geysers or oozing up through cracks in the ice.
Another theory comes from Carlson's co-author, Professor Robert Johnson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who noted that sodium and magnesium sulfates may have leached onto Europa's surface from underground oceans and then were altered by the intense radiation field. This would produce the frozen sulfuric acid and other sulfur compounds. The new finding is also consistent with earlier Galileo spectrometer data analyses reported by Dr. Thomas McCord of the University of Hawaii and other members of the instrument team, who suggested that sulfate salts of this type were present on Europa.
Carlson, Johnson and co-author Mark Anderson, a chemist in JPL's Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, plan to study Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, to see if it also contains sulfuric acid.
The near-infrared mapping spectrometer works like a prism to break up infrared light not visible to the naked eye. Scientists can study the resulting light patterns to determine what chemicals are present, since different chemicals absorb infrared light differently.
An image depicting sulfuric acid on Europa is available at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/files/images/hi-res/europa_acid.tif
Galileo has been orbiting Jupiter and its moons for nearly four years. More information on the Galileo mission is available at: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
JPL manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
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Galileo Spacecraft Has Hot Date With Volcanic Moon
JPL Release October 8. 1999
NASA's Galileo spacecraft is gearing up for a daring rendezvous with Jupiter's moon Io (pronounced EYE-oh), the most volcanic body in our solar system, on Sunday night, Oct. 10 (Pacific Time).
Galileo will swoop down to within 612 kilometers (380 miles) of Io's fiery surface at 10:06 p.m. PDT (1:06 a.m. Oct. 11 EDT), snapping the closest-ever pictures of this intriguing celestial body.
"Io is a natural laboratory for volcanoes," said Dr. Duane Bindschadler, Galileo manager of science operations and planning. "By studying Io close up, we'll learn more about how and when volcanoes erupt and why they act the way they do. This may even help us predict the behavior of volcanoes on Earth."
During the flyby, Galileo's science instruments will study the chemistry, heat distribution, gravity and magnetic properties of Io. For scientists, this thrilling encounter promises to yield a bonanza of pictures and information, but for Galileo engineers, the flyby presents a serious challenge with uncertain results. Io's orbit lies in a region of intense radiation from Jupiter's radiation belts, which could affect the performance of spacecraft systems or even knock out various spacecraft instruments. A mere fraction of the dose that Galileo will receive would be fatal to a human.
"We expect that the spacecraft will survive the flyby, although the radiation may cause its computers to reset or may
even cause irreversible damage to critical electronic components," said Wayne Sible, Galileo deputy project manager.
"There is a possibility, if enough damage is done to the electronics, it won't survive the flyby. Because of this
possibility, we planned the Io encounters for the end of the two-year extended mission. After orbiting Jupiter for nearly four years, the spacecraft has more than fulfilled its mission objectives, so it seems reasonable to take a calculated risk for a much closer look at such a scientifically rich target."
Galileo was originally assigned to spend two years studying Jupiter, its moons and its magnetic environment. When that original mission ended in December 1997, it was followed by a two-year extended mission, scheduled to end in January 2000. While spending the past four years near Jupiter, Galileo has been exposed to radiation on an ongoing basis, which has caused some of its instruments to act up.
To prepare for any possible harm caused by radiation during the Io flyby, engineers have designed sophisticated software to help the spacecraft weed out a true crisis from a minor glitch caused by radiation and respond appropriately.
If all goes well with the upcoming Io flyby, the spacecraft will make an even more daring approach of Io on Nov. 26 at an altitude of only 300 kilometers (186 miles).
New Io images taken by the spacecraft are available at the following website: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/io
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